Headed to Dubai in December

In My Humble Opinion
1

For this year’s holiday trip we’re planning to head to Dubai for a week. Flights and hotels aren’t cheap but I think we’re comfortable with what we’ve found. Right now our itinerary includes beach time, Burj Khalifa, day trip to Abu Dhabi, a dawn hot air balloon trip, dhow dinner cruise, and a visit to Ski Dubai. We’re building in some free time, any suggestions of other things to consider? Is going to Hatta worth it?

We’re planning to stay in Dubai Marina, near the beach and the metro, and right on the promenade.

2

The Dubai museum is alright. If you’re a country counter, a day trip to Oman for swimming + dolphin sighting could be good. I did a hokey bedouin festival thing, but with some pretty fun / dramatic dune driving beforehand.

3

Huh, if someone told me I was going on a trip to Dubai I would have regarded it as a punishment.

4

Is there still robot-jockey camel racing? I tried to get a bunch of people to go check that out when we were there, but a vote failed to achieve a simple majority.

I really enjoyed the Burj Khalifa, though its environs are pretty commercial. There was a Starbucks, Tim Hortons, etc. while we were there in 2019!

5

I am also curious how you picked Dubai. Everyone i know who has been there was there either for work or to change planes.

I’m recently retired, and thinking I’d like to travel, but there are so many places it’s hard to choose.

6

Nice climate (in December), cool things to see and do, someplace very different than where we’ve been, direct (but long) flights, within our budget.

7

There is also afternoon tea at Al Fayrooz, which looks over the water. I’m not sure how expensive that was, but a very nice view.

8

Oh, I forgot I also did a boat tour out by the Palm Islands. Not sure how common it is, but the water was extremely choppy. so not as nice as it could have been.

9

We went to Dubai a few years ago to see the Burj Khalifa. Not kidding. Sure, we saw some other sights as well, but my son is really interested in skyscrapers and for years he wanted to see the tallest of them all.

We also did a balloon ride over the desert; that was really interesting.

10

One thing I didn’t know about the Burj Khalifa ahead of time is that there are two viewing areas, the main one is only like 2/3rds of the way up the building, I’m not sure how high the VIP one was because the ticket was significantly more. Pretty cool, but wasn’t that much higher than the Sears tower.

Looks like there has since been a bit of a height war with towers in China and the current observation deck is much higher.

11

Yeah, we did the lower one, which IIRC had a glass floor you could step out on. We did look at the upper one, but $$$.

12

There are 3 different tickets you can buy; At the Top (123 & 124), ATT SKY (123, 124, & 148), and VIP (123, 124, 148, 152, 153, 154). While a bit more expensive, the middle tier gets you some benefits (no lines, fewer people, higher, access to the lounge) that may be worth it for us. It’s not like we ever plan to come back.

The 124th floor is 1483’, 148th floor is 1821’, 155th floor is 1919’. The highest observation deck in the US is at the Willis Tower in Chicago at 1354’.

13

We got back from Dubai on the 30th after a great time in the UAE. Dubai is a pretty wild place, especially around New Years.

A 13 hour flight in economy isn’t much fun, and while Emirates is a fine airline the economy seats are no better than any other airline. We stayed in the Marina area which was perfect for us, lots to see and do, including great restaurants right outside our hotel and close to the beach. The highlights of the trip were a hot air balloon ride at dawn, a two hour session at Ski Dubai, and a day trip to Abu Dhabi to see the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and Louvre Museum. Things are expensive but almost everything is available to you if you want.

It was a fun trip, possibly one day too long. I think a layover would be the perfect way to see Dubai, just 2 days or so. You could do that a few times, I think, with things still being fresh. We would entertain a future layover in Abu Dhabi should we find ourselves flying Ethiad. AD seemed more laid back and sophisticated, so I think we’d enjoy it as well.