Day 20: Dubai Water Park

We decided that today we'd visit a water park to relax before heading to the mall in the evening for the fountain show, dinner and a trip up Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest structure. Annoyingly, you can't book tickets up the tower online less than 48 hours out, so we had to stop by in the morning.

Despite arriving within 20 minutes of the ticket booth opening, the only session available was at 11pm that night. Irritating, but we could make it work. Bought our tickets and headed for Atlantis Aquaventure. It's located on the tip of the Palm Jumeirah, and is a water-based fun park like Wet'n'Wild.

We spent pretty much the entire day here, going on the different slides and rapids. We eventually worked up the courage to go on the huge speed slide, which dropped you a huge distance, in a tube through the shark tank and into the splashdown pool. Long wait for a very short ride but it was worth it!

Left the park at sunset and headed back to the Dubai Mall. Had a Chinese banquet dinner at a table facing the fountain show, so we had front row seats for the amazing spectacle. After dinner we wandered the mall and browsed for a while. Was tempted to buy a few clothing items as the strong AUD made prices very reasonable, but ultimately decided against it.

Finally it was our turn to ascend the tower. Despite calling it "At The Top", it's actually only about 2/3rds of the way up, on floor 124 of 160-odd. But it's still very high, more like being in a plane landing than a tower. Took photos and had a nice long look around, slightly disappointed we couldn't see The World islands since it was night, but no matter. The view was amazing and the tower itself is one of the most awe-inspiring feats of engineering I've ever seen. Back down the amazingly fast lifts we went, into a taxi and back to the hotel at around 1am.Read more