[Closed] Tell me about Dubai.

No, No and dont know.

Water is by bottled only. For some reason the public beach is very silty but if you are diving/snorkeling further out you may be okay.

Dubai? A hateful, plastic, fake, evil, awful place.

hth.

Not my first choice by a long shot but free is free.
However if I am going to spend a week cuddling a toilet with not even fish in the sea to look forward to.
I would rather go to Devon.

My wife is going for a few days in November with friends. I cannot see the appeal of the place and have no intention of ever going.

tree-magnet +1

But hope you have a lovely time.

Spent 5 days there during my honeymoon.

A soulless place full of monied up, arrogant pricks.

Wouldn't go back if you paid me.

I've had a few long stop-overs and once had to spend 2 days stuck it that shithole of a country, no matter how much you paid me i'd rather get my scrotum nailed to a ceiling fan than ever return in my lifetime - I've paid hundreds of pounds extra for long haul flights that do not stop in the country. It's a hateful, disgusting, fake, synthetic hell of a place to visit that should be wiped from the earth. Anyone who sings the praises of the place is either deluded or a ****wit....or both.

My advice is get in the sea and just keep paddling till you reach somewhere else.

Ok, Devon it is!

I stayed there for 5 nights a few weeks ago at the Atlantis Palm resort I loved it and will go back.
Was probably a bit too hot in Late August and I'll do late September next time. Can't understand the animosity here.
Devon??? Seriously there's no comparison!!

Tree-magnet +2 and I wrote a guidebook to the place.
But in answer to your questions: water is fine but you'll be lucky to see anything living snorkeling. And I wouldn't take drugs through the country no matter if i had a prescription. If you have to go there, I'd recommend getting heinously drunk while reading AA Gill's Vanity Fair article about Dubai. Sorry to be negative it I can't think of a single redeeming feature... I guess blatting about the desert in a Porsche Cayenne could be fun for 30 minutes.

Can't understand the animosity here.

Off the top of my head:

Slave labour (or as close as you can get to it).
No culture.
Massive amount of energy per person to essentially turn the desert into disneyland.
Dickhead expats who are basically all the equivalent of bankers lording it up.

Good article in the independent that sums it up:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

I have to transit through on my way to work, and always spend the minimum amount of time there as possible. Spend on average 2 or 3 days there every 3 months as my head office is there. I'd rather get to work quicker, and I work in Basrah. Nuff sed.

Slave labour: I didn't get that feeling of exploitation and desperation from the hospitality staff in Dubai that I've had in many other middle eastern and ALL Asian countries I've visited.
No culture: agree most of what they do in that city is copy other countries ideas and do them bigger, better. It's not culture but it's very entertaining.
Energy: yeh they do that as well as waste heaps of water but why do I as a tourist need to feel bad about that.
Expats: to be honest the majority of British Expats are dickheads everywhere I've travelled and where I live IMO. Theres a superiority complex and arrogance that they share only with Americans. There are exceptions of course. I didn't encounter any in Dubai but I don't doubt they're there.

If you want a good time Dubai has copied most iconic worldwide structures and done it bigger and better. It's not original or cultured but it's the most outrageous city I've visited in a long time whereas Devon is well .... just Devon.

I think the 'slave labour' comment comes from the fact that the construction companies build their skyscrapers using immigrants with no work permits and no unions. When pay day comes, they just sack them and higher new ones to avoid labour costs. There is such a massive influx of people from surrounding countries desperate to work that they never have worry about labour. They're very high and mighty about cultural traditions, but their working practices are third world; they've no moral high ground. I had a layover period on my way to Thailand with my girlfriend. We were warned in no uncertain terms not to kiss, conuddle, snuggle, hold hands or appear to have anything other a mild Superior + Minion relationship.
However, go to the Burj Kalifa, get an ice coffee, sit beneath it and stare at it's vast height and imagine it crumbling back to Earth in a few hundred years time... It's a spectacular vision! The Souks are over rated but worth a visit.

Me and the missus spent a few days there on our honeymoon. I didn't like it at all. A city with absolutely no soul or vibe.

Imagine if the people who designed Milton Keynes had had 500 times the budget, built a city in the desert, populated it with the worst pricks in Clapham and then imposed the drinking regulations of upstate Utah.

Enjoy your trip!

I've had a few long stop-overs and once had to spend 2 days stuck it that shithole of a country, no matter how much you paid me i'd rather get my scrotum nailed to a ceiling fan than ever return in my lifetime - I've paid hundreds of pounds extra for long haul flights that do not stop in the country. It's a hateful, disgusting, fake, synthetic hell of a place to visit that should be wiped from the earth. Anyone who sings the praises of the place is either deluded or a ****wit....or both.

I don't normally like to get into mud slinging on here, but this is one of the most childish, silly pieces i've ever read.

I work in the Middle East and often pass through the place. It's not great...but generally the Emirati's aren't a bad bunch.

The airport is clean and efficient; why you would pay "hundreds of pounds" extra to avoid the best airport and regional hub in the area, which is serviced by Emirates which is one of the worlds best and most pleasant airlines is beyond me. You're obviously " deluded or a ****wit....or both"

You're right...everything is a bit gold coloured, over priced, a little naff...but they didn't exactly have a lot going for them in the first place...it was just a desert.

The Emirati border security people are normally very thorough, but polite and fair. I wouldn't worry about night nurse or your wifes medicine.

I wouldn't take a holiday there myself; but each to their own. It is sometimes not an awful option to stay a couple of days after having been somewhere like Jeddah.

The old town is ok.

Not quite Dubai but Abu Dhabi's just next door and I've had an absolutely brilliant time there each trip at the end of November the last two years.

Thursday night flight from Manc, arrive bleary eyed early Friday morning. Jump in the Jeep, drive for absolutely miles across the desert to Bandar Jissah, hire a fishing boat and head out to the cliffs, do a few climbs then get some zeds, up early the next day - back out to the cliffs, climb, fall through the air, land in the sea. Climb back in the boat, new dry shorts, chalk bag and rock boots. Try another climb. Repeat until either the tide goes out or all 5 pairs of rockboots are wet.
Drive back into the mountains, camp drink beer, eat beef, go for another climb by headtorch.
Get up the next day and do some amazing 35m pitches in glorious sun. Camp, etc etc.
Drive back to Abu on Monday evening just in time for the overnight flight back for work on Tuesday. 2 days holiday, 4 days climbing including some amazing deep water soling on the 2nd of December.

What's not to like....

Having said which we never went any nearer to Dubai than the ring road and I also would rather stick pins in my eyes than spend any time in the actual city.

Dubai is a dump, if you like it the chances are you drive a white German car !

What's not to like

Heights.

You know they don't even like the flintstones there ?

😳

I have a white German car, and my wife has a 4x4 (or is that another topic?). I hate dubai with a passion, it is fake, over rated, over priced and boring... However the weather is warm in the winter and the hospitality good- only due to the migrant workers mainly from the Indian subcontinent, a job you rarely see a local doing as it is considered too demeaning...

Fair enough Joe but i still stand by everything i stated but then again i imagine others on here would turn their nose up at some of the country's/places i prefer to visit but that's why we can have a discussion rather than a verbal slanging match

If you like shopping malls, extravagant shows of wealth, state sponsored news coverage, fake islands, fake people, no culture/history, expensive restaurants, **** disgusting labour laws, not ok to show affection for your gf/wife/boyfriend in public but you want a prostitute? - no problem.....here's one we shipped in earlier, you want a young boy?......etc...etc...etc

The country is the epitome of vulgarity imho.

It's where John Terry holidays.....says it all

You have all reinforced my prejudices about the place. Someone I really dislike goes there a lot , so all in all I'm out.
We turned down a holiday in Vegas a few years back and went to Scotland instead.
We may not get the weather here but its still possible to have a great holiday.

Do a search in the forum, this topic has been done to death a million times. Lots of snide comments from people who have never been there, lots of vitriolic people who have changed planes there and think this makes them evangelists for human rights and high culture (I'd like to find out what their true cultural intake is because I don't see many threads about ballet, galleries or poetry on here), and then a bunch of mixed comments from people who might actually have half a clue what they're talking about. All this shit about Emiratis not having culture or history is just racist nonsense from people who don't speak Arabic and haven't made an effort to find out about it and haven't spoken to any Emiratis; if you went to Shagaluf or Orlando and spent the entire time sitting on the beach and drinking gin and tonics, you'd be entirely ignorant of Spanish and American culture and history too.

Is it a wonderland? No. Are there huge problems with labour rights? Yes. Is there a disproportionately large number of arseholes and bullshitters? Certainly. Would I go there on holiday? No way.

hospitality good- only due to the migrant workers mainly from the Indian subcontinent, a job you rarely see a local doing as it is considered too demeaning...

Seafood Bar in the airport was quite nice, thats all I intend to see of the place

All this is very well - but should zippykona go there?

I say no!

Down with things like this - and - that damning article; on racism and exploitation: In the Independent the other year, or so.

..you know, the one about abandoned Cayenne at the airport..

Hmmm, I had a lovely 3 long weekends in Dubai and got engaged on one of them. I also bought diamonds for family members, including the engagement ring, which were valued at 2.5 times what I paid for them. I enjoyed spending time around the creek, taking abra's (water taxis), old town and gold souk, plus eating in the quality restaurants, smoking shishas and going on a dune safari, bedouin belly dancing piss up and of course boozing in the westernised hotel bars. Can't think why anyone wouldn't enjoy that lot unless they've had a lobotomy. In Mumbai this week.... now this place is just mental and I love it

I stood in an airport shuttle bus next to that Andy Grey fella who used to be on Sky Sports, I reckon he loves it. Enough said.

Dubai-- place for thunderbird puppets, two dimensional.

First went there in 1976, it was a desert town, we were delivering the materials to build the place, it was sort of ok then, went back in 1982, horrid -- can only surmise from all available info that its got worse,there are rather a lot of places on this planet to visit,Dubai should not be on your list

there are rather a lot of places on this planet to visit,Dubai should not be on your list

Agreed. Unless it is the airport and you're in transfer to somewhere.

Dubai is a hole.

T'would appear to be a firstworldproblem par excellence...

[i]It's where Gavin Henson holidays.....says it all[/i] 😉

It's where Gavin Henson holidays.....says it all

my ticket is booked 😆

Does he really though you would have thought his ice cubes would melt too fast!

😆

which were [s]valued at 2.5 times what I paid for them[/s] blood diamonds.

Diamonds are a natural product that has no specific intrinsic value apart from industrial use but unfortunately De Beers control or rather fix the price of the rough uncut stones through what is known as sightholders/buyers (think i'm right?) to control the worlds supply, and thus inflate the price and desire-ability so folk believe they're buying something special when in actual fact the diamond houses are sitting on billions upon billions, upon billions of carats in vaults which if ever released to the markets would render all diamonds worthless.

Although saying that if you like or desire them then it's up to you to spend your money however you see fit, just as it's my perogative to waste my cash on stuff i don't really need.

Personally if a gf of mine ever demanded i buy her a precious stone or gold/platinum etc i'd explain and show her the evidence of how the precious gem/metal market works and if she still desired it afterwards then she could buy it with her own money, not mine.

When there in the early 90's worked in Jebel Ali and Sharjah, one place i have never had any desire to return to.

+1 Konabunny

It's not great, it's not paradise but there are worse places to be in the world, albeit I'm not factoring in John Terry and Gavin Henson into the discussion. At the very least the weather's better than Devon, and I'm writing this from down the road in Abu Dhabi which is great place to be.

My mate lived out there for a while and seemed to quite like it. He's not really the type to worry about social issues too much and just did lots of biking and driving 4x4s in the desert etc. Doesn't appeal to me at all though. Trips to Oman he did looked cool.

To those on here that like it though - maybe you are the type of expats that everyone else is referring to as a bad thing about Dubai. 😛

My brother in law and his family (kids of 7, 5 and 2) are due to move out there soon. I think he's mad - are there any redeeming features? I don't think I would want my kids going to school out there.

My friend lives in Dubai with his wife and 2 children. He says the schools are excellent with small class sizes. He is out there for 3 years.

I would not like to live there personnally.

Spent a week in Abu Dhabi with work. I will try to avoid going back at all costs....just horrid in almost every respect.

Alex 222.... blood diamonds blah blah. As bad as it is, and I'm pretty sure the diamonds bought in Dubai have a similar history to any other, did u question the process by which the aluminium was extracted from the earth for the bike you ride? It certainly wasn't Welsh miners protected by UK health and safety laws so if you have a conscience stop consuming, live under a tree and grow your own food using fertilizer from your own body

imnotamused Strange way of justifying your purchase but kudos for openly being so unpleasant.

I think Emirates is the best airline we've ever flown with and I can think of worse airports to spend (transit) time in.

Did a weekend there in 95 before they started going bonkers with the building and glad we visited then. Would I go back again? Absolutely not, for all the reasons already cited.

Spammer.

Emirates is an OK airline but their food is awful. I'm using them in February for Cape Town and will be wasting five hours of my life flying east them back west again but I'm saving £500 over Air France. Could have done it for £500 less than that with Turkish but the timings are seriously inconvenient and they don't fly to Cape Town so I'd have wasted more time and money on a JNB-CPT domestic flight.

As for Dubai - well, all of those Gulf cities are horrid but Dubai has more going for it than Doha and a couple of other places in the region. When I first started travelling around the Middle East I was surprised to find out that the real middle-eastern (Levantine) Arabs really despise the Gulf Arabs.

I've holidayed there a couple of times over Christmas and the New Year. Principally because it was warm with only a 8 hour flight and it was the only time I could get away from the business. I simply went to relax and unwind.

Ex pat's by and large are the same in whichever country they reside. It's the type of individual rather than the geographical position. My sympathy goes to the local who have to put up with the boorish behaviour.

You won't holiday there because you perceive yourself in having higher morals but probably consume cheap goods made elsewhere by child labour or by exploited workers. You buy them because they are cheap. You consume petrol and oil based products which perpetuate the disparity and support oppressive regimes.

Then again it's we as individuals where we decide the draw the line of moral indignation. You will do all/some of the above but I won't holiday there.

Then again they could turn the clock back fifty years, no healthcare, infrastructure or economy. Would that be better?

As with most destinations you can find the good side and the darker side of human nature.

Devon is a great place as well. 🙂

You won't holiday there because you perceive yourself in having higher morals but probably consume cheap goods made elsewhere by child labour or by exploited workers. You buy them because they are cheap. You consume petrol and oil based products which perpetuate the disparity and support oppressive regimes.

Same applies if you holiday in Devon and buy your wetsuits from the local Tesco.

Not everwhere has the same social standards as the EU.
Thats why I prefer to buy from the EU when I can. However, standards will only be raised in developing countries IF we in the west trade with them and only trade with the top 25% of ethical companies in each country, that way we engourage a race to the top. This is up to businesses to drive as much as it is up to consumers.

As for Dubai, yes its very fake and against nature, but its bloomin impressive what a huge amount of ill spent oil billions can achieve!

Emirates is an OK airline but their food is awful. I'm using them in February for Cape Town and will be wasting five hours of my life flying east them back west again but I'm saving £500 over Air France. Could have done it for £500 less than that with Turkish but the timings are seriously inconvenient and they don't fly to Cape Town so I'd have wasted more time and money on a JNB-CPT domestic flight.

You obviously don't spend nearly enough time airtime, if you think Emirates is just "OK". Emirates is constantly a pleasure to do business with.

Flew with emirates, the plane was fantastic but the staff weren't.

Missed the connection from Dubai to Sydney as it was delayed by 2 hours from Dubai to Manchester earlier in the day, so was late on our Manchester to Dubai flight.

We only just missed it but the airline didn't hold the plane. Had to spend ten hours in the airport, customer services involved a McDonald's voucher and nothing else, just what you want.

The next flight then was via Bangkok, where we had to wait another 2 hours for the onward flight, originally we were going direct from Dubai to Sydney.

Had to phone ahead at my cost to Australia to notify hotel that we wouldn't be arriving as originally planned.

Flying back, when checking in, staff on the desk were totally uninterested, carried on talking amongst themselves while checking our bags. Did try to complain and got some free miles, which I won't be using.

Flew Singapore airlines instead, planes aren't quite as modern, but the staff and customer service is fantastic.

Our new member of staff goes to goa via Dubai for Christmas. Her friends that she stays with in Dubai have pet lions. They even recognise her when she turns up and demand a fuss.
Obviously not like normal places.

I wouldn't go near Emirates airline again. I was flying to Oman via Dubai and they cancelled the flight three times in a row until they had a full flight, meaning that I arrived in Dubai at midnight and didn't fly out until 9 in the morning. I was re-booked three times in those 9 hours purely so that they wouldn't have to provide accommodation. Thank christ it was just me and not me with girlfriend and kids. Their ground staff staff treated us like scum throughout the whole process.

And they managed to completely lose my bag, ie gone for good.

My last experience in Dubai itself was intervening when an Emirati slapped an Asian prostitute in the face. Luckily I managed to disappear before he called the police otherwise I'd probably have been looking at a couple of years in jail.

Can't wait to see the ****ing place slide into the sea.

You obviously don't spend nearly enough time airtime, if you think Emirates is just "OK". Emirates is constantly a pleasure to do business with.

Clearly not with only 28 years of export travel under my belt, including over 85 trips to Nigeria and other parts of Africa and the Middle East!

Emirates are no better than any other airline; they have fancy new aircraft and a stunning hub and masses of resources but their food is grim and when it all goes wrong their ground staff are as powerless as at any other airline to make things any better, unless you are easily placated with free drinks and a fancy lounge. Most of my flying is with AF and they are no better or worse but at least they take pride in their food, which makes a boring flight more bearable.

Its odd isn't it though - I've flown with Emirates 15 times in the last two years and they have never been less than excellent (Manchester-Dubai). I would say the food is rather good as well to be honest.

Emirates business lounge in Manchester is a brilliant place to be.
However the return lounge in Dubai served the most inedible food I have had in a long long time.

The inflight business class food is also very nice, but so it should be for the cost of the flight!