1. Find the best bargains online and get your ticket in advance, never show up and buy a ticket.
Now here's something that surprised me but I learnt my lesson after having made this mistake once - always book your visit to the tourist attraction in Dubai in advance. I was reluctant to do that on the first day as I had a tiring overnight journey to Dubai, I wasn't sure if I would be in any fit state to face the afternoon heat and go sightseeing or if I just wanted to collapse into a deep sleep at the hotel. However, my husband was hungry so we went out for a nice lunch - after I had some fuel in the tank I felt ready to go sightseeing and so we just turned up at the Burj Khalifa, not realizing that the prices I had seen online were advanced booking discounted tickets and the full price tickets were so much more expensive. Urgh, I had learnt my lesson then - always book online for the best prices and you're going to be charged a lot more if you turn up somewhere and just say, "can I have two tickets please." There are also combination tickets which will allow you entry to a few tourist attractions for one price and these are also definitely worth getting. I was not anticipating this as I thought that if you bought a ticket for a tourist attraction through a third party you would pay more as that third party would want to make a profit, but ironically I ended up paying more by actually showing up in person at the tourist attraction to buy a ticket there. I suppose that's a stupidity tax - "you are too disorganized to book your ticket in advance, so now we ste going to charge you a much higher fee to punish you for failing to plan ahead!" We're not talking about a very small difference, oh no - the price can be as much as 10% to 20% more for the idiots (like me) who didn't buy their tickets in advance online. Ouch, I made that mistake just once, thankfully I learned my lesson quickly after that.
2. The Dubai public transport system
Dubai actually has a really good public transport system with the metro (similar to the Underground in London, the MRT in Singapore or the Subway in New York), trams and buses. You will need to get the Nol Card to use the public transport and if you're in Dubai for a few days, it is definitely worth getting it as it will give you a much cheaper price for your journey compared to if you bought a single/return ticket. How much your journey costs depends on how many zones your journey covers and a journey within the same zone costs just 4 AED (US$1.09, £0.90, S$1.47) and if you travel across two zones, that goes up to 6 AED (US$1.63, £1.36, S$2.21). Everything on the Dubai public transport system is clearly signposted in English and the staff will always speak English fluently if you need any help. The trains are regular, very clean and run on time - even the bus system is super efficient. I was particularly impressed with the air-conditioned bus stops, not every bus stop has this facility but they are common in Dubai. You get to wait for your bus in air-conditioned comfort and I have experienced lousy air-conditioning in other parts of Asia where it is not effective enough and you're still sweating, but no - this is Dubai where summer temperatures can hit 50 degrees, they don't mess around when it comes to air-conditioning and the air-conditioned bus stop shelters are so cold you'll be shivering in there. It can take you over an hour to travel from one end of Dubai in Deira to the other end to Dubai Marina, but I am impressed with how efficient, clean and cool it is. There are women and children only carriages and gold class carriages, like a first class carriage, for passengers who have purchased a more expensive ticket, so they do not have to squeeze with the masses at rush hour - this is such a quick, easy and comfortable way for tourists to travel around Dubai and it is very convenient.
3. Dubai is expensive, very expensive.
I'm from London and even I found Dubai expensive! Let's compare a popular London tourist attraction with the equivalent in Dubai - a trip to the very top of the Burj Khalifa will cost you about 400 AED (exchange rate varies but at today's rate it is £90.35) but to visit the London Shard (the tallest building in Western Europe - there are two buildings in Russia taller than the Shard) is just £32 - that's for a full priced ticket. So as you can see, that's nearly triple what I would pay in London. Another expensive but fun experience I had was Ski Dubai where I paid 250 AED (about £56.50) for a two hour pass, a similar ticket in Snozone Milton Keynes (just outside London) would cost me £35. As you can see, such the prices in the UK are always a lot lower than in Dubai for a similar type of activity. The reason why such popular tourist attractions in Dubai are so expensive is because they cost a lot to build and maintain - Aquaventure is the world's largest water theme park and they have invested a lot of money to build such a massive entertainment venue which requires not just a lot of maintenance but a lot of staff as well. Then as for Ski Dubai, the world's biggest indoor ski slope: well that is a 16-storey high artificial ski slope in the middle of the desert and it has to be kept between -2 and -3 degrees so the snow doesn't melt no matter how hot it gets outside - how much do you think that's going to cost? Now don't get me wrong, if you do go to Dubai, then just spend the money and have a fantastic time there but these are very expensive adventures for tourists with a lot of money. If you're after a cheaper holiday, you would be better off going to somewhere like Istanbul or Tbilisi exploring the quaint old towns there and the prices there for everything would be so much lower than Dubai. No, Dubai is the playground for the rich and if you have a lot of money, then you will have a great time there, but if you are on a budget, oh then it is best to avoid Dubai altogether or at least watch the video below for great useful money-saving tips.
4. With the right people you can always bargain.
Oh you must be prepared to bargain in Dubai, so please allow me to give you two examples of when I managed to bargain for a better price in Dubai. The first was when I bargained for my desert safari - now there are different kinds of desert safari packages available at different prices. If you booked online, you wouldn't be able to negotiate a price but I actually met a Pakistani man who had a travel agent near my hotel so I chatted to him on a few occasions before deciding to book with him. He gave me a price for the desert safari I wanted to go on and I told him, there are two of us booking this trip, so if you can give us a 20% discount on the total price, I will shake your hand and give you the money right now. I am not sure how many people bargained with him but he was happy to give me that discount if it meant that he could get my business. I did then come across a similar travel agent offering the exact same desert safari in a mall, but the price they were charging was so much more because they had to pay a lot of rent to have a nice unit in that mall so I was very pleased that I got a good deal. The second bargain I got was with a restaurant - I was looking for somewhere to have dinner with my husband and we found a nice Iranian restaurant with a set meal offer, but the waitress said, I'm sorry sir but that set meal is only for lunch time, could I show you our dinner menu? I then said in that case, no thank you and I began to walk away, but she then said okay, fine sir, I can offer you that lunch time offer. I then returned and realized okay, I am so going to bargain you down. This time I couldn't get her to budge on the price of the meal but she agreed to throw in a free side dish for us that was not part of the lunch offer. I knew I could push my luck with this lady at the Iranian restaurant as it was rather empty and there were many restaurants in that mall all competing for a limited number of customers. I'm not saying that bargaining will always yield good results in Dubai but there are times when you can always try; you don't ask, you don't get, so what have you got to lose by simply asking in this case?
5. Which part of Dubai should I stay in?
Dubai is a big sprawling city along the coast facing the Persian Gulf, from end to end, the city stretches approximately 40 km along the coast and most of it is covered by the Dubai metro but not all. I don't think it really matters which end of Dubai you stay in as the many popular tourist attractions are spread all over, so you're inevitably going to have to travel further for some than the others and thus basing yourself in the middle might be a compromise. However, given how convenient and efficient the metro system is, I'd say as long as you're close to a metro station, you'll be alright. Just be aware that some luxury hotels are in the middle of nowhere, far from any public transport links - that's because these luxury developments need a lot of space and if it a really expensive hotel, they just assume that their guests would never use public transport and would simply take a taxi to the hotel. So if you do intend to use Dubai's public transport, always check whether you accommodation is relatively close to a metro station or at least a bus stop. Bear in mind that walking distance in that extreme Dubai heat ought to be under 500 meters or else you will arrive at the metro station, tram stop or bus stop completely dripping with sweat, if you'd just walked in that extremely harsh desert heat for any amount of time.
6. Avoid summer, the closer you get to winter the better.
I was in Dubai in late November and even then it was so hot. It felt decidedly tropical like Singapore, with highs of about 34 degrees in the day and night time temperatures falling no lower than 26 degrees. When you're trying to do any kind of sightseeing in that heat, you're just drenched with sweat and constantly exhausted. In late December, it can be around 23 or 24 degrees in the day and around 16 degrees at night, making it a lot more pleasant and the best time to visit - but that also means that there are a lot more tourists at that time of the year so you have to queue a lot longer for all the popular tourist destinations and you will pay a lot more for your hotel accommodation as winter is peak season. Trying to do anything in the week between Christmas and new year is also a pain as Dubai is super crowded then not just with tourists but also with locals who have taken some time off work Whilst Christmas is not officially a public holiday in the UAE, many companies with significant number of foreign staff who celebrate Christmas will give their staff the day off and thus it is like an unofficial holiday there. Late January and February is a good time to visit too as the weather is still quite cool and Dubai is less crowded then. However if you can bear with the desert heat, there are many offers in the summer.
7. Avoid visiting during Ramadan - or not?
Ramadan is the ninth month in the Islamic calendar - this will vary year on year, so always double check before you plan your trip to Dubai. So for example, eating and drinking in public is strictly prohibited and a criminal offence during Ramadan. You will also struggle to find a bar that can serve you alcohol during Ramadan - this will be restricted to bars in certain hotels with a license and it will be ridiculously expensive. I'm not just talking Dubai prices but totally rip-off daylight robbery expensive. "You want a beer during Ramadan? Here's our prices, if you're not happy, good luck to you trying to find somewhere else in this area that will be allowed to serve you an alcoholic beverage during Ramadan." Ironically, many of the popular tourist attractions are still open during Ramadan but the restaurants and cafes will be closed so imagine spending a day at the water theme park Aquaventure or doing on the exciting desert safari but not being able to drink or eat anything in public without breaking the rules. It is a double edged sword, whilst many tourists do avoid the Middle East altogether during Ramadan as a result but that means that Dubai is a lot quieter in that period; you could get some great bargains, if you are willing to put up with the restrictions associated with the Ramadan period.
8. Dubai as a stopover rather than your final destination.
I heard from my sister that some of her friends are heading to Dubai for a holiday and they are only headed to Dubai, nowhere else, then coming right back to Singapore. If you're going to go all the way to Dubai from somewhere like Singapore or London, You have two options - firstly, you can make another city like Muscat or Istanbul your destination but book a flight with Emirates that goes through Dubai, but you break your journey in Dubai so you make the most of your stopover there. The other options is to do what I did on this trip - get out of Dubai and see other parts of the UAE. Either way, you can then see a lot more than just Dubai on your holiday and get a far bigger variety of interesting experiences on your holiday. I suppose if you're from a small village in the middle of nowhere then visiting one of Dubai's many mega malls might be a treat but if you're from Singapore or London, then going shopping in Dubai does seem pointless and a waste of time. In any case, there are no bargains in those malls - remember, Dubai is an expensive city!
9. Be prepared to follow the rules. 100%. No ifs, no buts.
The UAE is not the kind of place you want to get into the trouble with the law and if your idea of a holiday involves wild parties, getting drunk and other forms of debauchery then please, I'm no prude but I'd advice you to go to a more liberal country for that kind of holiday and avoid the UAE. I am perfectly fine with abstaining from alcohol as I have not touched alcohol for over 20 years and am completely teetotal, but there is content on my phone that identifies me as a gay man so if my phone was searched, then I could have faced the death sentence in Dubai despite the fact that I obviously did not dare to have sex with another man whilst in the UAE. But like so many tourists, my trip to the UAE was peaceful and I didn't encounter any such problems on my trip. The only problem I face was health related when I succumbed to a stomach bug one day, but if you are going to the UAE on holiday or on business then you really need to be aware of the laws of the UAE. If you are drunk and throwing up in the streets of Dubai, you could potentially end up in a lot of trouble in a way you never would in Paris, New York or Tokyo. Dubai is one of the safest cities in the world because of the way the laws are very strictly enforced and that's part of the attraction of Dubai - you're not going to find the kind of rowdy, drunken behaviour in places like Corfu, Ibiza or Mallorca. That is why some people do regard Dubai as the classier, more expensive destination where the louts who intent to get drunk and cause trouble are kept away as a result of these very strict laws. I tried to Google a story of a drunk British woman who got into a lot of trouble in Dubai but found two versions of it - in the British press, she was portrayed as an innocent tourist who was singled out for drinking alcohol whilst in the UAE press, she was portrayed as a belligerent trouble maker who thought she was above the law and was very rude to the local officials when challenged and that was why I didn't feel comfortable sharing a story like that. So you make up your own mind on the issue, but do be aware of the facts then make an informed decision on this aspect of life in Dubai.
10. No more Covid-19 restrictions
You'll be pleased to know that there are no more Covid related restrictions in Dubai or Abu Dhabi - there were all kinds of restrictions during the pandemic of course and I even downloaded their local Covid-tracking app prior to my trip. In the end, it wasn't needed at all - nobody checked my vaccination details at the airport (I am fully vaccinated) or anywhere else. I had a mask on me at all times but wasn't required to wear it once (so I never did). Some people still wear masks in public in Dubai today but that's now entirely a matter of personal choice in the UAE. So that's it from me on this and it rounds up my stories from Dubai; I hope you have found my tips useful to plan your trip to the region and if you have other tips and interesting experiences to share from Dubai, please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
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