located at the head of The Palm Jumeirah, with sweeping views both out to the Gulf and down the spine of the Palm back to Dubai, is right on schedule to open doors on September 24, officials said.The entire Atlantis, The Palm development has a value of around $1.5 billion, including Aquaventure waterpark and Dolphin Bay.
The hotel alone has a development value of around $1 billion, Jim Boocher, president of development at Kerzner International, managers of Atlantis, told the media during a guided tour yesterday.
Boocher said the difference between Atlantis and other hotels was that it was a “destination hotel”, not simply a holiday hotel.
Atlantis has 1,539 rooms spread between the East and West towers. There are a total of 150 suites, including two presidential suites and 35 regal suites. Average prices start at around $454 per night. The connecting bridge between the two towers is the 924-square metre Bridge Suite, which costs an impressive $25,000 per night and is still under construction.
A total of 58,000 kilometres of steel bars were used in the construction of Atlantis, over nine times the length of the Great Wall of China. Around 500,000 cubic metres of concrete, 100,000 lights and one kilometer of pipes are all involved in the 46-hectare site.
There are also 17 food and beverage outlets and around 23 boutique shops. The hotel also features the Ambassador Lagoon, one of the biggest tanks in the world, according to Sol Kerzner, chairman and chief executive officer of Kerzner International.
The Lagoon will eventually house 65,000 fish and holds 11 million litres of water.
Kerzner said Atlantis is “all about the ocean”, so the Aquaventure waterpark will be 17 hectares and will feature the tallest freefall slide in the Middle East, which falls nine storeys.
Aquaventure will also have a 2.7-kilometre tube river. Within the development is Dolphin Bay, which houses 28 dolphins brought to Dubai from the Solomon Islands.
This is Kerzner’s second Atlantis project, the first being Atlantis, Paradise Island in the Bahamas, which includes a mini resort called Cove Atlantis.
“There won’t to be 50 Atlantis projects. They are too big to do that. I like them to be seen as more unique. But Atlantis here in Dubai has a feel and a sense of place,” Kerzner told Gulf News.
However, development will not stop once Atlantis opens in September, as Kerzner International still has land left to fill on the Palm.
“We have land that still has not been developed, beyond the waterpark and I’m hopeful that we will develop a Cove Atlantis there,” said Kerzner.
Kerzner has overseen both Atlantis projects and the launch of the One & Only brand in Europe. He said Dubai has continued the growth pattern since he developed the Royal Mirage back in 1998.
“I’ve seen it all, since the Royal Mirage was in the desert. It’s phenomenal how this place has grown. I thought when we got to early 2000, it couldn’t continue and it just continues and everyone is doing pretty well in the industry,” Kerzner said.
Perhaps a first in Dubai, Atlantis is due to open on schedule on September 24 and the official opening ceremony is on November 20.
“There’s a lot of building [in Dubai] and it’s very tough to keep schedules and even tougher to keep budgets, but this will open on schedule,” Sol Kerzner told the media.
story published in Gulf News
There’s something fishy going on here. I’m standing in the Lost Chambers of Atlantis, staring at what, I have been gravely assured, are the submerged ruins of Plato’s ancient, doomed civilisation.
The last time I saw daylight, however, I could have sworn I was on the Palm, an island off the coast of Dubai that I don’t think Plato had heard of, being as they started building it only seven years ago. You don’t have to be a Time Team presenter to know it doesn’t quite add up.
The Lost Chambers are the star attraction of the Atlantis, a new, 1,539-room mega-resort that will open to the public on September 24. Last week, I was the first British journalist to take a look around the near-finished article, and I was gobsmacked. It’s one of the most impressive and ambitious resorts I’ve seen. It’s certainly the most ludicrous.
So ludicrous, in fact, it’s almost heroic. It takes a certain damn-the-torpedoes guts to spend £750m on a premise this self-evidently daft: the “discovery” of a 10,000-year-old civilisation that never existed, on an island that’s still being finished. But we’ll get to that in a minute. For now, the impressive stuff.
You approach Atlantis up the “trunk” of the Palm Jumeirah, as it’s formally known. In sheer engineering terms, it’s a boggling thing. Where there was nothing but sea five years ago, they’ve built a three-mile-long island with fronds radiating from the centre. Right at the crest, in prime position, the 395ft towers of Atlantis emerge slowly through the heat haze.
From the outside, the architecture is a bit odd. It’s supposed to look “Atlantean”, which seems to mean a lot of fish motifs, but they couldn’t resist throwing in a few other elements: they’ve ended up with Peter Jackson fantasy meets arabesque meets Hilton high-rise, all painted a slightly queasy frozen-prawn pink. I’m not sure it’s what Plato had in mind.
Go in and it gets odder still. The vast lobby is dominated by Dale Chihuly’s 35ft-high glass sculpture, which looks like cascading multicoloured spaghetti. There are garish “mythical” murals, and they’ve covered a good deal of the acres of floor with a turquoise-and-yellow swirly carpet – sea and shells, I think, though it’s hard to tell.
Step off that carpet and you’re in the serene and genuinely stylish spa, or David Rockwell’s sensational bamboo and wood design for the Nobu restaurant. It’s like that all over. The avenues and halls go on and on, mid1980s Dallas styling around this corner, cutting-edge contemporary around that – the most expensive design identity crisis in history.
The food is as ambitious as the rest of it. There are 17 places to eat: Giorgio Locatelli, the best Italian chef in London, has a trattoria here, and they’ve drafted in Michel Rostang from Paris and Santi Santamaria from Spain. That’s seven Michelin stars right there.
What about the rooms? The standard ones are a good size, high-spec and pretty bland, which is something of a relief. For more drama, you can always go for the Lost Chambers suites: the bedrooms look out through huge underwater picture windows into the resort’s 11m-litre lagoon, stocked with sharks, rays,angel-fish, trevallies and more, in dense, multicoloured shoals.
Fine for romantics, as long as you don’t mind a fishy audience – though the sight of the rays gliding past is so mesmerising, you might not get round to anything energetic.
If money’s no object, you’ll want the Bridge Suite, which spans the archway between the two towers. A British family are the first bookers, paying £45,000 for three nights: for that, they get three bedrooms, four staff and a gold-leafed dining table seating 18. Not the food to go on it, though – that price is B&B.
Back down to earth, the beach is fine, though don’t expect much from the scenery. It faces back to Palm island, which may look great on a map, but is surprisingly ugly close up, with its densely packed, colourless villas and miles of strangely arid, unwelcoming beachfront. Nature does islands rather better than man.
Still, you get free access to Atlantis’s 42-acre Aquaventure waterpark. It’s a cracker, with a 1½mile river to float in, a fantastic children’s playground and cutting-edge rides topped off by the Leap of Faith, a near-vertical 90ft slide that shoots you through a shark-filled lagoon like a bullet out of a gun.
There’s buckets more here: two kids’ clubs, a nightclub, posh shops (Tiffany, Graff, Cartier); oh, yes, and a dolphin “conservation centre”. Yeah, right.
The mammals were caught in the Solomon Islands and shipped here to live in tanks so we could pay to swim with them. I didn’t.
The keynote attraction, however, is the Lost Chambers. In a dimly lit stone labyrinth full of startled fish are great bits of fallen masonry covered with mysterious runes (though, presumably, they’re not that mysterious to the guy who made them up). You wouldn’t think you’re supposed to take all this stuff seriously, but they do, they really do.
From the top down, Atlantis’s staff treat their newly constructed ruins with po-faced reverence. Their eyes take on a spooky, glazed look when they talk about it, like freshly indoctrinated members of a Californian UFO cult.
“This is the Abyss,” my guide says. “It was here the Atlanteans mined their minerals – they lowered their miners down this well. Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“But… it’s not real, is it?” I mumble. My words simply don’t register. “We expect a lot of school parties,” he says. “Education is a big part of our work.”
Schools? Education? They’re kidding, aren’t they? Yes, kids will love Atlantis, and yes, it’s certainly worth seeing – a phenomenon, a bonkers colossus – but, really, a few days will do it. Any longer and you might end up getting that spooky-eyed look yourself.
ATLANTIS IN BIG NUMBERS
The cost: £750m
The size: 114 acres – or 64 Wembley football pitches
The rooms: 1,539, with prices starting at £228 per night for a standard double and rising to £15,000 for the Bridge Suite
The water: 60m litres, including the rides and aquariums – enough to fill 24 Olympic-size pools
The rides: 8, including the 1½mile river ride
The restaurants: 17, three from Michelin-starred chefs
The fish: 65,000 specimens, twice as many as the London Aquarium
The $1.5 billion Atlantis, The Palm, located at the head of The Palm Jumeirah, is right on schedule to open on September 24. This flagship resort will be the first to open its doors on the island.
Created by Kerzner International Holdings, international developer and operator of destination resorts, the new 1,539 room resort began accepting reservations February 1. It anticipates that Middle East residents will account for 30 per cent of all visitors, with UAE residents expected to make up a quarter of guests from the region.
In line with this, residents of the UAE are being offered a special “dive in” package valid until October 1. The offer includes accommodation with breakfast and two return complimentary Aquaventure passes valid for six months.
Jim Boocher, president of development at Kerzner International, managers of Atlantis, said the difference between Atlantis and other hotels was that it was a ‘destination hotel’, not simply a holiday hotel.
Atlantis has 1,539 rooms spread between the East and West towers. There are a total of 150 suites, including two presidential suites and 35 regal suites. Average prices start at around $454 per night. The connecting bridge between the two towers is the 924 sq m Bridge Suite, which costs $25,000 per night – and this is already booked for the September opening.
Sol Kerzner, chairman and chief executive of Kerzner International, said, ‘This is an exciting time for the Middle East and for Kerzner International. With the introduction of a new world icon in The Palm Jumeirah and our position as the flagship resort of this icon, Atlantis, The Palm is situated as the new gateway to this incredible region.”
“Atlantis is all about the ocean. Out of a vision that married the wonders of marine life with stunning elegance and sweeping views of the Arabian Gulf alongside the most exciting water playground in this part of the world, we have developed an experience within Atlantis that is truly different than the existing pleasures of Dubai. We’re very proud of the final product and cannot wait to share it in September when we open our doors.’
The resort will encompass a 460,000 sq m site with 170,000 sq m of water themed amusement at Aquaventure, extensive fresh and salt water pools and lagoon exhibits, an open aired marine habitat, beach front, luxury boutiques, 17 restaurants, bars and lounges numerous dining options including four celebrity chef restaurants, a nightclub, a spa and fitness club, and 5,600 sq m of meeting and function space.
The 17 hectare Aquaventure Waterpark will feature the tallest freefall slide in the Middle East. Within the development is Dolphin Bay, home to 28 dolphins brought to Dubai from the Solomon Islands. Encompassing 17 beachfront hectares along the apex of The Palm Jumeirah’s crescent, Aquaventure will be accessible to all visitors to Dubai for full day visits for $60 per adult and $52 for guests less than 1.2 metres high. Guests of Atlantis have complimentary access to the water park, designed for families as it offers rides and slides to accommodate every age and adventure level.
A two storey 1,900 sq m spa in the Royal Towers offers guests treatments emanating from all over the world including a Middle Eastern aqua cure.
Kylie Minogue, the Australian pop star, has signed a six-figure deal to perform at two concerts in Dubai – her first in the UAE emirate.
The first show, on September 24, will help launch Atlantis, The Palm resort, while no date or location has been announced for the second performance, which will be open to the public, UAE daily The National reported on Monday.
The Atlantis concert comes on the heels of an intimate show British singer Elton John performed last month in Paris for the Dubai Pearl development.
A source close to the singer told the paper: “She knows that in the UAE she has thousands of fans and as it will be her debut in the country, she has a lot to live up to,” said a source with the publicity campaign.
“She is already planning the shows, the costumes and the songs but there is no doubt that it will be the climax to the end of her year of touring expected of a star of her stature. Kylie will be sure to give the shows a little local flavour. She is just the person to bring maximum publicity to such a prestigious, high profile development.”
Minogue, 40, has recovered from her very public 2005 battle with breast cancer after intensive chemotherapy treatment.
Atlantis, The Palm will be the flagship resort on the Palm Jumeirah and the first to open its doors on the artificial island.
The 1,539-room resort began taking reservations in February. It will encompass a 46-hectare site with 17 hectares of water-themed amusement parks, an open air marine habitat, beaches, boutiques and restaurants.
Kylie Minogue, the Australian pop star, is reportedly being paid $3.5 million for a 60-minute performance at the grand opening of The Atlantis resort in Dubai.
No expense is being spared at the opening party of the flagship resort on The Palm Jumeirah, according to British newspaper reports which suggest the party will be one of the most expensive ever staged, costing $28 million.
As well as Kylie’s gig, there will be a firework display by Grucci, the company behind the Beijing Olympic firework display. While catering and further entertainment will cost another $2.6 million.
Four Michelin-starred chefs Giorgio Locatelli and Nobu Matsuhisa will also be cooking up a storm in the kitchen.
Reports also suggest that the guestlist, which will include politicians, actors, musicians and royalty, will be flown in from around the world and will be given free accommodation at the resort. That is costing $8,700 per person – a further $17.5 million.
Kerzner International, developer of the Atlantis resort on the Palm Jumeirah is set to boost assets on the Palm to around $2.5 billion (Dh9.2 billion), with designs well underway for a $1 billion expansion of Atlantis, according to a senior official.
The $1.5 billion Atlantis resort only occupies 50 per cent of the land area that Kerzner International owns and there are plans to develop a mixed-use Cove Atlantis on the remaining land.
“We’re working on a concept very similar to what we have in the Cove, Bahamas,” Alan Leibman, managing director of Kerzner International, told Gulf News. “That’s in the design phase right now.”
Other elements
“It will be a Cove with other elements. It’ll be mixed-use with the hotel and condos and we’re right in the middle of design right now,” Leibman added.
The total development value is said to be around $1 billion.
With only three days to go until the opening of Atlantis, all hands are on deck to ensure that doors open smoothly on September 24.
“We’re excited. I’ve got to get everybody who had their doubts to see we’re opening the doors. We’re getting to that final countdown,” said Leibman.
The first guest in the Dh92,000-a-night Bridge Suite in the Atlantis will be from Europe and is scheduled to stay four days, according to a senior official.
“It’s a great booking because it’s a European guest and they’re bringing their family out here,” Leibman said.
The Bridge Suite spans 924 square metres linking the West and East towers and includes three bedrooms and an 18-seat dining area.
The final trials are also being carried out on the rooms and restaurants before the resort opens.
Despite the fire that broke out at the Atlantis nearly three weeks ago, the resort will open on schedule. The cause of the fire is still unknown.
Of the 1,539 rooms, 500 are booked for the first night, and within two days, 1,200 rooms are booked. Leibman said they were “very comfortable” about their bookings from September to December and into next year, so the success of Atlantis looks positive. “Business has been good,” said the managing director.
“There’s been a lot of demand for Eid. Right now, we’re pretty much getting ready to be sold out for Eid, other than some suites.”
Sol Kerzner, chief executive of Kerzner International, said recently that his group was looking to the Gulf region to offset difficulties in the US.
Middle East focus
“We will probably do more things in the Middle East and are considering the Far East, but at the same time, with the econ-omic environment you have to be careful … but we are in discussions,” Kerzner told local media.
Leibman said this Atlantis resort will target a different market from that of the first Atlantis, Paradise Island, in the Bahamas.
“There are more celebrity chefs here and it’s geared a lot more to the European market, whereas the Bahamas is 97 per cent plus out of the US market,” he said.
“They’re both great quality experiences but here we have more lunch, dining experiences,” he added.
The opening of the giant Atlantis, The Palm resort will go ahead as scheduled on September 24 despite the recent fire there.
But the lobby, which was damaged in the blaze, will not open until mid-October, a senior official has revealed.
“We started with 2,500 people cleaning up,” said James Boocher, President, Development, at Kerzner International. “After any fire, water damage is the biggest problem. We put a call out to our contracting partners and it took three days to clean up.
“We started painting two days ago after cleaning top down. At the same time we are putting the new roof on. We have also started cleaning the outside where the paint was scorched and hope to open the main lobby by mid-October. The damage amounted to a few million dollars,” he said.
Atlantis, The Palm, is a 1,539-room, ocean-themed destination resort at the centre of the crescent of Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah. The $1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) joint venture project was developed with Istithmar, which is owned by the Dubai Government.
The resort, which has been built on a 46-hectare site, has a 17-acre waterpark and lagoons containing 65,000 marine animals.
“The lobby that burned down was the pass-through to the two towers,” added Boocher. “We have taken it out of service for the next four weeks and have set up lobbies in each of the towers. All the rest of the facilities will be open. Guest in the west wing will come down to the lower public lobby and will use the golf cart shuttle service to reach the waterpark. We have added a dozen more carts to the current 10.
“We will not open all the rooms immediately. We plan to open between 600 and 800 rooms on September 24 and then increase the number to 1,000, and so on.”
There has been no redesign as a result of the fire and a glass sculpture by artist Dale Chihuly will still be the focal point.
“The lobby will be put back the way it was. Rumours that the Dale Chihuly centerpiece melted are untrue. I brought the Dale Chihuly team back because it had suffered smoke damage. They cleaned it top down and wrapped it in plastic.
“The bowl below the artwork had to be cleaned up so we have taken off the lower five branches. It will take a day to put it all back.
“When the fire broke out there were people in the hotel and we were able to evacuate everyone. The systems worked fine and we had everyone out in 15 minutes. The damage was contained in four hours.”
Plans for the project were placed before the Kerzner International board in November 2005, said Boocher.
“It was approved and light infrastructure and utility work was done around December 2005.
“We started piling in February 2006 and started pouring concrete in June. In 2007 we finished the concrete structure and then 14 months later finished the interior spaces. The total construction period has been a 32-month time-frame from start to finish.
“We have built resorts in interesting locations in Mexico and in the middle of the Indian Ocean. This particular project was tough on the front end but most of our team have been with us for around 20 years, especially in logistics. They figured out the power loop, used temporary generators and built a labour camp for 8,500 people with a medical clinic and other facilities.” The fact that Nakheel was building The Palm at the same time created some difficulties.
“There was a lot of infrastructure work and it was difficult at times to reach the site. Being self-contained in terms of the construction area helped but with a town coming up we worked closely with Nakheel and its contractors and ran a 24-hour operation from day one. If the roads were closed we delivered at night – it was easier for us to take the bulk of the material in between 10pm and 6am. The trucks were unloaded in the morning for work to begin.”
“We had a concrete batch plant on site. Al Naboodah Laing O’Rourke was the structural contractor and manager and we had direct access to all the main contractors. We sat face-to-face at monthly meetings and if they had problems with materials we would dispatch our staff directly to factories to help them.”
Kerzner Development handled the entire process from design to turnover and management.
“Many developers here choose to hand over their projects to a general contractor. We believed in a hands-on approach. You can pull this off if you have the staff. Materials were always an issue because Dubai is very busy in terms of construction. There were times when we had no cement and could not pour concrete. It was very difficult but we did it.
“The labour camp was well equipped in terms of food and a clinic. I even got a mobile banking unit out here so people could wire money home on time.”
Company Chairman Sol Kerzner is not a typical owner, said Boocher.
“He knows every single detail about the hotel from the dimensions of the room to the taps. He sits in on every design meeting.
“One of the biggest things we did was to build all the toilets for the rooms here in a factory at Al Quoz. Doors and aluminium finishes were the other prefabricated elements.”
Landscaping such a large site created further challenges for the firm.
“Dubai is under so much pressure. There are some very large landscaping firms here but the amount of work has put them under pressure. In the years to come, you could buy a decent sized tree locally but it is difficult at this point of time,” said Boocher.
“We wanted to open the project and make it look like a mature project in terms of landscaping so we sourced plants from all over the world. In terms of other materials, the stone came from Iran, Italy, Spain, Brazil and 67 other areas. The wood was sourced from China and Thailand. The handmade doors are from India and the wooden doors we made in Dubai.
“In terms of utilities it was difficult. The same applies to budgets. It is difficult to maintain a schedule and it is not getting easier. But we did not shoot the one-and-a-half billion budget.
“We also knew that parking would be a big issue so we went back to our partner Nakheel who put in a monorail with a stop here.”
There are 2,500 parking spaces at the base of the trunk at the Gateway Tower. In addition there are 800 valet spaces and two surface lots which will handle the overflow.
“The rest of the visitors will use the shuttle service and talks are being held about water taxis.
Boocher sees great potential ahead notwithstanding the recent fire. “This is the biggest hotel in the Europe and the Middle East. This market will expand – there is no holding back,” he said.
“Soon it will be business as usual.”
nice hotel