Dubai Hotel & Activity Recommendations

[janegold]

We are doing a one night layover in Dubai next week, and have never been.  Anyone have hotel recommendations?  Since our time is limited, would prefer it to be fairly central and not too far from the airport.

Also, we will have essentially one full day in Dubai.  What should we definitely do/see?

[mich1]

We stayed at AVANI Deira Dubai Hotel when we were in Dubai. The hotel was fairly close to the airport, it was a pretty short cab ride. There were several restaurants within walking range, and a mall down the block.

We took a short tour of Dubai and then visited the gold souks and did some shopping. I wish we had spent another day there, as we didn't see as much as we could have - but DH wanted to show me the gold souks.

[elizann]

I had an 18 hour layover alone in Dubai. I did a short sand dune tour. A colleague’s brother lives there, and he drove me around the afternoon - we went to a mall, Atlantis, Burj Khalifa, gold and spice souk.

[thebulldog]

The Burj Khalifa is an insane thing to see in person. Even if buildings aren't your thing, to look down on massive skyscrapers FROM the tallest building in the world is a surreal experience. It is attached to the Dubai Mall, which even if you don't like shopping is also a site to see - I loved walking around a bit to see the sheer volume of people, check out the higher end stores (you know, to see real tiaras and $1,000 shoes in PERSON).
The gold and spice souk is pretty cool to see too and easy to do both in a day.

[janegold]

Update: we stayed at the Grosvenor House. Highly, highly recommend. It was 120 degrees when we were there last week so we didn’t get to explore as much as I would have liked, but did spend time at the Dubai Mall, went to the top of the Burj Khalifa, and had a great dinner. Glad we made the stop.

We are in the Maldives now and it is out-of-this-world fabulous.

[mich1]

Jul 30, 2019 6:17:28 GMT -5 janegold said:

Update: we stayed at the Grosvenor House. Highly, highly recommend. It was 120 degrees when we were there last week so we didn’t get to explore as much as I would have liked, but did spend time at the Dubai Mall, went to the top of the Burj Khalifa, and had a great dinner. Glad we made the stop.

We are in the Maldives now and it is out-of-this-world fabulous.

We stopped in Dubai on our way back from the Maldives.  I am still angling to get back!  It was fabulous.