For a glimpse of what a $2,5-billion (about R21-billion) hotel looks like, cross the 300m-long bridge linking mainland Dubai to the extraordinary exercise in land reclamation that is the Palm Jumeirah.
And there, at the end of the palm's trunk, slap-bang in the centre of a colossal breakwater called The Crescent, stands Atlantis. You just can't miss it.
There are few, if any, places in the world where political determination, huge amounts of cash and a mania for construction combine to such impressive effect with year-round sun.
Atlantis, The Palm (to give it its official title) is the latest expression of the Emirate's drive to attract tourists. Not subtle, but subtlety isn't the name of the game around here.
To rise above the din of Dubai's constant reinventions - the Palm Jumeirah is just one part of a trilogy including the larger Palms Jebel Ali and Deira, which are still under construction - you have to make a statement. So forget boutique retreats: Atlantis thinks big. Really big.
The first hotel to be completed on the Palm is the brainchild of Sol Kerzner, the SA magnate whose Atlantis hotel in the Bahamas served as the blueprint.
The Dubai version musters a mighty 1 539 rooms, including the Bridge Suite, which unites the two wings of the complex above a huge arch and costs £14 000 (R210 000) a night.
There's a mile of beach, two huge pools and a choice of thousands of deckchairs for your tanning pleasure. By early next year Atlantis will have its own monorail stop, linking it to the Palm Jumeirah and downtown Dubai.
It's easy to be overwhelmed by the scale of an operation covering the equivalent of 64 Wembley football pitches, but don't worry: there are 3 500 members of staff on site to calm you down, including 218 lifeguards and 550 chefs.
Guests have free access to the adjacent Aquaventure waterpark, all 18-million litres of it, with flumes galore and a waterslide called the Leap of Faith that spits you out of a faux-Mesopotamian temple called the Ziggurat.
Or you can sign up for an "interactive experience" with the cetaceans at Dolphin Bay, or book an "Amazon deep-forest aqua cure" at one of 27 treatment rooms in the spa.
It's the supreme expression of Dubai opulence, combined with a desire by the architects to scramble the guests' minds.
Having said that, just 13 hours before the hotel's first guests were due to arrive, they were pulling up the marble floor-tiles in the main lobby. Amadeo Zarzosa, Atlantis's general manager, was taking it all surprisingly well.
"This will all be fixed by tomorrow," he said, ushering me past the writhing glass of the Dale Chihuly installation forming the lobby's centrepiece.
Scurrying construction workers took turns to lever up old tiles in his wake, buckets of grout were swiftly poured; a glance outside revealed a crane doing something complicated to the roof.
It turned out the last-minute renovations were due to a fire that had damaged the lobby earlier in the month. Anywhere other than Dubai, the damage would have meant the postponement of opening day, or at least a degree of panic. Here, though, there were still a thousand construction workers on site, which meant Zarzosa had a reassuring 13 000 man-hours available to him before the deadline.
"I strive for perfection," he said. "I want to sit back and say I've done my best and set everything up. I just know we've been trying to do things well."
Helped, of course, by a willing workforce: "They want to be here, so you're bound to get a lot more productivity. The attitude towards service here is so good that it's refreshing."
Mark Patten is in charge of the attitude of all 550 chefs at Atlantis. He rejoices in the title of vice-president, culinary.
On a tour of the "backstage" area - huge breeze-block corridors uniting kitchen after kitchen; a vast loading bay; ovens, fridges and cleaning stations galore - he revealed the secret to meeting the logistical challenge of sourcing ingredients, cutting them up, cooking them and then serving 15 000 meals a day in 17 restaurants.
"How do you eat an elephant? In small bites. You need to know what to focus on and what not to focus on."
Patten's team had been practising for months - apparently the furthest room in the complex can be reached by room service within 15 minutes.
As with all things Atlantis, it is all about scale. According to Patten, once the resort is fully open he expects to get through 6 000 litres of ice cream a month, and half a ton of seafood a day.
Fish are big in Atlantis. Perhaps the single grandest structure is the Ambassador Lagoon, an enormous fish tank lining a wall of the Poseidon Court in the East Tower. The sensation of watching a whale shark swim by as you head off for dinner is as eerie as it is impressive.
The 11-million litres of water in the central tank are bolstered by the Lost Chambers, a vast Atlantis-themed aquarium on the ground floor. This is stuffed full of marine eye-candy, from enormous Goliath groupers to shoals of moon jellyfish. Two "Lost Chambers" suites (called Poseidon and Neptune) are available to rich ichthycologists for £4 300 (R64 500) a night: the bedrooms share a wall with the fish tank, so you can commune with the whale shark in private.
Another wall of the Lagoon is shared by the fish restaurant Ossiano, run by the three-starred Michelin chef Santi Santamaria.
The food is exquisite: onion jam with cuttlefish and squid ink sauce; snapper with chopped dried fruit and nuts.
There's always a nagging feeling, however, that the fish on the other side of the glass are watching while you tuck into their erstwhile chums.
This being Atlantis, it's not enough to have just one celebrity chef. So Nobu Matsuhisa has set up here, the interior of this latest venture into the luxurious world of Japanese cuisine hung with wooden beams like the interior of a boat.
The two-starred Michelin chef Michel Rostang has also been lured to the Middle East: his brasserie offers Parisian fare, such as fish soup, hot duck sandwiches and snails served in tiny burger buns.
Georgio Locatelli has been tempted, opening his first new restaurant after the two-starred Locanda in London.
In the interests of research, I took it upon myself to test the Aquaventure flumes. I was let loose on the rapids, a 2,7km circuit that looped and sloshed round the park.
Conveyor belts whisked me and my inflatable to the top of the Ziggurat, from where I could be dropped through a tunnel of marine wildlife, including a few bored-looking sharks, or discard my inflatable and take the Leap of Faith.
This meant hurtling downwards and being photographed, gurning and bedraggled, at the bottom.
On November 20 a star-studded guest list will hear Kylie Minogue perform at the opening ceremony for Atlantis.
If you go...
- Resort website: www.atlantisthepalm.com
- Dubai Tourism can be contacted on 00-971-4-223-0000 or go to the Emirate's website at www.dubaitourism.ae