You’ve seen the stories about people who live five miles from Disneyland and never get around to going? Because it’s right there and they can go any time they want … it just is never quite the right time, see?

Well, 11 months after arriving here, that was us and the Emirates Palace (photos here). Which may not have the cachet of the Burj Khalifa (world’s tallest building) or the Burj Al Arab up in Dubai, but is pretty seriously over the top.

But we had never seen it. Driven past it a couple of dozen times. But never in it.

We now have rectified that, and been to and inside Emirates Palace. And yes, we saw the ATM that dispenses solid gold.

Scan the photos on the website … and you get a sense of what it is about.

Then look at the “facts and figures” entry on the menu to the left of the home page, and soak in all the numbers. How it’s one kilometer from end to end, and how it cost $3 billion to build the hotel, and took 20,000 workers three years to build. And on and on and on. Think “Vegas casino” (complete with 20,000-capacity hall) and you’re on the right track, except bigger and more ornate.

As I may have mentioned before, Dubai is the flashy part of the UAE. But it is in Abu Dhabi that the serious local money is found, because Abu Dhabi spills more oil than Dubai sells. Dubai is not really a serious player in oil anymore. Which is why it does the tourism thing.

Emirates Palace here in Abu Dhabi is awfully imposing, especially at night, when it is bathed in a sort of strange greenish-purple light, and the lobby entrance is nearly clogged by all the luxury cars parked or pulling up.

We have to say we didn’t exactly feel the love, when we arrived, but that could be because we arrived in a silver taxi, one of the Toyotas that cost about $20,000. As opposed to a Silver Shadow or one of the other luxury rides that pulled up, disgorged people who don’t mind paying $1,000 a night for a hotel room … and rolled on.

The center of the main building on the lobby level is an enormous open area with hotel rooms overlooking it five and six stories up. I do believe an NBA game could be staged in this enormous, marbled spot … and maybe a soccer game, too.

It’s just past the big round open area that you see the gold-dispensing ATM. I am not making this up. We wrote about it in The National.

Looks like an ATM. But it spits out gold of various weights and prices. The cheapest and smallest was, I think two grams and cost about $200. (The machine takes cash only.)

Far as I know, it’s still the only gold-dispensing machine in the world.  And I must concede that the idea of feeding some big bills into the machine and walking off with some real gold … there’s a tug there.

Farther back are three enormous lounges/bars. One serves alcohol. Two do not. One sells the “finest caviar from Iran.” And like that. The Emirates Palace is all about the finest this and the most expensive that. It is consumption on a grand scale.

We came to see the place but also to look at a museum exhibit that has been up in one of the wings of the hotel, on the history of Islamic embroidery. (And one guess who was keen to see this, and her initials are L-e-a-h.)

Some impressive stuff in there. As always, no pictures. Unless they don’t notice you take them.

The lobby level also had an informative display on Saadiyat Island, the “culture island” a few miles away, where Abu Dhabi is building a branch of the Louvre and the Guggenheim, as well as an enormous center for the performing arts and a major campus of NYU.

We checked the Palace dinner buffet at Le Vendome and decided 260 dirhams for a buffet was a little steep (about $75 each) and went on our way. We tried to find a way out to the beach — the hotel boasts 1.3 kilometers of private beach — but just as we were trying to go out a door on the ground level a hotel staffer hustled over and shooed us off, reminding us that “it is still summer and the lounge outside is not open.”

So we worked our way back upstairs, past the gilded this and the marble that (hey, go back and look at the website), and ambled out the door and asked for a city cab, and the valets almost fell over from shame and embarrassment on our behalf, but a little silver taxi came along presently (probably after dropping off a janitor coming on for the night shift) … and we stopped for Lebanese food on the way home.

Now we have been. No more thinking “we will go someday.” Someday came today.