I can’t say I was very surprised to hear that Dubai was sitting on about as much debt as there is sand in the desert. On my one and only visit to the city-state, I remember thinking how it was possible for such a place to exist. The fact is, it wouldn’t be, if it weren’t for its ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Not a single drop of water

The poetry writing, horse riding royal mixed boundless ambition with a taste for outrageous extravagance to overcome seemingly impossible obstacles. For a start, there is no natural water in Dubai. Not a single drop. Yet everywhere you look, sprinklers are watering pristine lawns. The Tiger Woods Gold Course alone needs four million gallons of water to be pumped onto its grounds every day.

Besides gargantuan rooms at gargantuan prices, Atlantis The Palm has the tallest, fastest freefall waterslide in the world. Nine stories in a couple of seconds.

The biggest footprint in the world

How do they do it? With seawater stripped of salt. It costs more than petrol to produce, but when money was no object, it didn’t matter. Add to that the intense heat that means nothing is possible without air conditioning, and it’s easy to see why a resident of Dubai has the biggest average carbon footprint of any human being – more than double that of an American.

Disneyland in the desert

Until now, these environmental issues haven’t stopped the Sheik. He’s thrown money at every problem to create his Disneyland in the desert. The city is littered with monuments to his success. Only one, though, is visible from space: Atlantis The Palm. Spread over 114 acres, the hotel boasts 1539 rooms including the 924sq metre Bridge suite in the quasi religious arch. To stay in this luxury pad, you’ll need to fork out over €16000 a night!

Freefall into the shark tank

Besides gargantuan rooms at gargantuan prices, Atlantis The Palm has the tallest, fastest freefall waterslide in the world. The leap of faith drops the rider nine stories in a couple of seconds. And if that weren’t enough, once the riders have been scared senseless they career through an acrylic tunnel submerged in a shark filled tank, so close to them that they can see the whites of their teeth.

The 1.5 billion dollar hotel

To help you get over this shock, there are 27 treatment rooms and spas, a cosmos of Michelin stars and a 1.5 km beach. If this sounds unsustainably vast, you’ll faint when you hear that there are 65 000 marine animals in the Ambassadors lagoon. And how much did this vast complex cost? A staggering 1.5 billion dollars.

I’ll leave you to decide whether it was worth it. But if you do want to try out its delights, you best hurry up. If Dubai can’t raise more money, the Atlantis The Palm might just go the way of its name sake and sink… beneath waves of debt.