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Green Planet Dubai: a review

If you’ve ever been to a world-class zoo – the Bronx Zoo comes to mind – you’ll have seen an indoor tropical rainforest before. Visitors walk on prescribed paths and bridges, while the birds and other animals fly or roam where they choose within their building-sized cages.

a toucan at Green Planet Dubai. It sits on a branch: long black curved beak, blue around the eyes, black body, white throat with a splash of yellow.
a channel-billed toucan at Green Planet Dubai

The Green Planet Dubai is one such indoor tropical rainforest, boasting the world’s “largest indoor man-made and life-sustaining tree” (As I’ve mentioned before, Dubai does love its superlatives!). According to its website, over 3000 species are represented within this “bio-dome.”

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. That means I’ll receive a small commission on anything you buy through clicking the links. This will not affect your price. I paid for admission when I visited so this is not a sponsored post.

Clever architecture

The building itself is worth describing just for its one-of-a-kind design. A large cube punctuated with round windows, it partially reveals an internal glass cylinder extending from the ground to the roof.

The building is a square. From this view, looking at one corner, the left wall is white and grey and has round holes in it, smaller toward the center and larger toward the edges. The right wall is divided along the diagonal: tope left to lower right. The left half has a wall like the other, with round holes. The right half is open, but a bit of the internal glass cylinder if visible. In front of the building is a row of palm trees.
The Green Planet’s striking building in Dubai

I realized, as I walked around its perimeter, that the design is particularly clever in Dubai’s climate. In a place where it can reach 50 degrees Celsius in the summer, a glass-walled building, even if it houses plants accustomed to heat, would get extra hot, burning the plants as the sunlight is magnified by the glass.

Instead, the sunlight passes through the holes in the outer building first, which means that the shafts of direct light would never stay in one place for too long. While I didn’t watch the building over the course of the day, it looks to me like the exposed sections of the internal cylinder probably only get direct sunlight early or late in the day.

Exploring an indoor tropical rainforest

Entering at ground level, we arrived in a fish tank. When I say “in”, what I mean is that the sides of the room are ringed with a large tank extending from the floor to well above our heads, which means that the fish inside could swim around us. Large fake tree roots twining around a small pool in the center introduced the rainforest theme, leading us – I was there with a friend – to look upwards. Far above we could see the edges of walkways, with greenery of all sorts draped over them. Birds flashed by from time to time, and at the very top, the central glass ceiling let in the sunlight.

rocks and roots on either side  of the picture, in the middle is a vertical view of the middle of the building. Several stories are visible, all draped with greenery hanging off them. At the top of the picture the sun is shining through, so not much can be seen.
looking up at the Green Planet in Dubai

Our next step was an elevator to the fourth floor, so that we could walk back down from there.

Emerging from the elevator, we were level with the very top of the artificial tree that forms the center column of the cylinder. A perch hosted a couple of colorful birds, and plenty of employees stood ready to tell about the birds, animals and insects we spotted.  Next to the open perch a cage held a tarantula – or maybe more. A sloth, not in a cage, slept tucked into the greenery, undisturbed when we snapped pictures.

From level four, a ramp circles the cylinder counter-clockwise downwards. At each level, signs explain some of the species to look for. I have to admit, though, that we spent most of our time spotting birds and trying to photograph them before they took off again.

A wall is visible at the bottom of the picture, which looks directly downward. At the bottom, five people can be seen, but only the tops of their heads. One of them, a man, is pointing at something. Around them are the roots of the fake center tree and lots of green plants of various types.
Looking down from about level three. You can see part of the base of the big central tree at the top left of this picture.

The artificial tree at the center, as far as we could tell, is made of concrete, with clusters of large fake leaves at the ends of the branches. That sounds worse than it is, though. Here and there on the thick trunk and along the branches we could see various epiphytes, orchids, ferns and other plants. The overall effect is of a tree that is very much alive.

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Rainforest creatures

On the outside edge of the cylinder, in the sections without windows to the outside, cages paralleled the ramp, providing a home to several different species of monkeys. They were entertaining, of course, as monkeys always are, but not always easy to see because of the dappled lighting.

Here and there along the ramp, employees held talks about a variety of creatures. One woman carried a snake and was ready to tell all sorts of interesting facts about it. A young man pulled a very large millipede from a box and, like the snake, we were allowed to touch it. The same goes for the biggest cockroach I had ever seen, but I had no desire to touch that.

Only the head end of the snake is visible in this photo. It is a pale pink color, with some brown markings behind and in front of its eye. Its forked tongue is out and moving. All that is visible of the person is a grey sleeve.
An employee holds a snake for visitors to touch. I think it’s some sort of python.

Other tanks held a variety of insects and lizards … or were they amphibians? I’m not sure.

In a few places, small bridges linked the outer ramp to the central tree trunk, allowing some different perspectives.

The birds were the highlights, though. Tropical birds tend to have bright colors, so we’d see flashes as they passed. I enjoyed the challenge of photographing them, and some more sedentary birds – parrots, I think – allowed people to get quite close for pictures.

Four small parrots perched on a branch. They are mostly yellow, but with a bit of bright orange on their lower bellies and around their eyes. Their tails are green and their wings have a bit of green too.
Parrots posing for a picture. These are sun conures.

While the idea is to mimic a tropical forest, I should note that the choices of species to include are not authentic to any particular tropical forest. Green Planet includes species from a lot of different places in a relatively small space.

Our visit to Green Planet and other options

We spent, I would guess, about 45 minutes there. Depending on how many demonstrations you watch or signs you read, you could easily spend a couple of hours. I presume that with kids in tow, it would likely be a quicker stop, unless they are budding biologists.

Animal encounters

Additional “encounters” are also available: for a price, of course. We didn’t spend the extra money for any of them, so I can’t say if they’re worth it.

  • Sugar Glider Encounter: For AED299 ($81/€73), including admission, you can participate in the Sugar Glider Encounter. A sugar glider is a small marsupial that can “fly” in the same way a flying squirrel flies. This takes 20-30 minutes and includes an opportunity to pose with a sugar glider.
  • Reptile Encounter: For the same price, including admission, this activity involves interacting with a range of lizards and other creepy-crawlies.
  • Bird Encounter: If you prefer to learn about birds, this one, for the same price, involves a variety of birds, incliding toucans and parrots.
  • Sloth Encounter: For AED350 ($95/€86), including admission, the 30-minute Sloth Encounter involves learning about the sloth and its place in the rainforest ecosystem, and being able to pose with one.

Other options

  • Zookeeper Experience: Your kids might enjoy this add-on, which involves behind-the-scenes activities and general helping. It lasts about three hours. The price is AED390 ($106/€89) but does not include admission to Green Planet.
  • Camping in the Rainforest includes a nighttime tour, feeding animals, games, a nature-themed movie or a story, dinner and breakfast. It costs AED700 ($191/€160).
a hyacinth macaw at The Green Planet Dubai: it's mostly blue, with a bit of yellow around its eye and beak. The top beak is curved downwards over the lower. It is perched on a branch with greenery behind it.
a hyacinth macaw at The Green Planet Dubai
  • Picnic Brunch with Sloth & Friends: Only available on Fridays, this is much like the slot experience but includes a a brunch and is sold as an add-on to the general admission ticket. AED49 ($13/€11).
  • Snorkeling with Piranhas: I’m not sure why anyone would want to do this, but it includes feeding the piranhas as well as snorkeling with them. Only for competent swimmers 6 and older. Admission price of AED330 ($90/€75.50) includes general admission.

Recommendations

While we enjoyed our visit, I don’t think I’d recommend going out of your way to see Green Planet. On the other hand, if you happen to be in that part of Dubai, why not visit? It won’t take much time. If you need to keep kids entertained, but don’t want to spend all day, this would work.  The kids might even learn something in the process.

On a side note, across the street at the City Walk shopping center you can find several very pleasant-looking restaurants. We ate at one called Enab Beirut where the food was excellent, but what I especially liked was the drink. I ordered a “lemon mint,” a fresh lemonade with mint ground into it that is a very common non-alcoholic drink for a hot day in Dubai.

The waiter paused and gave me a very serious look. “No, you need a lemon pomegranate,” he stated.

Amused, I agreed.

He was right: the lemon pomegranate was fantastic and refreshing, even more so than the lemon mint would have been.

Visitors Information

The Green Planet: City Walk, corner of Al Wasl Road and Safa Road, Jumeirah, Dubai.

Open daily 10:00-19:00.

Admission: AED120 ($33/€29) for anyone over 3 years old. Ordering tickets using the form below will get you in quickly, without waiting in line:

Parking is free and the building is completely wheelchair accessible, except for the interior bridges to the trunk.


Have you ever been to an indoor tropical rainforest like Green Planet Dubai? Which one, and would you recommend it? Please comment below!

And if you liked this article, please share it on whatever social media you use! The pictures below are formatted for pinning.

Image: a toucan sitting on a branch
Text: Green Planet Dubai: a review (and the Rachel's Ruminations logo


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I think the architecture is one of the things I most want to see in Dubai as a friend of mine posts some amazing photos of modern and traditional architecture in the city. The Green Planet seems like a really unusual example of architecture-meets-nature!

I would love roaming around Green Planet Dubai for a day. I love the Bird Park in Bali and the Singapore Zoo is one of the best I’ve been to. Thanks for co-hosting this week. #TPThursday

I love zoos! I look forward to adding the Green Planet in Dubai to my list for next time I’m in the town.

I had never heard of Green Planet Dubai. So beautiful!! Dubai has so much to offer!!

With its love for superlatives, why nor add the indoor tropical rainforest that boasts the world’s “largest indoor man-made and life-sustaining tree?” Too bad you could not get a picture of it in full. Minus that, it was the architecture of the building that fascinated me.

The building is striking. The colourful tropical birds would certainly be the highlight of green Planet Dubai for me.

That is the biggest green planet tree in the world. I heard this name many time but Never change t go there. I am very interested to go Dubai. There have many animal and bird. That was a great Idea and great architecture. Can you give me some tips how to go there. I am a big animal lover.

Although I find myself usually wanting to get outside of large cities, the architecture of Dubai is a huge draw. Green Planet Dubai is certainly another to add to the list. What an interesting building.

Cool. I love the hands-on elements you mention. I’d enjoy both the exterior and interior of Green Planet Dubai.