Grand Sand Update

Dubai continues to expand, but it doesn’t look like the city will be bursting at the seams any time soon

To meet the needs of travelers, Dubai International Airport will increase its capacity to over 70 million people by year’s end and to over 210 million by 2010. By 2009, the new Dubai Metro will be up and running. It will be the longest, fully automated rail system in the world and will connect the three man-made Palm Islands (dubbed the eighth wonder of the world) to the mainland.

Palm Jumeirah, one of three man-made islands, will welcome its first visitors in September.

Currently, the new Gateway Bridge and Monorail provide access to the officially opened Palm Jumeirah island, comprised of residences, hotels, marinas, shops and restaurants. The water-themed Atlantis, one of the island’s 25 hotels, will welcome its first guests this September, followed by Mövenpick’s Royal Amwaj. By the end of 2009, hotels from the likes of One&Only, Fairmont, Trump, Kempinski and W will nearly all be ready for sleepovers. After a total refurbishment, the QE2 will be open on Palm Jumeirah as a posh hotel in 2009 as well—and Cirque du Soleil will begin performing in 2010 in a custom-built 1,800-seat theater.

Not surprisingly, there are currently dozens of best-to-book hotels everywhere you look—mainly in and around Sheikh Zayed Road—and scads more are on the way. The Raffles Dubai opened this past October and Emirates Hotels and Resorts’ The Harbour Hotel and Residence in the Dubai Marina is in the midst of a soft opening. The Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort & Marina on Jumeirah Beach is now accepting reservations for arrivals beginning May 1, and the Armani Hotel Dubai , an Armani Hotels & Resorts property, will open in December inside what is now the tallest building in the world—the 150-story Burj Dubai on Sheikh Zayed Road.

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