When planning out my trip to Dubai, I noticed that all of the tourist spots were really far away from each other. On top of that, the public transport in Dubai isn’t great. With these two things in mind, I decided to go on a Dubai day tour in order to squeeze in a few things I wanted to see, but didn’t care to take a taxi to for the sake of a few photos. We found a few options on Klook (also where we booked our night desert safari) and narrowed our decision down based on attractions offered. The tour was also very reasonably priced, working out to around HK$150 per person for 5 hours of sightseeing. Read on to find out what I liked and what I didn’t like about the Dubai day tour.
What I liked about the Dubai day tour
The main thing I liked about this tour was that it squeezed in 6+ sights in a span of 5 or so hours. We had one day left in Dubai and there were still a couple of things we wanted to see, but didn’t want to take a taxi all the way out there as it was quite far from our hotel. The sights I looked forward to seeing were the Burj Al Arab and Palm Island.
Something to keep in mind on this tour is the timing of things. At Jumeirah Beach, we were only given about 15/20 minutes to walk around and take photos of the Burj Al Arab. For Palm Island, we just drove through it to get to the Atlantis Hotel where we got out of the vehicle to take a quick photo and then got right back in.
What I did NOT like about the tour
The tour began with a visit to the Dubai Museum. While some parts were somewhat interesting, we spent far too long here (this was the longest stop on the tour for some reason) and the last bit of the museum with ‘real life’ displays were just plain weird. We also stopped at this local art shop where we all had to go in and listen to a short talk from the sales person in hopes of buying something. They are clearly working on a commission basis here. These two stops took about 1.5 hours or more at the start of our tour. I felt that the time could have been better dispersed throughout the other stops.
On the itinerary we were meant to end the tour with the Burj Khalifa and Dubai Mall. Our tour guide said they had planned on simply dropping everyone off at the mall if they wanted to see it. Because we had already been, we skipped out on this and were dropped back off at our hotel. Again, you get what you pay for.
Overall thoughts
If you’re tight on time or are just looking to get a quick (and cheap) glimpse at some of the main attractions in Dubai, then the Dubai day tour is a great option. That being said, if you have more time to spend in Dubai, I would recommend skipping the day tour and just visiting the attractions you’re interested in on your own. If you’re able to, I think renting a car while you’re there would be beneficial and make sightseeing a whole lot easier. Or, if you’re not on a budget, hire a private driver on whichever days you’re looking to get around and sightsee.
