Burj Khalifa is a must-visit attraction for anyone visiting Dubai. The land of golden sandy dessert and glistening high rises. So naturally, it was mandatory for us to visit this place when we were in Dubai last year*. 

It’s a treat to look at this building from the outside, but even a bigger treat when you step inside and take a tour of the 124th floor!

So the backstory is that we had gotten tickets beforehand and the ticket entitled us to go to the top till the 125th floor where there is a balcony/terrace from where you can enjoy the view and take pictures of the horizon. Pretty amazing stuff. But…

There was a catch.

Even if you get the tickets, going up is not a straightforward process. You need to get to the elevator first which has a HUGE queue. You can always pay more insane money to get to the express line which moves faster, but in my opinion, is not worth the money. (Sorry for being honest). It got us around one hour to reach the elevator due to the queue, and at one time there can only be around 14-15 people inside the elevator. So you get the idea.

Once you reach the top, the view is breath-taking! You sort of feel like, yes! It was worth the wait. Then you can spend as much time there as you want. Reflect upon your poor life choices, maybe? We just took several pictures ’cause there is no place else that would give us SUCH A GOOD vantage point of the Dubai Metropolis!

The ticket also entitled us to have a 3 course fine dining experience at the Armani Deli situated in the lobby area of Burj Khalifa. So once we were done with hanging out on the 124th floor, we decided to call it a day and grab some lunch that we so totally deserved.

But…

For some reason, there was another long queue to get a table at the restaurant. We saw many people leave after being disappointed by the wait time. That worked in our favour and we got a table in 20 minutes max.

But…

They served us the starters which was an assortment of delicious breads and hummus. Then took our order for the 3 course meal and made us wait approximately 2 hours before we got our lunch. Also, because obviously it was supposed to be a fine dining experience, the food quantity was not enough to feed our desi souls!

Regardless, the food was delicious and we enjoyed it even after waiting for an insane amount of time.

Psst. I would rather have a huge plate of Nihari any day if I had to trade with the above. Lol. (No offence to the Chef).

The overall experience was great. Looking at Dubai from a such cool height was really something. If you go around dusk, you might be able to catch the sunset from the balcony and that would be phenomenal really. We got the day time view and it was our lucky day as the sky was crispy clear blue. (I love clear blue skies!).

If I have to do it again? No. This is just once in a lifetime kind of experience and if you have a lot of money, go paragliding rather.

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* We went to Dubai in December 2015. Since then a lot of facts must have changed. This post highlights my own personal experience. Yours could be different.

All amazing photos in this blog post are by my wonderful sister and travel buddy for this trip @elarte_doodles. You should follow her work. She’s amazing!