Travel Guides: All Countries / Middle East / United Arab Emirates / Dubai
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| | | | Review by Abdelhamid BOUTALBI from DOHA-QATAR
If you are looking for a place where you can get all tastes, Dubai is the place, big variety of attactions, shoping etc for good value of money. With all the contrast that this place is offering , you can be skiing one morning and being in a safary in the afternoon on the sand dunes.
Going for gold at Ski Dubai
As European ski resorts endure one of their worst snowfalls on record, an unlikely destination may present a solution: Dubai.
It's not all beaches, bars and bling in the Emirates state. In ultra-swanky Mall Of The Emirates is Ski Dubai.
Heading off to Dubai solely for skiing might be extravagant, but the all-weather centre is rightly acclaimed. Mall Of The Emirates is one of the most exclusive centres in the world, with Boss and Versace stores everywhere.
Ski Dubai, at first glance, doesn't suit the Mall's glacially cool vibe. It looks like it could easily be the Xscape ski-centre from Milton Keynes. Yet it has the reputation of being an excellent practice centre for skiers of all abilities.
There are three courses at Ski Dubai, ranging from lessons for total novices to a run suitable for experts. The four seasoned amateurs I went with all praised the mid-level course.
As someone who's generally clumsy, I was nervous of the beginner's lesson. The local teenagers in our hour-long lesson seemed like a skiing version of Paul Newman in The Hustler, whereas the other English beginner and I were at first a snowy take on Dumb & Dumber. While it'd be exaggerating to say I was a master by the end, I surpassed my expectations and managed to stay upright.
The instructor's stern barks of "Knees wider!" must have done the trick as we finally managed the run a few times.
Dubai isn't cheap but, by the region's standards, Ski Dubai is a bargain. A spot of apres-ski shopping in Mall Of The Emirates is a must, though it may well solely be window-shopping as it's so classy it makes Bond Street look more like Everything For A Pound.
There's plenty of bars and restaurants in the Mall for some traditional apres-ski. Alas, fondue isn't on the menu.
While Mall Of The Emirates is the epitome of Dubai's reputation as a getaway for the super-rich, there are actually plenty of bargains to be had. Like much of the Emirates' states, electrical goods such as iPods, cameras and laptops are cheaper than in the UK. Although the savings aren't as great as in New York, you can still expect a 10% saving on High Street prices compared to the UK.
The Al Karama suburb is particularly good for bargain watches, or ridiculously cheap clothes (£5 pashminas a speciality).
But, of course, Dubai is most famous as a playground for celebrities taking advantage of the region's glorious weather and Westernised attitude to alcohol and clothing.
Bars and clubs are invariably opulent – and prices are no dearer than in the West End.
A haunt for Premiership footballers and rappers such as Jay-Z, Dubai's bars can feel a touch too bling and gaudy. At times, it's like you're on holiday in P Diddy's head. If it's a more reserved, laid-back atmosphere you're after, then the bars at the Park Hyatt hotel are a haven.
The Park is the first Westernised five-star hotel in Dubai, which actually caused confusion at first as many regulars wondered why it wasn't dripping in gold.
Despite the relaxed air, it's frowned upon to drink in the streets or anywhere in hotels other than the bars and your room.
However if it's the bling you're after, then the Jumeirah Beach Hotel is the ultimate – while I was there in December, the son of the country's ruler Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, was dining in its magnificently OTT surroundings.
In essence, Dubai is huge fun. You'd probably end up with more gold jewellery than Jimmy Savile if you lived there, but if you can't have a good laugh in Dubai, you probably never will.
* Lessons in Ski Dubai start from £17. Return flights on Virgin Atlantic lead in at £278. Accommodation at the five-star Park Hyatt hotels starts from £233 per night. For bookings, call 08705 747747 or see www.virginatlantic.com.
**Photograph provided courtesy of the Government of Dubai, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing.
Travel Guide: Dubai
A place with wow factor
There is no truth in the newspapers about all the building work ruining holidays here. The place has such a wow factor and the building sites go to great lengths to hide their work.
The place to me is a perfect holday spot and I would love to go again and again.
We spent most of our time at the Jumeriah Beach Hotel and swimming pool. It was perfect.
The weather is really warm and the people were so friendly and helpful.
Travel Guide: Dubai
Fantastic places to eat out
Dubai has some of the friendliest hotel staff you will find anywhere and some of the most varied dining experiences.
Le Royal Meridien, Jumeirah Beach is superb, although the construction work on the way to any of the southern Jumeirah Beach hotels (Sheraton, Hilton, Le Royal Meridien, Oasis, Ritz Carlton, Metropolitan) is a bit off-putting. Most are positioned so that it doesn't affect the beach club area.
The Madinat Jumeirah is very impressive. Though the shopping is limited, the restaurants on the canals are pretty good. But you can only use the abras (water taxis) if you are resident in the hotels (Mina Salam andAl Qasr - both pricey). Even a restaurant reservation will not get you a ride.
The Ibn Battutah Mall has just opened. It is a 10 minute taxi ride from all the above hotels and has at least 200 shops in six zones, with some reasonable food courts and a GEANT supermarket for your juices and creams.
Dubai is great for sun, shopping and sand safaris. But unless you are an outdoors-lover and like looking at sand dunes, don't expect much in the way of history or culture. Most of it has been subsumed below the tower blocks and expressways.
The Gold Souk is worth a trip only if you plan to do some buying and The Creek at night is impressive.
Avoid Deira unless you want to sit in traffic at any time of day.
Travel Guide: Dubai
Great for couples and families
Fantastic place to go for a holiday. The people are very friendly and the place is very safe. Standards in the hotels are extremely high. Shopping is out of this world and the shopkeepers love you to barter with them.
We went in January 2005 and the temperature was really good for walking about in. It was also just pleasant to sit on the beach and get a tan without feeling heat exhaustion.
We were there for the shopping sales and you can get really good bargains.
I would recommend this destination to friends with or without children. The seven hour flight is not too long and the time difference is only four hours.
We will go back there in about 18 months time when all the development has been completed on Jumeriah beach.
At the moment that is the only down side. It looks like and is a building site and may affect your stay in some hotels because the building goes on all night every day.
Out of 10, we rate Dubai as nine. It will be on our list of place to go back.
Travel Guide: Dubai
Amazing nightlife
I got back two days ago from the best holiday I've had in ages. I was a little worried about some of the rules and regulations but I didn't feel restricted at all once I was there.
The nightlife was amazing, if you know where to go, as the hotels all have something special on to entice you into their bars. It's worth asking around.
The temperature was consistently in the mid 30's with a lovely breeze, and water like a bath. I highly recommend the desert safari, which was an absolute scream, and the food was incredible.
The souks were really good for bargain hunting and most places will reduce their prices by up to 50 per cent if you haggle.
All in all, I had a fab time and would go back there again in a second.
Travel Guide: Dubai
A safe place to walk about
If you like friendly people and efficient, helpful staff in hotels,restaurants and shops, go to Dubai.
When Dubai people say "no problem" they actually mean it and are extremely helpful in any situation.
It is very very safe at all hours of day or night. We bought gold jewellery in the Gold Souk and were wary of walking back to the hotel with it but the shop assistant was amazed at our fear.
He said: "You can walk through Dubai with a million pounds in your pocket and you would be quite safe". And he was right .
Travel Guide: Dubai
A fantastic honeymoon destination
We went to Dubai for five days, as part of a tailormade itinerary for our honeymoon, which included the Maldives.
We stayed at the beautiful Sheraton Jumeirah Beach Resort and Towers. It was a fantastic hotel and the food and staff were super. The hotel was located on a private part of the beach.
The weather was so hot and humid. We took a trip out to the desert, where we enjoyed an Arabian night with a BBQ and belly dancers. Worth visiting.
Dubai is also a shopper's heaven!! We visited Wafi City many times, which has many designer shops.
A trip to Dubai is well worth it. We will return to Dubai again some day for a longer stay.
Travel Guide: Dubai
A shopper's paradise
Dubai was one of the last places I ever expected to visit on holiday but to my amazement I found that the city was a wealth of culture,luxury and bizarreness.
I travelled with my 30-year-old daughter to attend a wedding of a friend who has been living and working out in Dubai for some time and we booked into a medium-priced hotel in the centre of Dubai.
The accommodation was immaculate as are all of the hotels that I visited .It would seem that Dubais hotels are of a much higher standard than of anywhere I have visited before. I am a seasoned traveller and in all honesty I was overwhelmed with their luxuriousness.
Please do not go to Dubai if you want a beach holiday as my daughter and I found ourselves on a public beach in our cozzies which was obviously not the done done thing and had to make a hasty retreat.
There are private beaches which you can pay to go on but the standards of the hotels are so good that they usually have their own private beaches.
As for shopping, it is a case of shop to you drop.There are luxurious shopping malls to bizaars, supermarkets and Tiffanys — anything that you want. A shopper's paradise.
Visit the Irish village where you can eat and drink as much as you want for £25 per person. The standard of food was exquisite and all the alcohol we consumed were brands that we all know and love.
There are so many places to visit in Dubai but before you leave make sure that you go on one of the desert safaris.
The trip we opted for was off-road on the biggest dunes you have ever seen and was exhilarating. It was followed with a trip to a Bedouin camp, supper,belly dancing and drinks.
Travel Guide: Dubai
Good for sun not culture
I live and work in the United Arab Emirates, teaching Art and Design. If you are interested in culture then there is nothing much here. It really is just for sun and shopping.
Dubai is a nightmare to get around. There is little public transport and it gets very congested.
Travel Guide: Dubai
Check out the souks
A brilliant experiance. We went in early September and the humidity was unbearable. It was much easier to get around in the evenings.
A must to visit is the Gold Souks. We could have spent a full day there and spent a fortune as well.
A place we'd go back to.
Travel Guide: Dubai
A burgeoning holiday playground
In less than a century Dubai has transformed itself from being a quiet town with Bedouin dwellers housed in huts, to its current kudos as a sun, sand and shopping Mecca.
Holidaymakers now stay in high-end beachside hotels overlooking man-made islands in the sea, and all with a touch of bling thrown in.
Like many, my trip to Dubai started on Jumeirah Beach - a long stretch of coastline along the Arabian Gulf which is home to all the major hotels. White sandy beaches, crystal clear blue waters and pulsating sun is all part of the programme.
Our hotel, the Hilton Jumeirah Beach happened to be located at the far end of the strip furthest away from the city centre.
While the beachside view from our room was spectacular, any of those unfortunate to be housed at the front of the hotel would have been greeted by a building site. This is quite common in Dubai where the amount of new builds - including hotels, private villas and appartment blocks - is growing at a speedy rate.
Some 250,000 Britons head for the Gulf city state's warm climate every year, mainly on package deals. Traditionally Dubai has been a destination where people have stopped-over for a few days, to break their journey on the way to a long-haul destination. But with new hotels aplenty, duty-free shopping, nightlife, and a growing expat community - it has come into its own.
So I was one of the many who had succumbed to a package deal to Dubai. It was July - not the best month to go in terms of weather given that the temperature exceeded 40C - but I was relishing the fact that I got such a great value holiday at a five-star hotel.
Basking in such heat, it is easy to spend time by the swimming pool at the hotel but while most of the resorts have their own leisure facilities, and many have access to their own private beach, it seems a waste not to take a walk along the beach.
However never underestimate the length of that beach - after a 30-minute walk, which began at my hotel, I was still convinced that I was only a matter of minutes away from the facing seven-star hotel, Burj Al Arab. Designed to resemble a sail, the Burj Al Arab dominates Dubai's coastline at 321 metres high.
I gave up walking after 40 minutes resigned to the fact that I'd obviously miscalculated the distance, aside from the fact that I had worked up a sweat, so I decided to take a cab back to my hotel. The cab driver proceeded to laugh at my error before telling me that the Burj is at least a 25-minute cab ride from the Hilton.
I managed to go to the Burj the next day, but if you want to take a look inside you have to pay for the privilege. Over-the-top with gold and ornaments flash, the hotel borders on the tacky and for some, even tasteless.
I decided that what I had seen was more than enough for me. The Emiratis are obviously proud of their architecture and the high rise buildings which dominate the Dubai skyline, but it is undoubtedly ostentatious in nature.
Travel Guide: Dubai
Clean and safe
Dubai has something for everyone .... beach lovers, shopaholics, culture vultures, sport lovers are all more than welcome.
The choice of restaurants is mind-boggling ranging from American Tex-Mex to tapas to Russian to Filipino.
Shopping is great from designer to high street to local items from the mall and souks.
Don't miss a trip on the water taxis, 'Abras', which will happily cruise up and down the Creek, past dhows laden with cargo for destinations such as the Indian Sub-Continent and Iran.
Dubai Museum is worth a visit if you'd like to find out what Dxb was like prior to oil money.
Dubai is safe, clean, multi-cultural and I am proud to call it home.
A winning holiday
Eastern playground of the future
Dubai has been described as the Las Vegas of the Middle East. After Abu Dhabi it's the second largest state in the United Arab Emirates, but the one which shouts the loudest for holidaymakers to come and visit.
In fact the tourist population here is expected to almost triple from six to 15 million people a year by 2016. But with searing summer temperatures and a lack of obvious natural attractions, Bedouin desert trips aside, you start to wonder just what Dubai has got up it's sleeve to pull in so many. A weekend trip was to throw up enough clues.
Stepping off the plane at Dubai International Airport felt like opening an oven door, as heat envelopes you instantly. Admittedly August may not be the best time to visit a place where the daily temperature often hits 43c by 11am but air conditioning here is omnipresent in almost every hotel, restaurant and shopping mall. In fact such buildings become life rafts in a sea of heat.
Our journey out of the airport took us along Sheikh Zayed Road, its skyscrapers resembling shiny steel dominoes as they spring up through the heat haze. Not far behind them lies either the sea or desert and with little congestion it seems metropolitan life is only just beginning to unfold in this city of the future.
Unlike most other cities whose appeal is founded in their past, their historic architecture or people who once lived there, Dubai is exceptional in making you wonder not how it once looked but how it will appear months and years from now.
Tantalising glimpses are everywhere. We drive close to a building with three cranes perched on top. By 2011 this building, the Burj Dubai, is due to be the tallest skyscraper in the world.
Towards the sea, about 4km off the Jumeirah coast and two years from now the World Islands will be completed. This collection of 300 artificial man-made islands shaped into global continents to resemble the world is truly a sight to behold.
Equally mindblowing is a trip to Dubailand. As we approach the reception area of a quiet building on Emirates road, only a couple of tigers wandering nonchalantly around outside give a hint of the circus to come.
Inside this building is a scaled down replica model of a proposed £10bn theme park covering 280 sq km. It's just astonishing. Perhaps to preserve an air of mystery, photos can't be taken of this model but it is hoped that the development will attract at least five million tourists by the middle of next decade when building of this themed world playground is due to be near completion.
Such schemes create the sense that almost anything is possible in Dubai, a state seemingly unrestrained by either planning permission or, it has to be said, good taste. In fact, not even the sweltering heat will prevent you from indulging in a snowball fight here, should you so desire.
The Ski Dubai complex at the Mall of the Emirates opened earlier this year and it comes complete with a St Moritz cafe, real snow and five runs, the longest being 400 metres with a fall of 60 metres. The strange shaped rectangular object sticking up in the skyline at the back of the dome where we parked up to have a look is a ski slope.
Further along the sky line a terrifyingly high water slide snakes into view. This belongs to Wild Wadi, a water park where we spent an afternoon drifting on a lazy river, and being blasted up water chutes on rubber rings.
Climbing the Jumeirah Sceirah (a 33 metre high tower, launchpad to the water slide) also provides one of the best views of Dubai's most recognisable landmark - the sail shaped Burj Al Arab hotel, billed as the world's only a seven star hotel, opposite. But the glimpse may only be fleeting as the sheer terror of sliding back down to earth - at 80km an hour, renders any sight seeing secondary to survival.
A short drive away from Wild Wadi is Jumeirah beach. Cooling off is almost impossible here with sand that is too hot to walk on barefoot and sea water the same temperature as a luke warm bath.
Unsurprisingly few tourists leave their hotel resort and swimming pool unless it's to swap one air conditioned environment for another - such as the myriad of malls that proliferate the whole area. Among the best of the malls we visited was Ibn Battuta, with it's themed courts and cheaply priced suits and jewellery.
Given the tax incentives and the fact that Dubai is on the threshold of both Asia and Europe, its attempts to corner the mass tourist market in this region of the world are more than just a brave throw of the dice. By turning desert land into an air conditioned fast thrills, themed world environment, it will definitely give Sin City a run for it's money to the point that perhaps one day Las Vegas may be described as the Dubai of the Mid West.
Feeling inspired? Book a holiday
Travel guide: Dubai
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| | | | Do buy duty free goods
Artificial may be de rigeur in Dubai but the city undeniably feeds people's pleasures. When tourists aren't sunbathing or engaging in some of the many excellent watersports activities (including water-skiing, jet-skiing, diving and fishing), they can be found in one of the shopping centres.
Famed for tax-free shopping, I headed for Dubai's most popular shopping area, Deira City Centre, where you will find European favourites such as Zara, Mango, Diesel, The Levi's Store, Virgin Megastore and even Ikea.
An air-conditioned mall is a safe haven when its too hot as you will find many locals cooling off there. January and February are the best months to come to shop as the Dubai Shopping Festival takes place.
And for some bling bling or added kitsch value, my next stop was the Gold Souq in Bur Dubai. Although the bright yellow gold may not be to everyone's taste, whether you buy anything or not this is a good place to come to soak up the atmosphere.
Bur Dubai also has some fantastic local eateries where you can pick up Lebanese mezze dishes including grilled meats and houmous.
At the spice souq, I picked up some saffron (at a reasonable price) and dates filled with almonds. I also managed to find a sheesha (Arabian water pipe) for under £15.
Don't forget to set some money aside to spend at the airport, where duty-free shopping is unrivalled - I have known a few Italians who have flown in to Dubai just to shop at the airport.
Whether you are on a family trip, a couple or on holiday with a group of friends - Dubai caters for all. It is also a great place for the young and glamorous. Although the United Arab Emirates is a Muslim country, it is more relaxed compared to others and alcohol is tolerated in the Dubai's bars, clubs, restaurants and hotels.
In the last decade, a budgeoning club scene has arisen attracting some of the world's big name DJs.
With Dubai growing at an increasingly fast rate, it would be interesting to go back there in five years to see how the landscape has changed, as well as soak up the sun, and maybe catch the camel racing season - oh yes, and indulge in a bit of shopping.
Thinking of a holiday to Dubai? Book now
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