Palm West Beach: free sand behind a paid club promenade

The free sand and the paid clubs

The public stretches are genuinely public. You can walk on, put a towel down and swim. What you cannot do is use a club's loungers, umbrellas or service without becoming a customer, and the clubs occupy a good proportion of the frontage.

A minimum spend at one of them typically covers a lounger, an umbrella and towel service, and is credited against food and drink. Whether that is good value depends entirely on whether you were going to eat there anyway.

The promenade

A wide landscaped path runs the length of the beach with a separated cycling lane, and it is one of the better places in the city to run or cycle at sunset. Bike rental is available along it.

Because the trunk runs north-west, the whole promenade faces the sunset with the Marina towers in the frame. It is the reason the beach filled up as quickly as it did.

Getting there and parking

The tram stops at Palm Jumeirah at the base of the trunk, and from there it is a walk of some distance in full sun: feasible in winter, unpleasant in summer. A taxi is the realistic answer, and the route from Downtown covers the alternatives.

Parking along the promenade is limited and fills from mid-afternoon at weekends. Arriving before three or after eight avoids the worst of it.

Compared with the other beaches

Against JBR: similar model, newer, better view across the water, less public transport and fewer free facilities. Against Kite Beach: more polished, less to do, no watersports zone.

Its real advantage is the outlook. JBR looks out at open sea; this looks at the Marina skyline, which at dusk is a considerably better view.

If you are staying on the Palm

This is the one part of the island you can reach on foot from parts of the trunk, which matters because Palm Jumeirah otherwise requires a taxi for everything. If you are in a trunk apartment instead of a crescent resort, the promenade is your local amenity.

From a crescent hotel it is a short taxi, and still the easiest food and beach option that is not inside your own resort.

The other side of the trunk

The Palm's trunk has a beach on each side and they are not equivalent. The eastern side faces back towards the mainland and the Burj Al Arab, gets the morning light, and is quieter because it carries less of the development. The western side (this one) faces the Marina, gets the sunset, and has the clubs and the promenade.

If you are staying on the trunk, this is worth knowing: a morning swim on the east side and an evening on the west uses the island's geography properly, and the walk between the two is a few minutes.

Sunset, and the view along the coast

The beach faces west along the outer edge of the Palm trunk, which is the reason it has become an evening destination, not a daytime one. The sun goes down over open water with the Marina towers standing off to one side, and the whole promenade turns towards it for half an hour.

The practical consequence is a rush. Restaurant terraces along the strip fill an hour before sunset through the winter, the promenade is at its busiest immediately afterwards, and parking is at its worst in the same window. Arriving in the late afternoon and staying through it is considerably easier than trying to arrive at the moment itself.

The sand itself is narrow compared with the mainland beaches, which is the trade for the position and the view.

Come for the evening, not for the day, and it makes complete sense.