1 Day in United Arab Emirates with kids
As we were headed to Sri Lanka, we had a layover for 22 hours in Dubai, which I chose for a reason- to spend the whole day in United Arab Emirates. Our flight was a night flight and we landed at around 6:30 am in Dubai which gave us a minimum of 18 hours to spend here. Kids slept through the night flight, us – not so much, but i can live with one day without sleep.
Before the trip I reserved a car. The cost – 69$ US, as we needed and SUV for our family of 6 (my mums is traveling with us).
First thing we did – we left for Abu Dhabi, which is about an hour away. I wanted to see the Grand Mosque in the capital city, which looked surreal from the pictures. We got there at 10:30 am and got our tickets (it is free of charge but you need to register and get the QR codes to get in – you may want to do it online before coming, since it took a good 30 minutes to get them at the mosque). This Grand Mosque is a world miracle which exceeded our expectations far and beyond. Even though it was 34-37 degrees for those hours we were there – they give you an umbrella to use so you would not be in the sun, there are water fountains everywhere, and if you are too hot- you can always go inside of the entrance – they have AC on.
There is a clear dress code to be able to get in into the mosque – the women have to cover hands and legs, as well as head. Men – no short sleeve t shirts or shorts (the pants have to cover the knees at least). There are stores at the entrance which sell you an outfit for 45AED (about 12$ US).
We spent there couple of hours and had great time exploring around the mosque.
Next stop was to have some local lunch – which we did right there in Abu Dhabi. We found a great little local place for Iraqi food and had their specialties.
Right after lunch – back to Dubai.
We went to the beach, right there by Burj Al Arab- the beach is fabulous!
It is suitable for kids, it has a long stretch of shallow shore, near by bathrooms, restaurants, lifeguards. The sand is not hot at all!
We spend couple of hours at the beach and headed to downtown Dubai to see Burj khalifa and the fountains near by – as they start the show at 6 pm every day. We found a sweet spot where to watch – by Downtown slide- the area also had delicious ice cream.
We wrapped up our day eating ice cream in downtownDubai, near Burj Khalifa.
We could easily have done Miracle Gardens but had one very tired person, that we decided it was enough for one day. So we headed to the airport for our next flight.