Boutique Dubai and Abu Dhabi: 5 days of design, art and quiet
Dubai has more five-star hotel rooms than almost any city on earth and most of them are the same room. The interesting properties are a much smaller list: a handful of design hotels in the city, two or three small places in the old quarter, the conservation-reserve desert camps, and on Saadiyat Isla
- Duration
- 5 days
- Pace
- Slow
- Hotel changes
- 2
- Best months
- Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, Mar
- From
- $2,600 per person
This route uses three of them in five days, and spends its time on art rather than on attractions.
Who it suits: couples and pairs of friends who care about where they sleep, people who travel for architecture and art, and anyone who has done the standard Dubai and wants a better version of it.
Day by day
Day 1: Arrive, a design hotel, and dinner. Met at the airport and driven to a small property in the city rather than a tower on the beach. Nothing scheduled. One restaurant booked, chosen for the kitchen rather than the view.
Day 2: Al Quoz and old Dubai. Morning at Alserkal Avenue, the converted warehouse district in Al Quoz that holds most of the region’s serious contemporary galleries, with a guide who knows which shows are on. Lunch there. Middle of the day at the Museum of the Future or the Jameel Arts Centre, depending on what is open and what interests you. Late afternoon in Al Fahidi and across the creek by abra, when the old quarter empties and the light is good. Dinner in Bur Dubai.
Day 3: Desert, small camp. Collected mid-afternoon and driven ninety minutes to a camp inside a conservation reserve, six to twelve guests. Wildlife drive at dusk, which in the reserves means oryx and gazelle rather than a stage show. Dinner outside. This is the second of the three hotels and it is the reason the trip has two moves in five days.
Day 4: Desert to Saadiyat. Sunrise, a slow breakfast, then two and a half hours south to Abu Dhabi. Saadiyat Island in the afternoon: the Louvre Abu Dhabi, which is the best building in the country and a real museum, and the beach, which is the best in the UAE and has turtles nesting on it in season. Third hotel, on the island. Dinner there, because on Saadiyat the hotel restaurants are the good option rather than the lazy one.
Day 5: The Grand Mosque, and fly home. The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque at opening, before the heat and the coaches. Then to the airport, Abu Dhabi or Dubai depending on your flight. The room held until the afternoon where a night flight requires it.
What is included
Four nights across three properties, each chosen for a specific reason we will explain in writing, all transfers and a private car with driver, a guided morning at Alserkal Avenue with someone who follows the local art scene, all museum entries, the conservation-reserve camp with dinner and a wildlife drive, restaurant bookings, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant here and our partners in Dubai.
How we choose the hotels
We do not sell hotels by star rating in the Gulf, because the rating is close to meaningless there. What we look at is whether the property has a point of view, whether the rooms are better than the lobby, whether the location saves you an hour a day, and whether the restaurant is somewhere residents eat.
That shortlist is short. In Dubai it comes to perhaps six properties in the city and three in the old quarter. In the desert it is four camps we would put anyone in. On Saadiyat it is two. We will show you the whole list with the trade-offs, including the ones we think are overpriced for what they are, which in this city is a longer list than the one we recommend.
What we leave out
Observation decks, theme parks, coach safaris and dinner cruises are all absent. So is shopping, unless you ask, in which case we point you at the galleries and the two or three design shops rather than the malls.
Honest notes
Two hotel moves in five days is a lot for a short trip, and the desert night is what causes it. If you would rather stay put, we will build the same trip with one city hotel and a desert evening rather than a desert night, and it is a fair alternative.
Saadiyat is quiet to the point of being sleepy. That is the appeal for most people who go, and a disappointment for the small number who wanted a city.
The best months for this are February, March and the second half of October: the same weather as December and January at materially lower rates, which on a boutique trip is a large number.
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