Dubai

treascon

We are heading to Africa in September. Plan to stop off in Dubai end of September/start of October for maybe 4 days. Has anyone any personal recommendations about places to stay? Budget would be about €1000. Also has anyone availed of the Emirates stopover package? Is it worth it and do you save any money this way? Read online that you can only avail of this in the airport in Dubai and can’t pre book anything which puts me off. Anything else I need to know, places to go, things to do. TIA

pinktoe

Depends what your looking for.

Personally I hate Deira and old Dubai, its just chaos anytime I visited there. People trying to drag you into a shop to buy fake crap.

Downtown and Jumiera are very nice. Taxis and uber are cheap and the metro if staying in downtown is great and super cheap.

In these areas, shopping malls, The Golden Frame, Burj Khalifa etc are easy get to. The Golden Frame imo is better than the Burj. Global village is pretty cool to visit in the evening.

We stayed in a five star for 16 nights at about €1200 or so with breakfast last November. Alcohol is expensive around 40 dirham or 10euro for a pint etc. Food price is comparable to Ireland, you can live cheap or expensively.

Any 4 or 5 star will be good just check the security deposit they charge as it can be 100e a night pp.

Theme parks are great.

Ive no idea about the stop over package.

treascon

pinktoe wrote: »

Depends what your looking for.

Personally I hate Deira and old Dubai, its just chaos anytime I visited there. People trying to drag you into a shop to buy fake crap.

Downtown and Jumiera are very nice. Taxis and uber are cheap and the metro if staying in downtown is great and super cheap.

In these areas, shopping malls, The Golden Frame, Burj Khalifa etc are easy get to. The Golden Frame imo is better than the Burj. Global village is pretty cool to visit in the evening.

We stayed in a five star for 16 nights at about €1200 or so with breakfast last November. Alcohol is expensive around 40 dirham or 10euro for a pint etc. Food price is comparable to Ireland, you can live cheap or expensively.

Any 4 or 5 star will be good just check the security deposit they charge as it can be 100e a night pp.

Theme parks are great.

Ive no idea about the stop over package.

Thanks for the info. What was the name of the hotel you stayed in and would you recommend?

pinktoe

Sofitel downtown. Really nice

Kevski

We stayed in the Shangri-La for 2 nights last year and booked with the Emirates Stopover package. I think it worked out at about €400 in total for the two of us.

For Irish bookings, you have to book through Emitates nominated travel agent in the UK. Once you give them the confirmation number for your flights then they can give you options to suit your needs or you can just tell them where you’d like to stay.

The stopover package included having someone meet you prior to going through immigration to give us details of where to go to get our car to the hotel. Once through immigration, we went where we were told to go to and the driver met us to bring us to the hotel. A real perk of the stopover package for us was that our checkin time at the hotel was aligned to the time that the flight landed, meaning that we were able to go straight to our room when we arrived at approx. 7AM. We were also driven back to the airport on check out.

In terms of the hotel, I can’t recommend the Shangri-La enough. Our room looked directly towards Burj Khalifa as did the pool which I found pretty cool! Breakfast was incredible - literally everything that you can think of was available! As previous posters have said, alcohol is expensive but that’s that case in that part of the world.

pinktoe

pinktoe wrote: »

Depends what your looking for.

Personally I hate Deira and old Dubai, its just chaos anytime I visited there. People trying to drag you into a shop to buy fake crap.

Yea, I'm the opposite here!
I hated the 'new Dubai ' much prefer the old area, small as it is.
Depends what you are into OP
Can't recommend a hotel as I stayed in a house on the palm, but tbf, I'd imagine all hotels in Dubai are of a very high standard

treascon

Kevski wrote: »

We stayed in the Shangri-La for 2 nights last year and booked with the Emirates Stopover package. I think it worked out at about €400 in total for the two of us.

For Irish bookings, you have to book through Emitates nominated travel agent in the UK. Once you give them the confirmation number for your flights then they can give you options to suit your needs or you can just tell them where you’d like to stay.

The stopover package included having someone meet you prior to going through immigration to give us details of where to go to get our car to the hotel. Once through immigration, we went where we were told to go to and the driver met us to bring us to the hotel. A real perk of the stopover package for us was that our checkin time at the hotel was aligned to the time that the flight landed, meaning that we were able to go straight to our room when we arrived at approx. 7AM. We were also driven back to the airport on check out.

In terms of the hotel, I can’t recommend the Shangri-La enough. Our room looked directly towards Burj Khalifa as did the pool which I found pretty cool! Breakfast was incredible - literally everything that you can think of was available! As previous posters have said, alcohol is expensive but that’s that case in that part of the world.

Thanks for the info. It is very helpful. Will check out the hotel

treascon

bubblypop wrote: »

Yea, I'm the opposite here!
I hated the 'new Dubai ' much prefer the old area, small as it is.
Depends what you are into OP
Can't recommend a hotel as I stayed in a house on the palm, but tbf, I'd imagine all hotels in Dubai are of a very high standard

Yes I am going squared eye looking at hotels. They all look fab, seems hard to find a bad one!

treascon

Kevski wrote: »

We stayed in the Shangri-La for 2 nights last year and booked with the Emirates Stopover package. I think it worked out at about €400 in total for the two of us.

For Irish bookings, you have to book through Emitates nominated travel agent in the UK. Once you give them the confirmation number for your flights then they can give you options to suit your needs or you can just tell them where you’d like to stay.

The stopover package included having someone meet you prior to going through immigration to give us details of where to go to get our car to the hotel. Once through immigration, we went where we were told to go to and the driver met us to bring us to the hotel. A real perk of the stopover package for us was that our checkin time at the hotel was aligned to the time that the flight landed, meaning that we were able to go straight to our room when we arrived at approx. 7AM. We were also driven back to the airport on check out.

In terms of the hotel, I can’t recommend the Shangri-La enough. Our room looked directly towards Burj Khalifa as did the pool which I found pretty cool! Breakfast was incredible - literally everything that you can think of was available! As previous posters have said, alcohol is expensive but that’s that case in that part of the world.

Probably a stupid question but how do I find Emirates nominated travel agent in the UK?

if it is to relax may I suggest you travel to Ras al Khaimah, its about 45 mins from the airport, we usually stay 5-7 nights and pay between 750 & 1300, dependant on dates and duration obviously. that price I might add includes return flights from Dublin and transfers, feck all to see where we stay it's really a sun yourself type of place, best part about the trips is the fact that it's all inclusive, a 5 star hotel, you could (and we do) eat & drink the cost of the holiday, I don't know how they make any money. The hotel is DoubleTree by Hilton Resort & Spa Marjan Island, the island is man made, I could not fault the hotel or the staff. non all inclusive patrons are paying 6,7,8 + for a drink :eek:. the choice of food is practically endless and the quality is top notch. there is a small mall about 5 mins away in a taxi (5 euro), also a free bus but that tends to be busy.

joebre

Deleted User wrote: »

if it is to relax may I suggest you travel to Ras al Khaimah, its about 45 mins from the airport, we usually stay 5-7 nights and pay between 750 & 1300, dependant on dates and duration obviously. that price I might add includes return flights from Dublin and transfers, feck all to see where we stay it's really a sun yourself type of place, best part about the trips is the fact that it's all inclusive, a 5 star hotel, you could (and we do) eat & drink the cost of the holiday, I don't know how they make any money. The hotel is DoubleTree by Hilton Resort & Spa Marjan Island, the island is man made, I could not fault the hotel or the staff. non all inclusive patrons are paying 6,7,8 + for a drink :eek:. the choice of food is practically endless and the quality is top notch. there is a small mall about 5 mins away in a taxi (5 euro), also a free bus but that tends to be busy.

Where can you book an inclusive package like this ?

joebre

joebre wrote: »

Where can you book an inclusive package like this ?

Have used both travelrepublic & tropicalsky, I got a short dated email offer about 2 weeks ago from tropical sky, 5 nights all inc, transfers, Emirates flights, travelling October €749 pp, trop sky is over the phone, though prices are on their website, travel republic you can book it yourself online and you can also pay on the drip with both companies (must be fully paid 10 weeks prior to travel), Handy for us, we bought the kids (both in their 30s) a trip there for Christmas gift, they loved it, can’t wait to go back.

Kevski

treascon wrote: »

Probably a stupid question but how do I find Emirates nominated travel agent in the UK?

Not a stupid question at all. I rang Emirates and they pointed me toward brightsun.co.uk

I just had a look there and they still do the stopover packages - https://www.brightsun.co.uk/offers/dubai-stopover

If you give them a call on the number at the top of the page after you’ve booked your flights (as the stopover package requires your confirmation number) then they’ll be able to book it all.

The guy I spoke with emailed me a selection of hotels but we had seen photos of the Shangri-La pool previously and sort of already had our hearts set on that!

michellie

We stayed in the Hilton Jumeirah beach twice, excellent location for us. Lovely hotel on a private beach. And you're right on "the walk" with loads of shops and restaurants. Close to the marina. Taxis aren't expensive to get anywhere.

Edit to say this isn't a dry hotel and we were there during Ramadan on our 2nd stay and there was no difference

EmzBoBo

Hi OP,
Just be careful when you're looking at hotels in Dubai, as some are "dry hotels" (i.e. no alcohol). If a hotel doesn't mention having a bar or alcohol, then it's a dry hotel, which would be a bit stricter than hotels that do sell alcohol.
As for hotels, my parents stayed at Dukes Hotel on the Palm when they came over to visit me, and they loved it. It's the sister hotel of Dukes London, and fairly centrally located.
Don't bother with the Atlantis - I had friends who stayed there and they did not rate it at all!

treascon

EmzBoBo wrote: »

Hi OP,
Just be careful when you're looking at hotels in Dubai, as some are "dry hotels" (i.e. no alcohol). If a hotel doesn't mention having a bar or alcohol, then it's a dry hotel, which would be a bit stricter than hotels that do sell alcohol.
As for hotels, my parents stayed at Dukes Hotel on the Palm when they came over to visit me, and they loved it. It's the sister hotel of Dukes London, and fairly centrally located.
Don't bother with the Atlantis - I had friends who stayed there and they did not rate it at all!

Thanks for this. Funnily enough Dukes hotel on the palm is on my shortlist

sillysocks

We stayed a few times at the Grand Hyatt, it’s not a beachside hotel so wouldn’t suit if you wanted a beach holiday but it’s fab. And a lot better value than the beach ones.
They’ve fabulous pools, including one indoor which is great if it’s too hot. Pools open in the evening too and are all candlelit etc. Really nice.

Some lovely restaurants in it, and great service.

browne_rob5

pinktoe wrote: »

Sofitel downtown. Really nice

Hey - Just wondering how you got those rates. I cant see any prices close to Eur1,200 for 16 nights. Thanks

Mantis Toboggan

Re things to do if I'd recommended doing one of the water and theme parks. Water parks are really good. Some skiing in the mall of the Emirates. Fountains in dubai mall are excellent. Gold frame, gold souks, old dubai, burj kalifa, global Village all probably worth a look. I'd highly recommend and evening dune bashing, followed by sand boarding camel riding and BBQ. Yellow boat tour was excellent. Had breakfast on a yacht that went out of the marina, very nice.

finbarrk

Deleted User wrote: »

if it is to relax may I suggest you travel to Ras al Khaimah, its about 45 mins from the airport, we usually stay 5-7 nights and pay between 750 & 1300, dependant on dates and duration obviously. that price I might add includes return flights from Dublin and transfers, feck all to see where we stay it's really a sun yourself type of place, best part about the trips is the fact that it's all inclusive, a 5 star hotel, you could (and we do) eat & drink the cost of the holiday, I don't know how they make any money. The hotel is DoubleTree by Hilton Resort & Spa Marjan Island, the island is man made, I could not fault the hotel or the staff. non all inclusive patrons are paying 6,7,8 + for a drink :eek:. the choice of food is practically endless and the quality is top notch. there is a small mall about 5 mins away in a taxi (5 euro), also a free bus but that tends to be busy.

Just checked it out there. Some good deals from Tropical Sky indeed. But its a bit of a journey from Dubai.
https://www.tropicalsky.ie/middle-east-holidays/dubai-and-the-emirates/all-inclusive?pageNumber=1&destination=1069&sortby=popularity