Dubai. Camel Safari in The Desert.

A Desert Safari in Dubai with Camel Riding

Last night was the most fun we’ve had in a long time, and that’s saying a lot!

The boys and I are in Dubai for a brief visit before catching our cruise ship to Australia and we’re doing our best to get a taste of what this amazing city offers tourists.
We’ve already taken a cultural tour and lunch which was A-Mazing, visited Dubai Mall, watched the fountain show at the Burj Khalifa and generally had a fantastic time.

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Where Did We Stay in Dubai?

while staying in a lovely and affordable apartment hotel ( with washing machine!). Click through to check prices and availability.We thought we’d have one big, fairly expensive, touristy splurge on an evening in the desert, with camels, food, belly dancing, the full desert-camp extravaganza.
It cost us a fair bit, over $300, but boy was it worth it!

 

We Decided Against 4×4 Desert Safaris for the Children.

My youngest child at 8, gets car sick very, very occasionally, but that wasn’t the reason we decided against the dune bashing. I just didn’t think the kids would enjoy it. We owned a 4 wheel drive back in Australia and they never liked being bounced about in the back. I read that children struggle to see out of the back windows of the vehicles, which was confirmed to us when we took the short 4X4 trip from the main road to our desert camp. We were squashed in the back row of an 8 seater and the windows were tiny.  I don’t think we missed anything by not taking the popular option.

Four wheel drive vehicles converge on the desert camp at sunset.

What We Wanted Was Camels!

Camels are cool. We wanted camels. Not on the beach ( you can do that in Dubai too), we wanted camel riding in the actual desert, so I spent a morning trying to find a tour that would let us do this without the off-roading. It wasn’t easy, there didn’t seem to be many, but I eventually found one and booked online.

What Was Included in the Camel Safari.

Pick up from our hotel at 3pm in a new, comfortable vehicle. We picked up 4 other passengers.

4X4 transport from the road to the desert camp.

A 45 minute camel ride, just the 3 of us. Our camel-wrangler allowed the boys to get off and run around the sand dunes at the half-way point.

Water

Henna painting

Dress up in traditional Emirati outfits. Unfortunately there were no child sizes.

Dinner at camp, and it was good!

A dance show with belly dancing and male dancers doing something very similar to the dervishes in Turkey.

Drop off at our hotel at around 9pm.

There was a hunting falcon at the camp but no photos without a $10 payment.

Endless running up and down sand dunes while mum enjoyed her first and only $10 beer.

The desert camp comes alive as the sun sets on Dubai.

 

Our Verdict on the Camel Safari:

We loved it. The boys adored the camels and the dunes. Dinner was great, lots of choice and plenty of food. The kids pronounced the dancing “better than expected”. Below is an affiliate link t the company we used, booking through us costs you nothing extra and helps us a lot.

We booked our Dubai desert camel safari through Get Your Guide, check pricing and availability here. Highly recommended for the ease of booking, a few clicks and we were done, ready to picked up from our hotel. They offer loads of other Dubai tours too.

I’m in a rush, we join our ship tomorrow and my internet time will be limited, just time to squeeze out one last post for our followers. I’ll let the pictures tell the story with this one and tell you that the kids are begging to go again. If you have any questions just leave them in the comments and I’ll fill in the blanks once we’re back on dry land. I may just share my video of the belly dancer too.