Dubai with children: 6 days, and which tickets are worth buying
Dubai is a good family destination for reasons that have nothing to do with how it is marketed. The flight is short from Europe, the water is warm from November to March, the hotels have rooms that fit four without a fight, nothing goes wrong logistically, and there is a very large amount for childr
- Duration
- 6 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 1
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar
- From
- $1,980 per person
It is also a city where a family of four can spend five hundred dollars in a single day on tickets and remember none of it. That is the part of this itinerary we have thought about hardest.
Who it suits: families with children roughly four to fourteen, first Gulf visits, and anyone who wants a warm winter week that does not involve a long flight.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive, hotel, water. Met at the airport and driven straight to the hotel. Nothing scheduled. Children who have been on a plane need a pool, not a museum. We choose beach hotels for family trips rather than downtown ones for exactly this reason: the pool and the sea are the activity on three of the six days, and a hotel that gets that right saves the whole trip.
Day 2: The creek, early, then indoors. Out by half past eight. The abra across Dubai Creek costs a few coins and children like it more than anything with a ticket price. Then the spice and gold souks on foot, which is a market rather than a museum and holds attention. Back to the hotel for the hot part of the day. Late afternoon in the water again.
Day 3: One big ticket, chosen properly. This is the day we buy something expensive, and we buy exactly one thing. For most families that is either the aquarium and underwater zoo, which is genuinely good and takes a full morning, or the indoor ski slope, which is absurd and which children of eight and up talk about for a year. For older children the Museum of the Future works better than either. We will tell you which we think fits your ages and then book a timed entry so you are not queueing.
Day 4: Desert, in the afternoon. Collected after lunch. A small camp rather than a coach camp, which matters more with children than without: sixty people and a stage show is a long evening for a seven-year-old. Sandboarding, camels, a proper dinner outside and a sky with stars in it. Overnight in the camp is the better version if your children are six or older. Under six, we bring you back after dinner.
Day 5: Beach day, and one water park if you want it. Either a full day doing nothing at the hotel, which after four days is usually what everyone wants, or one of the water parks. The water parks are the one category of expensive Dubai attraction we think is consistently worth the money for families, because a full day is a full day. If you take one, take it on this day and keep the rest of the trip light.
Day 6: Slow morning, fly home. Late departure from the room where the flight allows it. If you have an evening flight, the aquarium at the mall or an hour at the beach fills the gap without another ticket.
What is included
Five nights in a beach hotel with a room configuration that actually fits your family, all transfers, a private car with driver and a child seat on the days that need one, an English-speaking guide for the creek and souks morning, the one major attraction we agree on with timed entry, the desert camp with dinner, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant here and our partners in Dubai.
What we would skip, and why
The theme park cluster on the edge of the city is expensive, hot to queue in and, in our view, worse than equivalent parks in Europe. Families come back from it flat.
The observation decks do not hold children’s attention for the money. A view from height is about four minutes of interest.
The dinner cruises on the large boats are a long evening of buffet food with a stage show. If you want a boat, we will put you on a small private one at sunset for an hour, which is better and cheaper.
Building three ticketed attractions into one day is the most common mistake in family Dubai planning. The heat, the queues and the driving between them turn it into a bad day.
Honest notes
From June to September this trip does not work. Highs around 105F (41C) with humidity mean the pool is bath-warm and the outdoor half of the plan is unusable. Families do come in summer for the cheap hotel rates and the indoor attractions, and we will build that, but it is a different holiday and we will say so.
Six days is the right length. Ten days in Dubai with children is four days of running out of ideas.
If your children are older, ten and up, look at the desert and mountains route instead: Hatta, Jebel Jais and the east coast give teenagers something to do that is not a queue.
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