Downtown Dubai: Burj Khalifa, Dubai Fountain and Museum of the Future

Built over the past two decades as the vertical centrepiece of modern Dubai, Downtown Dubai rings a 12-hectare man-made lake at the base of the Burj Khalifa, with the financial art galleries of DIFC and the Museum of the Future just two Metro stops north along Sheikh Zayed Road.

How to visit the Burj Khalifa without the 90-minute queue

Rising 828 metres (163 floors) into the sky, the Burj Khalifa was designed by Adrian Smith of SOM using a Y-shaped, stepped-back floorplan inspired by the desert spider lily (Hymenocallis) to deflect high-altitude Gulf winds. All visitor observation entrances sit on the Lower Ground Floor of the Dubai Mall (allow 20 minutes just to walk from the Burj Khalifa/Dubai Mall Metro link bridge through the mall to the At the Top entrance):

• At the Top (Levels 124 & 125, at 452 to 456 metres): the main observation floors, including an open-air outdoor terrace on Level 124 with floor-to-ceiling glass slits. Sunset slots (roughly 16:00 to 18:30) are the most crowded and expensive, and security/lift queues can take 45 to 60 minutes even with a timed ticket; for clear morning visibility and a fraction of the wait, book an 08:30 or 09:00 morning slot instead.
• At the Top SKY (Level 148, at 555 metres) or The Lounge (Levels 152 to 154): includes a dedicated express lift and quiet lounge access that bypasses the Level 124 queues completely.

Watching the Dubai Fountain and exploring Downtown

Every evening every 30 minutes from 18:00 to 23:00 (plus two early afternoon shows), the Dubai Fountain shoots jets of water up to 140 metres high across Burj Lake to Arabic, classical and pop music. Instead of standing eight rows deep on the crowded waterfront promenade right outside the Dubai Mall, walk across the arched stone bridge to Souk Al Bahar (or book a traditional wooden lake boat ride during a show) for an unobstructed view with the Burj Khalifa rising straight behind the water jets. Inside The Dubai Mall, look beyond the 1,200 shops to the giant suspended 10-million-litre viewing panel of the Dubai Aquarium (visible free from the mall concourse), the four-storey indoor human-diver waterfall and the dhow-shaped glass hull of Dubai Opera across the boulevard.

Museum of the Future and Dubai Frame

Two stops north at Emirates Towers Metro Station stands the 77-metre stainless-steel torus of the Museum of the Future, whose exterior windows form flowing lines of Arabic poetry about the future written by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Inside, a lift simulates an orbital journey to the year 2071 before you walk downward floor by floor through future ecology, bio-engineering library vaults and wellness spaces (book tickets 2 to 4 weeks ahead on the official site). Further north in Zabeel Park stands the 150-metre gilded Dubai Frame, whose glass skybridge looks north over the low-rise roofs of Old Dubai on one side and south toward the skyscrapers of Downtown on the other.