Melissa R, apr. 2017
Glad we did it since we did not know any better, but wish we had rented a car for the day and made the trip ourselves so we could do things at our own pace. The mosque was stunning and definitely what made the whole trip worthwhile. We were given 1 hour to tour it, and though I could have spent a little more time there, I felt that was sufficient. After the mosque, we went to the Heritage Village, where we only had 30 minutes. My spouse and I elected to take photos of the skyline and put our toes in the sand, but this meant that we essentially had no time to see the exhibits, so I wish we had been able to spend more time there. Then we were taken to a shopping mall where we were given a little over an hour, which most people spent at the food court eating lunch. This was fine, but did not happen until 2pm, so I would advise anyone who is used to eating lunch earlier to maybe bring a small snack. After eating at the mall, we were taken to a place across the water from the Presidential Palace for a 15 minute photo stop. Then we were taken to Ferrari World for a 30 minute photo stop, which was also fine, but would not satisfy anyone who actually wished to go into Ferrari World which does have a steep entrance fee.
For me, the real issue was the size of the tour was relatively large, which meant we spent almost as much time in traffic in Dubai picking up and dropping off other passengers. In the morning, we spent two hours in the car going around Dubai to pick up other people some of whom showed up more than 30 minutes late to their pick up time, then we met up with a tour bus that already had a number of people on it, and then went to pick up even more people. By the time we got on the bus, the only space where two people could sit together was in the front immediately behind the driver, which was hot and had no leg room because of the way the engine well was situated. The tour guide kept insisting that I sit up there with my spouse when I selected a single seat near the door. When I flat out refused to move to that seat, the tour guide finally moved a bag from another single seat to allow my spouse to sit there, which meant the last people picked up were stuck with the zero leg room seats. The guide also later was snippy with me when I was two minutes late by his clock to the meeting site at the mosque when my phone said I was on time, which was a bit weird. Overall, the guide was funny, but the two awkward interactions, plus all the time spent driving around picking up other people did not make it our favorite tour in Dubai.