What we would skip in Dubai
We make money when clients book more. This article argues them out of about a third of what a standard Dubai itinerary contains, so here is the reasoning: a client who comes home from four excellent days plans the next trip with us, and a client who spent $900 on tickets for things they cannot now t
These are opinions, held by people who go regularly and who have watched several hundred clients come back and say what they actually enjoyed. Disagree with any of them and we will book it happily.
The short version
| We would skip | Why | What we would do instead |
|---|---|---|
| A second observation deck | It is the same view from a different tower | One, at sunset, booked on a timed slot |
| The coach desert safari | Sixty people, a buffet and a stage show | A small private camp, or an overnight |
| The helicopter tour | Twelve minutes, several hundred dollars | The observation deck, or a seaplane if you must fly |
| The multi-attraction pass | It builds a schedule out of sunk cost | Buy two tickets, individually, for things you actually want |
| The second theme park | Very similar to the first, hot in the queue | The beach, or the desert, or a day doing nothing |
| The dhow dinner cruise, large boat | A buffet on a slow boat with a PA system | The abra for a few coins, or a small private boat |
| The mall as a destination | It is a mall | The mall as shelter between 11am and 3pm, which is genuinely useful |
| The ski slope, without children | Twenty minutes of novelty at adult prices | With children it is excellent. Without, it is a photograph |
| The indoor attractions inside malls | $25 to $50 a head for twenty minutes | Almost anything else |
| Ten days in Dubai | The city gives out at five | Five days here, then Oman or Asia |
The observation decks
The Burj Khalifa is 2,717 feet (828 m) tall and going up it is a legitimate thing to want. Book the sunset slot well in advance, and go once.
What we would not do is buy two. There are several observation decks in this city and the marketing works hard to distinguish them. They are the same city from different points at different heights, and the second produces perhaps a fifth of the enjoyment of the first at full price.
The related note: the fountain show at the base of the tower is free, runs every half hour in the evening, is genuinely good, and needs no ticket.
The coach desert safari
This is the biggest single quality gap in Dubai tourism and it is worth being specific about.
What the standard product is. A minibus collects you and five other groups over ninety minutes of pickups, then drives to a dune area on the edge of the city where twenty identical vehicles are doing the same thing. Twenty minutes of dune driving, a camel photograph, then a fenced camp with several hundred people, a buffet, a stage show and a fixed departure. Around $45 to $80 a person, which is why it sells.
What the alternative is. A private vehicle, a small camp with twenty or thirty people, a genuine drive out into the dunes at sunset, a fire, food cooked rather than heated, and no stage. Around $120 to $250 a person, or an overnight for more.
The overnight is where this gets good. The desert at night, once the day groups have left, is silent and dark and cold in January, and the sky has actual stars in it. The coach version is a bus trip with a buffet at the end.
If your budget genuinely will not stretch, we would rather you skipped the desert entirely on this trip and did it properly in Oman’s Wahiba Sands, which are real desert rather than a landscaped edge of a city. See Dubai and Oman in 14 days.
The helicopter and the seaplane
Twelve to fifteen minutes over the coastline for several hundred dollars a person. It is a fine twelve minutes. It is not, on any reckoning we can construct, better value than the same money spent on two serious dinners or a night in the desert.
The seaplane has a slightly better case because the landing on the water is genuinely enjoyable. We book both when clients want them and we do not suggest either.
The theme parks
Dubai has several large theme park complexes and they are competently run. The problem is not quality.
The problem is that they are more similar to each other than the branding implies, that queueing outdoors in this climate is unpleasant for most of the year, and that a family of four visiting two of them spends around $600 and two whole days on an experience they will afterwards describe as “the theme parks” without differentiating.
Our position: one, if your children want it, chosen deliberately, on a cooler day, with fast passes bought because the queue is the whole cost. Never two. And the water parks, which we do not include in this criticism, are genuinely world-class and worth a full day. See Dubai with children.
The multi-attraction passes
These bundle attractions at a discount to buying them separately, and they are the single most effective mechanism for making people do things they did not want to do.
The trap is sunk cost. Having bought the pass, you visit the sixth attraction because you have paid for it, on a day you would rather have spent on the beach. We watch itineraries reorganise themselves around passes and it never improves them.
Buy two tickets to two things you actively want. That is the whole strategy.
The dinner cruise
The large dhow dinner cruises on the creek and the marina serve banquet food on a slow boat with a loud public address system, for three hours.
A small private boat with six people on it at sunset is a different thing entirely and we book those. The abra, at a few coins, gives you the same water and the same city. See old Dubai in two days.
The malls, in proportion
We are not anti-mall. Between 11am and 3pm in any month a mall is a sensible place to be, and the largest contain aquariums, ice rinks, ski slopes and a great deal of air conditioning.
What we would skip is the mall as a destination, a half day given to it as an activity. Unless you are going specifically to shop, it is a shopping centre with the same shops as the one at home.
What we would not skip
The list is shorter than the skip list and that is the honest shape of Dubai.
Dubai Creek and the abra crossing. The best thing in the city and it costs a coin.
Al Fahidi at 8am, before the groups. And Al Shindagha, which is the best museum in the emirate and which almost nobody visits.
The Deira souks in the evening, and the dhow wharfage at night, which is a working cargo port loading by hand and is entirely free.
The Museum of the Future. We are sceptical of most things marketed this hard and this one is genuinely a well made building with a well made exhibition inside it. Book ahead.
Alserkal Avenue in Al Quoz. Warehouse galleries, the most serious contemporary art in the Gulf, free, and empty of visitors.
Eating in the neighbourhoods. Deira, Al Karama, Satwa. Six to fifteen dollars a head for food better than the hotel restaurants at four times the price. This is the highest-return decision in a Dubai budget. See what to eat in Dubai.
A night in the desert at a small camp.
In Abu Dhabi: the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, which is worth the ninety minute drive on its own and is best in the late afternoon, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and Qasr Al Watan.
One observation deck at sunset, if you want it. Once.
The mountains. Jebel Jais, at around 6,345 feet (1,934 m), and Hatta. Ninety minutes to two and a half hours from the city, ten to fifteen degrees cooler, and not remotely the same country.
The one decision that saves more than all of this
Where you sleep.
Accommodation is 40 to 55 per cent of a Dubai budget, which is far higher than in any other destination we sell. The difference between a good four star in Bur Dubai at $110 and a beach resort at $450 is four nights of $1,360, which is more than every ticket in the skip list added together.
And the four star in Bur Dubai puts you inside the walkable, interesting half of the city, while the beach resort puts you thirty to forty minutes away from it. We are not saying never book the beach. We are saying it should be a decision about what kind of holiday you want rather than a default, and that the money it costs is the money that would otherwise have bought a fortnight with Oman in it. See what a trip to Dubai costs.
Related
- Old Dubai in two days
- What a trip to Dubai costs
- What to eat in Dubai, and where
- Dubai and the Gulf: the complete guide
- All our Gulf trips
