… That is the question and it’s not an easy question to answer. To me Dubai is a very complex destination. Some parts I love, some parts I hate. Below I’ll go through my pros and cons, which might be useful for you if you consider going to Dubai.
Why you should GO!
A baby friendly place
Dubai might be the child friendliest place, I’ve ever been. I hadn’t expected this to be a city that embraces children—but it is! And this is something you value a lot if you’ve ever been travelling with your child.
Every restaurant we went to offered high chairs, milk, children’s menu etc.—both the cheaper places but also the fancy restaurants. When asking if we could bring our stroller with us inside, it was not frowned upon but simply welcomed.
And a little extra thing… At Dubai Mall, the Mecca for shopaholics, even the restrooms for men have nursery rooms for the little ones. Something I has just started to experience recently in Denmark.
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The journey
You can fly directly to Dubai from Copenhagen, which is genius when travelling with a child. The flight is approximately 6.5 hours which is not much compared to distances to other warm destinations.
Also when travelling to Dubai, the time difference is +3 hours from Copenhagen. It worked PERFECTLY for us! When it was 7 pm in Denmark (our son’s normal bedtime) it was 10 pm in Dubai and we could go to bed at the same time as our little guy. Of course we don’t do that at home, so thanks to the time difference we got much more sleep than we do at home.
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Extraordinary sights
Travelling to Dubai also means that you’re travelling to a place that is meant to “wauw!” you. In my opinion, this is both good and bad. I’ll come back to the bad part about it later—but now the good thing.
I love seeing and experiencing things, that are completely new to me. Dubai is truly a place that has been build to amaze you: things are larger and crazier, than everywhere else. Being a true esthete one of my interests are also architecture. Therefor experiencing extremes like Burj Khalifa, Burj Al Arab, The Palm and Hotel Atlantis was something I really enjoyed.
Why you SHOULDN’T GO!
A city in the making
What I love about travelling to a city, is experiencing its architectural history and culture, but Dubai simply lacks this. I’ve visited most of the European capitals and these are places where I find a lot of authenticity and personality. To me it seems like Dubai has been built in order to have the largest buildings and just copy whatever works in other cities—just twice as big. There’s not much charm about large parts of the city, because it’s not meant to charm you, it’s meant to impress you. And once you’ve experimented large and charming buildings in e.g. many European cities, it becomes quite obvious that Dubai’s buildings are just large. There’s not much charm or authenticity.
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Construction work
The construction industry is booming in Dubai* which you cannot avoid to notice. Cranes, construction sites, enormous scaffolds etc. are a huge part of Dubai’s current look. We had a blast looking at cranes whilst driving through the city because our two year old son digs cranes and excavators. But it really adds to feeling of Dubai not being an either charming, romantic or beautiful city. Having a walk in the city is just not something you do, in contrary to the European cities where that is exactly what a lot of people love in order to soak in the beauty of a city
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CONCLUSION:
If you’re travelling with a toddler: GO.
If you’re honeymooning and literally just want to stay be the hotel’s pool or in your room: GO.
If you’re a billionaire and can live the Dubai life: GO.
If you, like me, have a bucket list and want to see everything once: GO.
… If you’re neither of the above: DON’T GO.
* Sources: https: //www.khaleejtimes.com/business/real-estate/why-construction-industry-is-booming-in-dubai
Image credits: Photos by Christoph Schulz and Fancycrave on Unsplash.