Guide · 5 minute read
The Dubai Water Canal runs about three kilometres from the Creek at Business Bay to the Gulf at Jumeirah, and there is a continuous pedestrian path along it. Walking the whole thing takes about an hour. The set piece is the Sheikh Zayed Road bridge, where a curtain of water falls from the underside and parts for passing boats.
Published
A three-kilometre artificial waterway cut through Business Bay and Safa Park in 2016, joining Dubai Creek to the Gulf. It turned the lower Creek into a through-route for the first time and created an entirely new waterfront district along its banks.
It is a genuinely successful piece of city-making, which is not something you can say about every Dubai megaproject. The banks are walkable, the bridges are crossable, and people use it.
Start at Marasi Business Bay, which is the easiest place to join and has parking and cafés. From there the path runs southwest along the canal towards the sea, under the Sheikh Zayed Road bridge, past Safa Park and out to the Jumeirah end.
The full length is about an hour at a walking pace, and it is flat and continuous. Between May and September do it after dark — there is little shade and the canal banks hold heat.
A curtain of water falls from the underside of the Sheikh Zayed Road bridge into the canal, lit at night. It runs on a schedule and pauses to let boats through, so a boat passes under it rather than through it.
From the footpath you see it side-on and lit, which is the better view for a photograph. From a boat you pass beneath it, which is the better experience. Neither replaces the other.
The walk is free, takes an hour, and lets you stop. The cruise costs from AED 149 per person for two hours with dinner, is fully sheltered so the water is flat in any weather, and gives you Business Bay and the Burj Khalifa from below rather than beside.
The Burj Khalifa is the deciding factor for most people. Downtown sits directly above the Business Bay stretch, and from the water the tower is overhead — which is the closest any boat trip in Dubai gets to it.
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.