Dubai Travel Forum

My partner and I have a 9 hour stopover in Dubai on our way home to Perth from a week in Europe.

We would like to leave the airport and do some exploring but the problem is our stopover is from 1am to 10am.


We would need to be back in the airport by 8am, is there anything we can do in Dubai in the middle of the night? Any 24 hour shopping centres or very late night markets.

Alternatively are there places thaat will be open before 8am on a saturday morning?

We are young and active and wouldn't mind a little bit of partying but would like to be able to see some of Dubai also.

Any reccommendations? Otherwise we may just get in a taxi and roam the streets for nine hours looking at things....

Friday is the weekend, plus Saturday for some people, so some places are open later than usual on Friday night/Saturday morning. Arabic restaurants in particular stay open into the early hours. Most malls close around midnight, the souks close a little before that. Nothing will be open before 8am on Saturday. Hotel coffee shops (or as they call them now, 'all day dining restaurants') are open 24 hours.

You could taxi down to the centre of town along the Creek where the dhows and souks are to get a bit of atmosphere but there won't be much going on.

I think you'll find there's not much time to go looking around. On our return leg,we went to the hotel Emirates provided and had a sleep.(We had stopped over on our way to Europe.) And there wasn't even enough time for a good sleep. We had to wake up early(6am),do the luggage thing, grab a bite for breakfast and make our way to the airport. Allow for traffic congestion at the airport, human queues at the terminal entrance, more queues at check in, more queues at immigration control,and then walking from one end of the terminal to the other because they change the departure gate number without telling you, then more queues etc etc etc etc. So deduct all that and you'll have much much less than 9 hours.

I agree with Colin: There's nothing much that you can do.

The malls close at midnight, so do the souks. Nightclubs / Bars all close at 3am. Nothing opens before 8am or even 10am on a Saturday. At least there will hardly be any traffic as it is indeed the weekend for most people.

I guess you could grab a taxi and simply do a "do-it-yourself" city tour down to the Dubai Creek, the Burj Al Arab, Sheikh Zayed Road, etc.

Also you can check if the airline may provide free accommodation to have few hours of sleep. Night would not show the real Dubai!! :-)

Ahmed, welcome to VT....but advertising on the forum is not allowed.