24 Hours in Dubai

Dubai is a funny destination which seems to split travellers like marmite; some love it, some hate it. The only reason we wanted to go was because ever since we went up the Shanghai tower, the second tallest building in the world, we wanted to go up the tallest building – of course, THE BURJ KALIFA.

An opportunity arose for us to do a 24 hour layover at Dubai en route to the South of India and of course we absolutely jumped at the chance.

Flight timings weren’t the ideal for doing this on a budget- our arrival into Dubai was 1am and our departure out of Dubai 2.45am the following day – we had just over 24 hours, but needed a hotel for 2 nights to enable to a) sleep on arrival and freshen up after the flight, and b) freshen up again before our next flight after a very long day of sightseeing. We chose a hotel right by the Burj Kalifa and paid more for a Burj view, so on arrival in the middle of the night, we would be able to see the tallest building in the world. We stayed at Ramada Downtown Dubai, and paid extra for a Burj Kalifa view room.

We also MASSIVELY underestimated the size of Dubai. It is HUGE! 24 miles long to be more accurate. I had it in my mind we could walk – as we do most other places around the world. But that soon became very obvious we would NOT be able to do that! So spent much more than anticipated on UBERs. We also made a mistake in that we paid £150 for an open top bus pass for the day – but left it too late in the day to do so, also factoring in that we had timed tickets for the Burj at 4PM. We didn’t get anywhere near the value for money we should have done here (our bad planning!)

What we should have done was a timed ticket for Burj K at say 9am, then done the bus tour in which case we probably could have managed all 3 routes into the evening including the night route.

Still, all this aside, we had THE BEST time. Seriously, we really loved Dubai!

So how did we spend our time?

Well, we started with an early UBER from our hotel, (Insert) for a traditional Arabic Breakfast in the historical district of Al Fahidi. It’s hard to imagine that this part of Dubai was here long before the newer sky risers. The breakfast at the Arabian Tea house was

Traditional Arabic Coffee, served with fresh dates and a dip

Regag Bread, sliced bread with honey and stuffed with egg and cheese dipped in cream cheese and honey
Khabisah – a sweet blend of sautéed flour and molasses

washed down with a special blend tea.

It was honestly delicious and kept us going all day!

From here we took a 44p ride across the creek on tradional Abra Boat (they took card payment)

At this point we picked up the open top bus and saw the Largest frame in the World, the museum of the future (which I’d like to visit next time), the worlds tallest observation wheel and terrific city views from the Blue Water area.

We then had a stressful hour trying to beat Dubai’s traffic getting back to the Burj Kalifa for our timed ticket. We made it just, but not without a high speed run through Dubai mall- also the biggest mall in the world!

The views up the top were incredible. So emotional to be there and a HUGE tick off our bucket list.

Following our visit we milled about around the base taking photos and enjoying a couple of beers opposite. We couldn’t take our eyes off the view, it was simply marvellous!

We made use of our hotel room and had a shower and changed before going back out to eat at a bar opposite the Burj Kalifa. We watched the light show from our hotel room and again twice more from the bar. It was such a fun vibe, we really enjoyed our evening and dint find the drinks and food too expensive – more on par with London really.