Hi H20

Several of the folks who recently visited may be able to chime in. My take was most thought it worthwhile for tea, albeit tea takes 2-3 hours. Others really liked the Bateaux creek dinner cruise.

Try using the 'search' function for Burj in the Category:Chat section. I came up with 13 threads talking about the Burj. Several on the Dubai pre-cruise trip opted in to having the full tea at $105 per person at the Burj. Food is pricey there, so the cost differential for lunch/dinner would be less than the $500+ figure.

There's a hop-on, hop-off bus that has two routes. A 24 hour ticket is about $30 per head, and if you time it right, you can do both routes over a two-day period. Our intrepid group of travelers actually got off at each of the stops. Wow! In the Dubai heat, that's quite an accomplishment. We took it the next day and got off at a handful of stops. It leaves from the shopping center opposite the Raffles pyramid shaped hotel. There's a shuttle bus that leaves about every half hour from the Grand Hyatt over to that shopping center. It runs from the convention center entrance. I highly recommend the shuttle bus over walking to the center. The concierge desk can give you the times the hop-on, hop-off bus leaves and the shuttle times so you can coordinate what time to leave. The blue route is prone to traffic jams in the afternoon. The "Ski Dubai" facility and the beaches are along that route.

Cheers, Anne