Guide · 5 minute read
Dubai Marina is the man-made canal and the towers around it. JBR — Jumeirah Beach Residence — is the beachfront strip immediately west of it. Bluewaters is the small artificial island offshore with Ain Dubai on it. All three are within a twenty-minute walk of each other, which is why the names get used interchangeably and why people end up at the wrong one.
Published
The Marina is a three-kilometre canal cut inland from the Gulf, ringed by residential towers, with a promenade running the whole way round. There is no beach. What there is: the pontoons where charter boats, dhows and RIBs berth, the restaurants along Marina Walk, and the best-lit stretch of water in the city after dark.
If you are boarding a boat, you want the Marina. Every charter from this part of Dubai leaves from here.
JBR is the beach. A two-kilometre run of public sand with showers, lifeguards and food, backed by The Beach — a low-rise open-air retail strip — and behind that a wall of residential towers. Free to enter, busy at weekends, and the place people mean when they say 'the beach at the Marina'.
It sits directly between the Marina and the sea, so a boat leaving the Marina passes the length of JBR within five minutes of clearing the breakwater.
Bluewaters is a small artificial island a few hundred metres offshore from JBR, connected by road and by a pedestrian bridge. Ain Dubai — the observation wheel — is on it, along with hotels, restaurants and apartments.
From the water it is the landmark you pass on almost every charter and RIB tour out of the Marina, and the pass under the wheel is the photograph most people take on a two-hour charter.
For a charter, a dhow cruise, a RIB tour or a jet ski, go to the Marina and follow the berth pin. For swimming, sunbathing or a beach day, go to JBR. For Ain Dubai and the island restaurants, go to Bluewaters.
Parking is easiest at Dubai Marina Mall for the first, at The Beach at JBR for the second, and on Bluewaters itself for the third. Do not park at one and walk to another in July.
FAQ
Check a date
Leave the date and roughly how many of you there are and we will come back with the boats that are free and what each costs. No deposit at this stage.