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Fireworks seen from space......Dubai, Atlantis!


Fonzie

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You wanna know where all this oil money's goin'???

http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-49522.html

Atlantis opens in Dubai with most expensive launch party in history

London, Nov 21 : The opening of Dubai's luxury resort, Atlantis - The Palm, on November 20, turned out to be the most expensive launch party in history, courtesy the most extravagant fireworks display and a performance by Kylie Minogue.

Costing a huge 15 million pounds, the resort opened in Dubai with an extravagant firework display, which owners have claimed was visible from space.

More than 2,000 guests attended the event on the man-made Palm Jumeirah Island in the Persian Gulf.

The guest list included names like Robert De Niro, Janet Jackson, Denzel Washington, Lindsay Lohan, Duchess of York, Sir Richard Branson, Dame Shirley Bassey, retail boss Sir Philip Green, television presenter Trinny Woodall and the singer Lily Allen.

Kylie Minogue performed on stage for a reported 1.5 million pounds fee but the real entertainment of the night was provided by the pyrotechnics.

About one million fireworks, almost 10 times the scale of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, lit up the Palm.

"We built something that's quite extraordinary. We've got to tell the world about it," the Telegraph quoted Sol Kerzner, the South African billionaire hotelier and casino tycoon as saying.

It took a total of two years to build the 1,539-room Atlantis and cost 1 billion pounds. --- ANI

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$35 grand for ONE night!!! :eek:

There was no evidence of the global financial crisis as tycoons and celebrities streamed into Dubai last night for the world’s most expensive private party.

Having spent £1 billion, the owners of the Atlantis hotel, which they hope will become the new symbol of excess in a region already replete with towering statements of wealth, splashed out £13.5 million on its opening.

In the lobby of the Atlantis about 2,000 guests sipped Dom Pérignon. Outside, A-list celebrities from Robert De Niro to Lindsay Lohan walked the red carpet. After the pop singer Kylie Minogue performed on stage the sky lit up with the world’s largest fireworks display, seven times greater than this year’s Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing and extravagant enough to be seen from outer space.

The price tag for the party even embarrassed Sol Kerzner, the chairman and chief executive officer of Kerzner International, who built the resort on the man-made Palm Island in partnership with Nakheel, a state-owned developer. “If I had to do it all over again, I might do it recognising the fact that we’re living through a bit of a tough economic environment,” Mr Kerzner, a South African billionaire, told The Times.

atlantis-385_374597b.jpg The maddest hotel in Dubai

Dubai is good at extravagance, but this one really takes the gold-plated biscuit: a mega-resort based on the Lost City of Atlantis

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The timing for Mr Kerzner’s imposing hotel is not ideal. The emirate is groaning under heavy debt and banks have tightened lending, delaying new developments. Gulf stock markets have sunk to historic lows and analysts are radically scaling back economic forecasts for the region.

Since it opened its doors to paying guests six weeks ago, the hotel has been nearly 80 per cent full, Mr Kerzner said. Nightly rates range in price from $800 (£550) for a basic suite to $35,000 per night for the hotel’s signature suite, which features floor to ceiling views of Dubai. The 1,539-room hotel has two towers set in 130-acre grounds that feature an aquarium with 65,000 sea creatures.

High life

$35,000: cost of one night in the Bridge Suite

58,000 km of steel bars were used in the hotel’s construction, more than nine times the length of the Great Wall of China

46 hectares: the size of the Atlantis resort, equal to 64 Wembley pitches

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  • 2 weeks later...

Impressive, yet utterly ridiculous. All that for a hotel opening :rolleyes:

I'll bet they could have found thousands of needy people in their city/country that that $$$ could have benefited in their name, rather than spending on such an ostentatious display of wealth

Edited by Fonzie
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Impressive, yet utterly ridiculous. All that for a hotel opening :rolleyes:

I'll bet they could have found thousands of needy people in their city/country that that $$$ could have benefited in their name, rather than spending on such an ostentatious display of wealth

You want to see a real display of wealth come to OSU. They spend over 600 million a year on research.

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