what's going on everybody this is Island Hopper TV today we're going to talk about the things to know when visiting Dubai let's do it [Music] all right let's talk about the things you need to know when you arrive in Dubai so you get a visa on arrival that means when you process through passport control they stamp your passport and that's when you get your visa and that Visa does not cost anything and you get 30 days all right let's talk about the best time to visit Dubai the best time hands down for weather is going
to be from October until April after that you start to get a lot hotter in Dubai July and August very very hot but the benefit of coming in those months is you're going to get affordable accommodation you can get a five-star hotel on downtown Dubai on the very top floor for around 150 dollars per night there's still going to be some other five-star hotels that are more expensive but that's the benefit of visiting in the summer for me I found a gray area around September and may you still get hot temperatures but you also still
get affordable accommodation so avoid July August shoot for September or may if you want to get the cheap places and if you want the great weather I just told you it is from October to April that's when everything's open too [Music] all right guys let's talk Transportation when visiting Dubai one of the best ways to get around Dubai is on the Metro okay and when it comes to riding the actual Metro you have the silver card and you have the gold card the gold card is a more priority seating it's like a first class the
silver is more economy much more crowded the price difference is about twice as much for the gold than it is for the silver so there's something you need to know about riding the Metro if you want to upgrade your class this is a different card for the gold card so I found myself riding around in a lot of taxis in Dubai they're very easily accessible you'll find them pretty much right when you step outside the mall or step outside one of the more popular venues they're right there also when you're riding in taxis there can
be lines this one here is at the Dubai Mall we're in a line for a taxi foreign but as you can see they do move quickly there is Uber in Dubai and I found using Uber has its advantage over taxis in certain circumstances especially if you're at a destination that's far away hailing an Uber is easier than trying to hail a cab especially if there's no cabs around you guys are looking for something cool to do you could run a Supercar only one thousand Durham for one hour yeah for one thousand Durham you could be
one of those guys cruising around in a Ferrari right there in jbr and if you want to cruise up and down the boardwalk here they've got tear scooters and they've also got another company right here that one's called an rnab so you can download the app before you even get to Dubai all right next up let's talk money in Dubai so what do you need to know about that well the currency is called a Durham not a dinar not a lira not a pound but a Durham and 3.70 Durham equal one US dollar at the
current time of making this now another thing to keep in mind is they do accept a wide variety of credit cards in taxis and across the town don't worry about that too much because most of these places will accept your cards even American Express most of the time it is Visa or Mastercard but American Express is accepted about 50 of the time if you have your debit card that's going to work almost all of the time wherever you are but yeah that's important to know having some cash on you also gets you further [Music] all
right let's talk about some facts about Dubai Dubai has a population of 3.3 million people 80 five percent of those people are expatriates they come from Pakistan Philippines India somewhere outside of Dubai also Palm jumeira that is the largest man-made island in the world when it comes they come to weather Dubai only gets around 25 days of rain per year also because it is a desert where does Dubai get its water well a lot of it comes from the ocean desalinization project so Dubai is actually the largest Emirate of seven in the United Arab Emirates
the official religion here in Dubai is Islam that's why you'll see many mosques around here the official language is Arabic although they do also speak English as a second language quite often did you know that Dubai is a city that's only 30 years old it's been developing Innovation and large buildings and communities all across Dubai right now I'm standing in Expo 2020 which is actually getting ready to open as Expo City another big massive project that's going to be world class drawing people in from all over the world to live work and play right here
very Innovative place you've seen it with Burj Khalifa you've seen it with Dubai Marina they're leading the way in sustainability and design and architecture that's what makes Dubai really cool things like this here in Expo City and if you look right behind me you can see the JW Marriott that's actually the tallest hotel in the world and this one here is in Business Bay right next to downtown in case you wanted to book a stay all right let's talk about activities and things to do while you're visiting Dubai first thing you're going to want to
know is there's many malls and the reason there's so many big huge malls here and indoor activities is because in the summertime it's excruciatingly hot people don't want to go out when it's that hot so they go to these Balls Like the Mall of the Emirates or Dubai Mall or dmcc Mall there's so many different malls you'll find even Marina mall going to the Lost Chambers aquarium at Atlantis many water parks across Dubai as you can see right here there's so much fun there the Dubai eye heading out to Blue Waters hot air balloon rides
in the desert the top of Burj Khalifa the tallest building in the world look at that view the Museum of the future you can see what's going to be taking place in Dubai riding boats across the Mad net Dubai Creek Dubai Canal going to the top of the Palm on Palm Jumeirah look at the views up here 360 Degrees the beaches there's lemur there's jbr there's the glow Garden look at this glow garden and so much more lots to do in Dubai all right next thing to know is let's talk about the accommodation here in
Dubai what are the hotels looking like what's the Airbnb situation looking like there's many different areas you could say across Dubai let's talk about some of those more in detail right now so one of the most popular areas that you may want to stay is in downtown Dubai we stayed at the Staybridge Suites which is actually a high-rise Tower we were on the 34th floor it was a two-bedroom apartment fully furnished it was a luxurious experience with great views looking down and the pool was also really awesome this is downtown Dubai we were in Dubai
in September so this room only cost 120 dollars a night for the two bedroom after staying in downtown we decided to move around to the Dubai Marina we started out at the marina hotel Apartments this one was a bit bigger than the Staybridge but it was about the same price uh it was a two bedroom also once we were done with that one we actually ended up moving to a little bit more affordable uh apartment that was under a hundred dollars a night it was also a two bedroom in the marina area it was a
bit smaller than the other one but it had more things to do around there the one problem with this area was that it was hard to get in and out of and there wasn't a Metro which is probably why this one's more affordable than the other one because out front of the marina apartment there was the metro station this one you actually had to walk at least 10 minutes to get to the metro and 10 minutes to get to the tram so yes you save money but you do lose convenience so choose location wisely foreign
guys let's talk about nightlife in Dubai so I'm standing here right now with Dubai Marina in the backdrop so a lot of people think that Dubai is a dry City but that's not the case it's dry in town but there's hotels and other places like lounges that are allowed to get a liquor license that's how people are able to drink so no it's not a dry City and along with your beverages you will get shisha like we found here at Cabo Cabo is located in Business Bay there's many different areas that you can check out
for nightlife but the big ones that you're going to want to explore is going to be Business Bay the marina area the Palm also around jbr they have some lounges that are worth checking out at some of the hotels but if you do research on Google and you type in the top 10 places to enjoy nightlife top 10 lounges top 10 bars in Dubai you'll get a whole list right there or you you can simply subscribe to this Channel and watch our next video that's coming out about nightlife in Dubai we're also making another video
about best places to stay these are going to be full dedicated videos more in detail about both of those subjects now getting back on subject with nightlife for the sake of this travel guide here there are sometimes dress codes so you will want to research if the place that you're planning on going has a dress code for example don't show up someplace in shorts if they require you to wear pants or don't show up in flip-flops after going to the beach thinking that you're going to be able to get in because they do have rules
about this at some clubs not every Lounge is going to have a dress code not every Lounge is going to have an entry fee [Music] and yes of course when you're in Dubai you can get pizza just like this yeah and it's not just pizza you can get any type of Cuisine I mean I ate a Cheesecake Factory while I was there I had TGI Fridays I had Tony Roma's I also had plenty of local Cuisine like Lebanese Cuisine so this idea that you're coming to an Arabic country and you're only going to be able
to get Arabic food or Middle Eastern food it couldn't be further from the truth you're going to get a whole bunch of different Cuisine you're going to get Japanese Chinese Italian luxury food fast food all sorts of variety you could see right here we're trying out a variety of different Cuisine right here in Dubai Dubai is truly a world city that's what a lot of people don't understand when you come to Dubai you're entering into one of the top five Global cities International cities in the world and the food that you're gonna have at your
beck and call is going to be a reflection of that if you want take out in the middle of the night or room service in the middle of the night you can call up your hotel front desk and they will deliver it's one of those kind of cities and yes they even have hamburgers but here's what I will say about the food scene I actually ended up picking up some new favorites because I was so open to the International Food scene here and now I actually like to drink Breakfast tea I was not a big
breakfast tea drinker I was more of a coffee kind of guy I was open to ideas here visiting the Middle East and now I like tea and when it comes to other beverages like mocktails or cocktails of course they have that and then plenty of dessert I mean gotta stay away from dessert sometimes because it can be addicting maybe once or twice a week but you guys get the idea they got lots of that here or simply going out for a midnight snack or late night snack and before you arrive in Dubai if you watch
someone want to do a delivery service here in Dubai download the app deliveroo deliveroo is essentially ubereats or doordash what we have in the states or depending on where you're coming from but many of the hotels won't let your driver go to your room so they'll drop it at the front desk [Music] and last but not least let's talk about safety so this is the question that comes up so frequently and the best way I can answer it is did you know Dubai is literally one of the safest cities in the world say for the
Norway in many instances safer than the United States all the way across the board Dubai is a very safe place the crime rate is super low when it comes to violent crime it's almost non-existent it happens but it's very rare petty crime very rare So if you're one of those people who's worried about safety in Dubai you're not really going to have too much concern with this you can walk around 11 o'clock at night in downtown or at Business Bay or in the marina area and not really have to be too concerned even as a
female but as always just use common sense no place is 100 perfect and in conclusion when you come to Dubai get ready to have a Out of This World experience and enjoy yourself [Music] thank you [Music]
