---
title: "Al Bateen Residences Pool"
description: "November night swimming on Jumeirah Beach!"
canonical_url: "https://havegoggleswilltravel.com/pool/al-bateen-residences-pool"
last_updated: "2026-08-11T20:44:16.462Z"
---

In Dubai for two nights to break up the journey to New Zealand. Not had chance to do much as work has followed me and it's busy season!

I planned an early 5am start to visit the Dubai Police Academy pool — a trip I'd pre‑arranged with the pool manager and I believe the only 50m Dubai pool not yet on the list. Unfortunately I was woken at 1:30am by a ring at the hotel room door and couldn't get back to sleep for a couple of hours. Eventually Katy Kay and the Mouch on The Rest Is Politics US podcast did the trick!

Keen to get a swim done (and add a new pool), I'm staying at the DoubleTree Hilton on JBR which has a more‑than‑25m pool, but it's family splash central from 9am to 9pm and one end is a swim-up bar, so I'm going to mark that as doesn't qualify - flip turns on the bar might not go down well with the bar staff! From my balcony I'd already clocked the private pool next door for a residential apartment block — and I'd seen people doing laps. There's an entrance right off the beach, past a security desk. I reckoned if I waited until the sun went down and casually walked in, it would be fine.

Quick check from the balcony: it's dark and the pool is empty. I make my way down, walk past the Hilton beach cabanas and right up onto the pool deck. Take a seat on a sunbed and get ready. A lifeguard appears out of the darkness. At first I thought he was coming to ask who I was, but he starts straightening sunbeds. As he walks past I ask if he knows how long the pool is. 31 metres — an odd length, but he's absolutely sure, and looking at it I believe him (later I realised it's not odd at all: it's 100 ft).

Just as I'm about to jump in, another guy arrives and starts unpacking paddles. There are no lanes, so we each take a side.

Another take‑it‑easy swim; I've hopefully got a few coming up so I don't want to stress the shoulder (that now seems to be incorporating my left elbow in its twinges). Also didn't want to cause too many waves in this beautiful infinity pool.

I rack up 1,240 metres. Halfway through, some guys jump in and start chucking a ball around, but they leave pretty quickly.

Swim done, I snap a couple of photos with the big wheel in the background, then it's time for a couple of quick Coronas at the beach bar and around the corner to pop my Raising Cane's cherry before a 16‑hour flight early tomorrow morning.