The leftward and other blatherings of Span (now with Snaps!)

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Dubai recommendations kindly accepted here

Seeing as you are all a very worldly, well-travelled bunch (collectively at least) I'm going to be gently plucking your grey matter about various destinations that I'm going to later this year.

First up is Dubai - going to be there for 3 days and 3 nights in late March.

Currently on the Possibly Do/See list are:

  • Day trip to Al-Ain/Buraimi Oasis - visit the Livestock Souq, the Hili Gardens and the Al-Ain Museum
  • Go for a ride on the Creek and watch the shipping traffic
  • Visit the historic homes on the waterfront in the Bastakia Quarter
  • Go to the Dubai Museum
  • Swan around Sheikh Saeed al-Maktoum House and the neighbouring Heritage and Diving villages
  • Try to avoid spending any money in the Deira and Gold Souqs
  • Splash around at the Wild Wadi Waterpark
Recommendations for food and beds much appreciated - I'm having problems finding accommodation. I've fired off emails to a whole host of budget and mid-range places and have so far had few replies and best deal to date is approx NZ$100 a night for the two of us. The YHA hostel hasn't responded at all...

5 comments:

Foggy in Nelson said...

Don't fly emirates. My Dad's luggage didn't arrive from Dubai on Friday, which explains why I haven't been around blogger much.

I'll be posting all the details shortly (once I've had sleep).

Anonymous said...

I am so jealous that you are going to Dubai. I flew through there and just looking at the place is bloody amazing!

Psycho Milt said...

I feel like I have to stick up for Emirates (although you'd think constantly handing them wads of cash would be enough...) - I've flown them between Kuwait and NZ a bunch of times now, and they've been excellent. Their frequent flyer program beats the others I've been in hands down too.

My only experience of Dubai has been its airport though, sorry. I would recommend the Dubai Shopping Festival (I kid you not!) on the basis of broke colleagues' enthusiastic reports, but it's cancelled this year because the Sheikh just died.

Anonymous said...

Also get the lonely planet guide. If you get them out from the library you can take them with you to Dubai (hee hee).

Span said...

i have the Dubai LP at the moment, from the library - can't really take it with me for three months though!

Too late on Emirates - we are flying with them (which was part of how we ended up with a stopover in Dubai) - it was by far the best deal going. I've heard mainly good things about them, so fingers crossed.

I heard two different months for the Dubai Shopping Festival (both in different LPs) - one was December, the other March. Realistically though, we are going to Dubai right at the start of our odyssey, so won't be that keen to spend up large either from the point of view of space or money, however we may have some time to kill at Dubai airport on the way back from Europe, so maybe I can sneak some shopping in then ;-)