Going to Dubai for a week and will have one day free - suggestions for must do things?

Desert Safari and sand duning or go down to the the creek and go an abra ride (cost less than 50 cents) go down to the gold and diamond park or gold and spice souks.

Dubai mall is pretty special, huge aquarium and discovery centre upstairs, the atlantis hotel if your interested!
The madinat complex is very popular, lovely hotel with abras and waterways and souks inside (although you will pay alot alot more for anything in here as its a 5* hotel than you will at the actual souks)

Go for drinks at the burj al arab or bhudda bar and bar44 in grovesnor house.
Dinner at gary rhodes, gordon ramseys or frankie detorris and marco pieree whites (all excellent)

Wild wadi or the atlantis water park.

If you are off on a friday then it would have to be friday brunch,(an institution in duabi) free flowing champers for hours on end and every type of food you could ever want, all the hotels do it, but the best (and unfortunately most expensive but worth every penny) is the Al Qusar or The Fairmont.

Anything else you want to know just let me know, my parents live in dubai and so i spend a fair few months of the year there.

kelly

Many thanks for those thoughts - I will look a few things up and come back if I have some questions.

Thanks for this post, as I'm stopping over with my children for a couple of days in July, it's useful

Sounds like they will be plenty to keep us busy, think Wild Wadi will be their favourite destination but I'd like to see a bit more.

Is it easy to organise things like a desert safari once you are there or is it better to book ahead?

Sorry for butting in

Sam

Hi yes its really easy to book all the activites, desert safari can be booked on the day as they dont usually pick you up till about 4.
How old are your children? as the safari may not be suitable if they are very young/small.
My experience on the safari was not a good one, will try to do a link later to the crash we had..lol(very fast and bumpy and so may scare young kids), but my mum loves it and always takes visitors on it.

Ski dubai is good and worth a visit for kids, you dont have to do skiing, you can just go into the skipark where there is tobaggon rides/slides etc. All outfits provided except gloves(which you will need as its freezing..lol)

Dolphinarium over at creek park is a good dolphin and seal show and the park itself is really good.

Magic Planet at mall of the emirates is really good, lots of amusement type games for them to play.
If you let me know how old your children are i can suggest some things they may like.
My daughter is only 4 but she thinks shes a teenager and is bit of a daredevil..lol

Kelly

Remember in July it will be VERY hot. My OH's daughter lives there and you can expect temps well over 40C, if not nearer 50.
On one trip we did Wild Wadi at night - its juts too hot in the day.

Yep, agree with EvannTel, it'll be really hot in the day so you'll be limited to indoor activities in the day. As well as all the touristy stuff people have already mentioned in Dubai. I suggest you take a couple of hours (in your airconditioned car) and drive out of Dubai - check out the smaller towns. Al Ain is a more traditional arabic town than Dubai and has a great palace museum - the grounds are beautiful in the evening.

Hi and thanks

My children are 10 and 12 so up for anything although I have friends who hated the desert safari and felt very sick, so I'm not too sure about that myself!!

I take onboard the comments about the heat, we're only there for a couple of days so want to as much as we can but obviously need to plan indoor stuff as well.

Thanks for all the tips

Sam

I wonder if they've finished off that tall building yet - Al Burj? I think it would be interesting to see what they've done there - but then again I'm an engineer.

Have to say though - when the plane was coming into land at Dubai - it looked very yellow - no green in sight. When I went through there at the beginning of this month the temperature was only in the mid twenties although the humidity was quite high.

What do you expect, it's a desert!!!! This week the temperature has gone way up but still humid......gonna be a long summer with the kids having 10 weeks off and stuck in the house.

I've never seen a desert before with absolutely nothing growing in it. Usually there's always shrubbery or something in it.

Umm no - dusty old construction site - that sums up the Dubai desert.

Another thing springs to mind - go skiing!

http://www.skidubai.com/

Read this: The Dark Side of Dubai

Very interesting and very disturbing.............

Probably shouldn't go there for 2 days and add to the pot of gold.

Can sadly think of many other holiday destinations around the world where the local people live in extreme poverty just behind the facade of flash hotels and luxury.

Sam