Although I would spend three nights in Dubai on this trip, I only really had one day for sightseeing: much of my 52 hours in the UAE would be spent at the hotel, the airport, or travelling between them. I also had some study commitments back home, including a seminar I needed to attend live. But as an architecture geek, there was one thing I wanted to see: Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Sadly, I managed to mess this up too…



I woke to a ‘wrong rider’ refund from Uber and cooler water in the shower: the latter soon offset by the sweltering walk to the station alongside 6- to 8-lane roads. To be fair, the metro itself was very reasonably priced, straightforward to use, comfortable and efficient: I just wish it had been available the night before!

A lengthy series of airport-style enclosed walkways conveyed me to the maze-like Dubai Mall: a place I had no interest in, but explored a large amount of, having completely lost my bearings. Eventually I located my target, having probably covered a mile without ever stepping outside.

From the Burj Khalifa website I had previously determined that there were two different observation decks - confusingly, “At The Top” was the lower of the two. Spanning the 124th and 125th floors, it seemed sufficient to me: especially as “At The Top SKY” would triple the price, but only get me 23 storeys higher.

Unfortunately there is an even higher - in both altitude and price - lounge up at levels 152-154 which I had failed to spot. At the ticket desk, they offered a choice between that and the SKY package, rather than between the two observation decks. So although I asked for 'the cheaper one', I should have enquired further into "the cheapest one"... With peak-time pricing and a weak pound, my two hours in the tower cost £137: or roughly the same as my hotel bill for these first two nights!

Tickets are at least cumulative, so I was able to compare SKY with the standard offering, and admittedly it is much nicer: a far more peaceful experience elevated above crowds of selfie-seekers. But I’m not sure who it is for… given the price difference I can't in good conscience recommend it to most people. Conversely, for those of you with 10X my travel budget, you might as well go all-in with the Lounge - which is where you can find the world's highest open air terrace.

Whichever level you pick, the scale of the engineering achievement here is appreciable: from half a kilometre up, the rest of Dubai’s skyscrapers look like toys, and my photographs feel more like scenes from some city-building videogame. An unfinished game, however – for the actual views, I much preferred my time at 360 Chicago earlier in the year, which came at a fraction of the cost.