Day 1:
We walked from our hotel (Doubletree Hilton Dubai Al Barsha) to Mall of Emirates and then took the Dubai Metro Red line to Al Ghubaiba station (with changing to Green line at Bur Juman station). The Dubai Ferry leaves just 2 minutes walk from Al Ghubaiba station.
After reaching Dubai Marina we took a cab back to Mall of Emirates. Cabs are plentiful in Dubai and have pretty reasonable fares.
One of the popular attractions in Mall of Emirates is Ski Dubai (yes skiing in the desert!!).
We had lunch at one of the food courts in the Mall of Emirates and then walked back to hotel to take some afternoon rest.
In the evening we took a cab to Burj Khalifa at the Dubai Mall.
In front of the Burj Khalifa & the Dubai Mall lies the Dubai Fountain – the worlds largest choreographed fountain. The fountain show occurs every 30 minutes between 6 and 11 PM (and also twice during the day).
We stayed around to watch 3 shows and also caught a light show of the Burj Khalifa. After that we walked inside the Dubai Mall and had dinner at one of the food courts. We then walked to the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo.
Day 2:
Dubai has lots of malls and we had already visited Mall of Emirates and Dubai Mall the previous day. I had heard some good things about Ibn Batuta Mall and so we took a cab there.
After spending a couple of hours at the mall we took a cab back to Mall of Emirates for some lunch and then back to hotel for some rest.
One of the “must-do” items on a Dubai itinerary has to be “Desert Safari”. A desert safari basically includes some dune-bashing in a 4×4 SUV, dinner at a Bedouin camp followed by some entertainment (Tanoura and Belly dance). There are a lot of tour companies that sell different variations of this tour. After researching thoroughly on Tripadvisor, I had picked Dubai Private Adventure for our tour operator for the Desert Safari and we picked “6 hour Desert Safari with Dinner” package which came out to $299 USD. This was a private vehicle tour but you can get cheaper options from other operators.
Our guide Arun picked us up from the hotel at 2 PM in a Toyota Landcruiser SUV. We drove for about 1 hour through Dubai towards Sharjah. After a stop close the dunes for deflating the tire (necessary for dune bashing) we commenced a thrilling 45 minutes dune ride. It was everything we had imagined and so much more. I was unable to get a good video or picture while doing the ride (we basically were just holding the hand rails by the seat as the SUV went up and down huge sand dunes.
Next our guide Arun took us to the top of one of the dunes and we tried sand-boarding for the first time in our life.
Our guide was very nice about taking a lot of pictures!!
Arun then parked our vehicle by a sand dune while we waited for the sunset in the desert.
After sunset we drove to a nearby Bedouin camp for our dinner and show.
At the beginning of the night we had a Tanoura dance by an Egyptian gentleman. Following the show we had a buffet dinner. Almost all the items were very delicious and we all enjoyed it.
Following the dinner we had a Belly Dance show.
After the show Arun dropped us off back to the hotel.
Day 3:
We took the hotel shuttle to Umm Suqeim beach. This is a nice wide sandy beach (but half reserved for surfers only) that gives you a great view of Burj Al Arab hotel.
After spending a few hours just relaxing at the beach (hard to do though as its very crowded) we took the hotel shuttle back to the hotel.
In late afternoon we took a cab to Bur Dubai Abra station.
One of the must do experiences in Dubai is taking a 5 minute abra ride (cost 2 AED per person) across the Dubai Creek.
After reaching Deira side of the Dubai creek we walked to Spice Souk and Gold Souk.
We walked the Spice Souk and Gold Souk for a couple of hours. We bought some chocolates, baklava and dates from the spice souk (heavy bargaining is recommended in this market) and then took the metro back to our hotel. This was our last night in Dubai and next day we were on our way to Abu Dhabi.