Dubai: The Greatest City on Earth?
Dubai has been high on my list for a long time. As someone who considers themselves a city person, how can Dubai not be high on the list?
I spent 5 days in Dubai, including New Years Eve. As one of the top rated NYE destinations on the planet, I am excited to show you how to spend 5 days in Dubai and why I believe it may, in fact, be the greatest city on Earth. Needless to say, I haven’t even scratched the surface of this city that continues to expand every day.
New Years Eve in Dubai
Dubai is consistently ranked a top New Years destination, and for good reason. This city likes to have the "World's biggest" & "World's best." It's no surprise that their fireworks shows live up to this claim to fame as well. The most notorious firework show is the one at the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building. There is projected images and animations on the building while fireworks are shot out from the side, sounds pretty sweet, right? Unfortunately with this show comes a few cons, the biggest being absurd amounts of people. Initially we were planning on attending this, but after doing some research and realizing a ticket purchased in advance was needed to see from a good angle, we opted for something else: The Dubai Frame.
Fortunately, there are countless impressive fireworks shows across the city. I will highlight it more in depth later, but essentially the Dubai Frame is a massive gold frame that splits/frames old and new Dubai. Oh yeah, it's also the world's largest frame. I told you that this city does not play around when it comes to being the world's biggest and best!
It is difficult to see in this photo, but way way off into the distance at the very bottom of the Frame you could see the Burj Khalifa poking out, which made this view even cooler. Fireworks blasted out of the Frame from all angles and went on for a good bit. Definitely the coolest firework show that I have seen.
Burj Khalifa
It is only right that we turn our attention to the most famous sight of Dubai: The Burj Khalifa. When I imagined the world's tallest building, I just thought of a massive tower (duh) and not much else. But the Burj Khalifa is much more than that. The building looks fake. This thing is absolutely enormous. Even when you get right under it, it looks like an AI generated building. Every corner of it is lit up and animations are projected onto it. Further, every 30 minutes from 6PM-11PM daily, the Dubai Fountain show at the base of it happens. Not a bad backdrop for a fountain show.
Something I really like about the Burj Khalifa, is the surrounding area. It is not just the world's tallest building and nothing else. The developing here makes a lot of sense. The world's tallest building is naturally going to bring in a lot of tourists, and this area accommodates it. Directly next to the Burj Khalifa, is the Dubai Mall. The largest mall in Dubai that is much more than just shopping. Other than having every store I know, it has an aquarium (that breaks a few records), an ice rink, movie theater, and insert anything else you can think of, it is probably there.
This photo does not do it justice, but I wanted to try and showcase what the fountain show looks like with the Burj Khalifa in the back. Shoutout to the 0.5 lens for being able to capture the entire building in the photo.
One thing we did not do was go up to the top of the Burj Khalifa. There is multiple different tiers/levels you can go up to, but we heard from fellow travelers that the lines were crazy long and not worth the wait. This is definitely something that I have on my list to do for next time I visit.
The Dubai Marina
My absolute favorite part of Dubai and somewhere where I could live: The Dubai Marina. A 4.3 mile walkway running along both sides of this skyscraper lined marina, with countless restaurants and shops along the walkway. If I designed a neighborhood, it would be the Dubai Marina.
My favorite activity we did was taking a yacht up and around the marina (yep, I'm a basic, wannabe, boujee Dubai resident). This activity was actually fairly price and included a BBQ on the boat. I fear that if I lived here, this would be a weekly activity for me.
Once we got out of the downtown marina area, they served dinner which was quite tasty and plugged in a speaker and bumped some music. This boat had young kids all the way up to older people. I highly highly recommend this to anyone. You get super cool perspectives of all the cool architecture along the marina and get to go up close to the Ain Dubai, which is the tallest ferris wheel in the world - of course it is.
The Palm Jumeirah
Another impressive architecture project that Dubai flexes is the Palm Jumeirah - a massive man made island shaped like a palm tree. There is just about everything on the Palm - multimillion dollar villas, apartments, hotels, waterparks (including Atlantis), aquarium, a boardwalk going around the palm, mall, restaurants, and every and anything else that you could want.
This massive man made island took only six years to construct, which is bonkers. My favorite thing that we did here was "The View at the Palm." It is an observation deck from above. When coming here, you must pay extra for the VIP ticket. Not only do you get to cut the line, but you get to go up higher and see The Palm from an obstructed view, unlike the general admission tickets that are blocked by a glass wall. The view is ten times better and worth the extra couple of bucks.
This is a site where the pictures do not do justice. Not only can you see the awesome Palm from up here, but the Burj Al Arab (famous 7 star hotel), The Dubai Marina, Ain Dubai, Burj Khalifa, and much more. We spent lots of time up here enjoying the 360 views, then headed down to the cafe at the general admission floor to get a sandwich and further enjoy the views. One activity that I am really upset we were not able to do (due to being booked weeks out) was the Aura Skypool. It also has 360 degree views, but it's a wraparound glass pool. Pretty sweet. That is at the top of the list for next time I visit this city.
Abu Dhabi
Not too far from Dubai is another city in the UAE, Abu Dhabi. A little over an hour by car, and soon to be quicker via train. As it was recently announced that a railway will soon be connecting these two cities. Fun fact, Abu Dhabi is now considered the wealthiest city in the world, a large majority of that wealth coming from oil.
Abu Dhabi is much more spread out than Dubai and has much more land to its name. Much like Dubai, there is tons of construction happening in Abu Dhabi and it is clear that they are making a huge push to get more tourism in their city. Not just day trips from Dubai, like the excursion we went on.
In our excursion there were three main highlights: Going to the top of one of the Etihad Towers, Qasr Al Watan (the presidential palace), and the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.
If I had to describe Qasr Al Watan in one word, it would be: Ridiculous. In my opinion (bold statement inbound) this was the craziest thing that I saw all trip. The pictures do not at all do this palace justice. An even crazier fact about this place is that nobody works or lives at the palace full time. It's main purpose is to welcome other leaders to Abu Dhabi.
Not only is every thing over the top and gold, but the palace is so big that you need to take a bus through the estate up to the entrance. The photo above is just one little part of the palace. There is much more to see. There are a few exhibits within the palace, my favorite being the one showcasing gifts that other countries have brought to the UAE.
Islam is the official religion of the UAE, thus, mosques play a big part in their culture. The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi is the country's largest mosque with the ability to accommodate over 40,000 people. Much like the presidential palace, the architecture of this mosque was on another level, with attention to every detail.
A final interesting fact is that the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi is the President of the UAE. While the Sheikh of Dubai, serves as the Vice President of the country.
Desert Safari
A must do excursion in Dubai is escaping the skyscrapers for a day and heading out into the desert on a desert safari. The main components of a safari include: Riding camels, ATV, Ripping a 4x4 car across the dunes (this was crazy), Sandboarding, and a dinner show.
The highlight for me of the safari was sitting cramped in the 3rd row of an SUV with a crazy driver ripping through the sand dunes. I do not have any photos to showcase this experience, and that was because I was holding on for dear life. Before we started driving, our driver told us that he needed to put on some music to focus. He started bumping some Arabian music and began ripping the car over and around the dunes. Most of these excursions are pretty tame, but I found this one to be wild. We actually got the car stuck at the top of one of the dunes (where we stopped to sandboard).
I was expecting the dinner show to be pretty lame, as I am generally not a fan of these shows, but this one turned out to be pretty cool. Moral of the story, do not doubt anything in Dubai - because they do it well.
The highlight and finale of the performance was the two fire performers who did some crazy things from spinning chains with huge fireballs, to "breathing" fire, to lighting up this Dubai sign. A day spent in the desert is a must do on your itinerary.
Dubai Frame
I spoke about the frame earlier, but wanted to highlight it again. The Dubai Frame is the world's largest frame and separates/frames old and new Dubai. The coolest part about it? You can go up and inside it. The frame begins by taking you on a tour of what old Dubai was. It is incredible how they turned what used to just be desert, into this mega city in such little time. You then take an elevator to the top to the frame where parts of the floor are glass. Being someone who does not like heights, I stood on the edge of the glass for about 20 minutes before having the courage to finally step onto it.
The top of the Frame is an awesome vantage point to see the 'past' and the 'present' of Dubai. It makes you appreciate what this city used to be, and what it has become. After spending a while on the top of the frame, you take an elevator back down that leads you through a video explaining what the future of Dubai is. From the looks of it, the best is yet to come.
The Culinary Scene
Some of the best dishes that I have ever had were in Dubai. The culinary scene here rivals any city in the world. Dubai is a massive melting pot of people and cultures from across the globe, resulting in incredible food and fusion concepts. Every meal I ate was a hit, and that is saying something since I never balled out and ate at a super lavish spot.
I still think about this short rib on parmesan risotto often - Wow was it incredible. There is something for everyone in Dubai and I can guarantee that whatever spot you pick, it will leave you satisfied. Even the restaurant at the Hyatt Place I stayed at had some great shrimp Pad Thai. For reference, the short rib dish was from The Light House Cafe in the Nakheel Mall on the Palm Jumeirah.
The coolest spot we ate at was Pier 7 on the Dubai Marina. A circular building home to seven restaurants, one on each floor. We opted for the spot on the rooftop terrace, where there was stellar views of the marina and a DJ playing house music. In the picture above, you can see the table we sat at... Pretty hard to beat a meal with that view. Oh, and did I mention this was after the yacht? I really felt like the Monopoly Man that night.
A Few Other Notes
Safety - Dubai is one of the safest cities on Earth. This is the safest I have ever felt in a city and safety should not be a concern at all.
English - Everyone speaks English in Dubai. Not only do they speak it, but every sign is in both English and Arabic.
Foreigners - When I looked it up, over 88% of Dubai's population are foreigners. With the majority being from India and Pakistan.
Clean - This could likely be interpreted, but Dubai is an extremely clean city. In fact, it was crowned the cleanest city in the world.
Airports - The UAE is home to two massive international airports and two great airlines. The Dubai Airport - a hub for Emirates and the Abu Dhabi Airport - a hub for Etihad, which I actually flew from Abu Dhabi direct to Chicago.
Architecture - It's not just the Burj Khalifa, The Palm Jumeirah, The Frame, it is everything. Dubai is home to the craziest and most innovative architecture that I have seen.
Final Thoughts
I am not going to sugarcoat it... Dubai is my favorite city that I have been to. This is certainly a place that I could live in, and a place that I respect. From the discipline and enforcement of rules to how quickly things get done, I believe Dubai should be the standard for many cities around the world. I'm itching to get back to this amazing city.
Habibi, Welcome to Dubai 🇦🇪