We had purchased tickets for the Burj Khalifa for 3PM on Tuesday in advance. This was one of the attractions that I was the most excited to visit. The Burj Khalifa currently holds many records, such as the tallest building in the world, the tallest free-standing structure in the world, and the world’s longest travel distance elevators.

Ironically, the observation deck, which is not at the top of the building, is called “At the Top.” It’s located on the 124th floor (452 meters up), out of 163 floors (829 meters). Even though this is the tallest structure ever built as well as the tallest current structure, the observation deck is actually the second tallest in the world, behind the Canton Tower in China. So, we managed to be At the Top without actually being at the top of anything at all!

The line for the elevators was a bit long, but not terrible and seemed to move along at a decent pace. I was really impressed with the elevators. They are incredibly fast at 10 meters per second. Not only that, but the ride was so smooth that, by the time I even noticed we were moving, we were several floors up already.

The view from the observation deck was unreal. We were so high up in the air that the entire city almost looked like a scale model! My only complaint is that the only amenity on the observation deck was a small souvenir shop. It would have been nice to have a cafe or restaurant there.