Feels so unreal looking back at 2020, 2021 and the first half of 2022 where the better part of our daily lives were confined to four walls of our homes. Talk about all the advancements humanity has achieved, and yet there was a pandemic which locked down almost the entire population of this planet. Equally pleasing is the resilience and speed with which all of us sprung back to our pre Covid era lives; meeting friends and family, travelling, resuming office in person etc. Our generation has a story to tell for sure.
As the travels started opening up, we planned a stopover in Dubai for 6 days while returning from India. Here’s a travelogue of that trip; we are sharing our experiences and few smart tips to save some serious money here so to help our fellow CANadian Amchigeles who want to plan a similar trip. Please note these are personal experiences, this may change on your personal situation or travel plans. Likewise, the price mentioned here can change depending on the service provider when you plan the trip. No liability assumed here 😊
The Tickets
For the most part what we saw that Emirates did not charge extra for a stopover in Dubai in comparison how much we would have paid for a round trip without stops. This is great savings as usually there are “taxes” and “fees” which cost. Besides, Emirates is the best choice if you want to do Dubai. The visa is on arrival for Canadian citizens, more details about the visas required are available on the UAE govt website. Even if you had to obtain a Dubai visa, the process is straightforward, we know this firsthand because we had to do this in our last trip. So, tickets, we booked it with our own Ulhas Kamath who takes good care of our booking every time. If you want to do it yourself, book it online using the multi city option on Emirates site. We don’t recommend doing it through other sites as any changes may attract additional penalties or fees.
The Hotel
We had infants with us, so we needed a suite with kitchenette. We chose Element Al Mina, Bur Dubai (more on the location choice down below). Dubai has rooms of all sizes, budget and types – ultra luxury to cheap hotels, everything in between. We booked hotel ourselves. Elements belongs to Westin, Marriott family of hotels. The room itself was luxurious but we encountered several issues throughout our stay. We had to pretty much call service everyday; the water wasn’t hot enough two days, clothes washer broke, AC unit was leaking occasionally, hotel was running short of towels! A very mediocre experience. However the breakfast was included and it was great, chefs always have Indian food in the kitchen, so if you don’t like what you see in the breakfast buffet you can always ask and something delicious comes out. Things to look for when you book the hotel –
- See if there is a travel desk, this helps a lot when you have to do day trips.
- Make sure hotel has a grocery store close by – this will save you lots of dollars if hotel charges you for water bottles (for us they didn’t charge extra).
- If you are a person who wants to take local transit, stay close to a metro station. Dubai is a very hot place.
- Stay close to Bur Dubai if you wish to eat Indian food by ordering via Careem or Zomato apps. Bur Dubai has all Indian restaurants.
The Food
We are foodies; love trying different cuisines. My wife looks up for all the good food joints and has a plan before we land. Dubai never ceases to amaze us with the food choices. Similar to hotels, there’s a vast choice of cuisines and options. Our only plan which didn’t materialize when it came to food was brunch at Burj Al Arab. Burj Al Arab has several restaurants which serve brunch, but unfortunately all of them had age restrictions. Having a reservation at one of these restaurants also gives you entry to Burj Al Arab, if not, there is a fee to this. At the time of writing 12 years of age or so was the minimum. So we couldn’t go there as we had infants. Other than that here are the restaurants we tried –
- Arabian Tea House – MUST MUST MUST try. Don’t miss this. Plan to visit around noon-ish, so you can start with a breakfast menu and at 1 PM they have the lunch menu. Yes, it’s brunch but has separate menus. We had Emirati platter for breakfast and a chicken curry dish from the lunch menu. Emirati platter is so delicious, the different dishes they serve tantalizes every taste bud with different tastes. Simply amazing!
- Art of Dum – must try chicken biryani
- Bangalore Sreeraj lassi – perhaps we were too thirsty, really amazing saffron lassi
- Shetty lunch home – well, we had enough of mangalorean food while in India, this was an overkill. But the preparations are good. Signature prawn ghee roast.
- Gazebo
- Calicut Paragon – don’t miss mussels tawa fry here.
- Aroos Damascus
- Few Lebanese shawarma places – nothing notable there, but there are good restaurants which we didn’t get to taste.
- Bateel date shop – not a restaurant, but fancy dates shop if you want to buy it on your return. You find these in the malls and it’s a chain. Delicious dates.
If you chose to get food delivered to your hotel room, use Zomato or another delivery app for food, but you need a local Dubai phone number for coordination. Otherwise many a times you may not get food delivered as the restaurant may be trying to reach out to you. Read below how to get a phone number.
Local Transfers
Commute/transfer expenses can add up if you are not smart about it. Your rides can be anything between Uber, Careem, a cab (taxi) or metro. Here’s a list of transfers/commute you need while in Dubai –
- Airport transfers to & from hotel.
- Local transfers to attractions, malls etc.
Uber is the most expensive option. Usually 5-10 AED expensive than Careem for a ride. Careem is more expensive than a local cab (I think its called Hala taxis). Metro is the cheapest. Careem is your friend, you can book both uber styled cabs as well as Hala taxis on Careem besides ordering food to groceries. Below are some tips in order to save on local transfers –
- If you are close to metro and you have the option to take a train, go for it. If not,
- Check if you have an option to book local taxi (Careem app or otherwise, they always go by the meter fare). If not,
- Go to the hotel desk/travel desk agent and ask them to call a cab, if not,
- Use Careem to book a taxi, If not,
- Use Uber
For the hotel transfers from/to airport, if you are travelling light, just walk outside airport and take a cab/limo. If you need a van because you are carrying a large number of bags or have 4+ people in the group, ask for a van by calling the hotel desk. They usually arrange for it, and its much cheaper than you doing it yourself. Arranging it from Canada or India could be more expensive.
Many attractions can be visited by booking a taxi for a number of hours. If you have a travel agent at your hotel, you can negotiate the cab for AED 550 or so for 10 hours. Cab driver will drop you at attractions and wait. Having phone is important to coordinate – read below how to get a phone. You can also get pricier options – anywhere between 70AED to 95AED per hour if you need a SUV. Key is you don’t leave the cabbie waiting on you, i.e. do not go anywhere having cab wait where it takes long time to return – for ex: Burj Khalifa will take atlast 2-3 hours or more depending on the crowd, and you don’t want the cabbie just waiting for you down there. You can still do Burj Khalifa in the day trip, but just end the trip there to save.
The Phone
You need a local phone number to coordinate and make bookings. Best option is to pick a free sim available at the airport. Do not leave airport without picking it up, otherwise you have to take a hike just to pick up the sim. The sim you get at airport gives you a GB of data or so for 2-3 days. You need to recharge it and you can do it online. Plans are a bit pricey, I think we went for a 95AED/~40CAD or so plan which gave 30 days validity and 6GB or so. Was sufficient for 6 day trip.
The Attractions – Its all about attractions!
There are a number of them; perhaps you can spend 2 weeks visiting all of those, but you would want to have a list of top attractions to visit. Here are few top ones, new attractions keep cropping up, so check what’s the latest on travel websites. We were able to complete most of these with the exception of a couple of them.
- Museum of the future – Book tickets well in advance of your travel. These are pricey tickets, so buying it last minute in black will cost you north of 150 CAD pp.
- Dubai Frame – 30 minutes to 2 hours, depending on whether you chose to go to the top.
- Dubai Mall – can spend a day here.
- La Mer beach
- Ibn Batuta mall
- Burj Khalifa
- Fountains – there are shows every evening, both free and paid tickets. 10 minutes show or so.
- IMG world – you need atleast 6-8 hours here. This is outside Dubai, and a cab ride is good 70-80 AED one way.
- Global village
- Miracle garden
- Glow garden – don’t miss this. This is great for kids.
- Atlantis – you can spend a day if you are going to the waterpark or the shows. Or you could do this in 30 minutes if its just peeking in.
- Palm Jumeirah – you need to take a metro ride if you want to see the fronds. Unless you take a helicopter ride, you cannot see this in entirety.
- Burj Al Arab (see comments on visiting this in The Food section above)
- Gold Souk
- Spice Souk
- Dhow cruise – take the high end ones, low end ones are crappy based on our research. We went to Xclusive Marina cruise – it’s a 5 star experience for views and live music, but 3* for the food although the catering was by a well known international hotel brand.
- Walk along Marina – evening walk is great – but take a mosquito repellant with you.
- City walk – this was a nice surprise – we didn’t plan this as such.
- Desert safari – we couldn’t do this as we had infants with us.
- Number of night clubs – all high-end hotels have their own dance floor.
Many of these attractions can be completed in a day. You just need to plan it. All depends on how early you want to start the day and how much you can walk. You get a lot of coupons online; also most importantly check Emirates website where you will find a number of deals for attractions if you are a tourist and booked tickets on emirates, you just need to take the boarding pass to the attractions and your passport. So don’t miss out on these offers.
The Shopping
Dubai is a great shopping destination for spice to gold and everything in between – every luxury brand has a large presence here. Good thing about shopping here is that you get to claim 85% of the VAT that you pay at the time of departure. The process is very easy and seamless. This is how it works at a high level (but refer to govt websites for upto date info always) –
- Purchase from one of the stores which has a Planet logo or you ask whether purchases are eligible for VAT refund. Planet is the partner which handles VAT returns to you at the airport while you return.
- Once you make a purchase, make sure you get the Planet sticker on the invoice. This has a code which can be scanned in the airport.
- On your return, reach airport well in advance to avoid lines at planet counter, keep the invoice and the article you purchased handy. You have to show all these at the counter.
- After bag drop and checkin, complete security. Soon after security gates, you will find the green Planet counter. MAKE SURE THE ARTICLE IS WITH YOU. IF YOU CHECK IT IN AND DON’T HAVE IT HANDY, YOU CANNOT CLAIM THE REFUND.
- Show the invoice and the article, and they will initiate refund in less than a minute. Takes a week to deposit in your Canadian credit or debit card.
There is a minimum thresholds to get refunds, I believe its AED 250 purchase. Its not available on tourist attraction tickets.
Other Important Things To Remember
- It’s a hot place in summer – wear clothes accordingly.
- Look up for dress code when you plan to visit high-end restaurants – and dress accordingly.
- Take close to 1500 AED in cash, unless your credit card gives you really attractive exchange rate. Usually Canadian credit or debit card takes 5%+ in exchange fees – which is very expensive. You can save by buying AED beforehand in Canada prior to your travel. Do not buy forex at airports – its very expensive.
- Hire a porter in the airport if you have overly large number of bags. Its cheap and well worth as the airport is massive. Its a flat rate of 100 AED/ ~40 CAD at the time we travelled.
- You can rent strollers – we rented from Stroller Spa Dubai; amazing service – five stars. We got the stroller dropped and picked up from hotel. So it was a breeze.
- Walk to grocery store or use Careem app for deliveries. Its super cheap than buying at the hotel.
- We didn’t explore renting our own vehicle, but it may work out cheaper than spending on taxis.
The Conclusion
Overall Dubai is a great destination, must visit in one’s lifetime. Dubai is one of the very few cultural melting pots in the world where you get truly authentic experiences – be it food or stay (yes, there are themed hotels/resorts). The energy and vibes are great, it will leave you mesmerized and wanting to have more of it. Hope this travelogue will help CANadian Amchigeles who are contemplating a trip to Dubai. Happy smart traveling and safe travels!