Is Dubai a family travel destination? Yes, of course it is! Dubai is a perfect city to travel with the little ones at home. It is a city that is very well prepared to enjoy not only the adults, but also the children.
Water parks, amusement parks, aquariums, ferris wheels, animals, fountains, and the best beaches in Dubai. All this and much more this emirate has to offer, and lots and lots of fun!
What to see in Dubai with children
We are going to tell you what places you can’t miss if you travel to Dubai with children. You will love it! Ready to travel to Dubai?
The Green Planet Dubai
We start our trip to Dubai with nature and animals. One of the places in Dubai to go with kids is The Green Planet Dubai. It is a beautiful building on the outside the houses inside along with furniture has an extraordinary tropical forest with more than 3000 species of plants and animals.
Piranhas, toucans, all kinds of reptiles, sloths and much more, and you can even experience a tropical storm during your visit, which is really cool!
The little ones have the opportunity to see animals they have never seen before up close. Iago had a great time.
An experience of a couple of hours in which the little ones will learn and enjoy themselves.
Near the building is City Walk, an outdoor pedestrian area full of stores, restaurants and cafes, with lots of atmosphere! Just in case you feel like taking a stroll.
Burj Khalifa
A must-see in Dubai with or without children is of course the tallest building in the world. Visiting the Burj Khalifa is one of the biggest attractions of the city. And we could not make a list of recommendations without mentioning it.
It is an experience for both adults and children. Watching the world from up there is a marvel and one of the most exclusive experiences in the world.
Day or night? Seeing the 360-degree views of the city of Dubai from 828 meters high is impressive at any time of the day. But we have to say that enjoying a sunset from up there is unique. Seeing that magical moment and how it lights up the city little by little is brutal.
Don’t forget to look for these wings on the 24th and 25th floor, the photo is worth it!
Dubai Fountain
The Dubai Fountain is another of the great attractions of this city, you can not leave Dubai without seeing the light and water show par excellence of the city! And one of the most beautiful free shows even if you are staying in the dorm room.
The first show starts at 18:00h in the evening, and so on consecutively every 30 minutes until 23:00h at night. There are also daytime shows, at 13:00h and 13:30h, except Fridays, which are at 13:30 and 14:00h.
It is, of course, the largest fountain in the world. It measures no more and no less than 275 meters long, has 50 video projectors that illuminate the water and has a whopping 6,600 spotlights. A barbarity!
If you have been to Las Vegas it will inevitably remind you of the Bellagio Fountains, the only thing is that the Dubai Fountain is much bigger.
Seeing the spectacle of the Dubai Fountain with the Burj Khalifa in the background is priceless. And the little ones love it. See water jets, music, lights … Everything together is a great show! When it’s over, they will probably ask for more.
We had to come back another day to repeat the experience.
Dubai Aquarium
In the Dubai Mall itself, next to the Burj Khalifa and the Fountain is the aquarium. The Dubai Aquarium, the largest aquarium in the world.
More than 140 species are found in it, more than 400 sharks and rays live in this tank of 10 million liters. You can see tiger sharks, giant groupers, huge rays, fish of all colors and sizes, as well as many other marine species.
More or less the visit can last between 1 and 2 hours. The beginning of the experience with this huge tank of water is breathtaking, a marine spectacle that leaves the little ones, but also the older ones, spellbound!
La Mer
An ideal waterfront area for strolling with children is La Mer. It has a beach, restaurants of all kinds, bars and cafes, attractions, parks, ice cream stands, carousels, and much more! Even a water park!
It is halfway between Pearl Jumeirah and Jumeirah Bay.
We had the hotel in that area, we will tell you more about it later because we recommend it as a place to stay. And the truth is that almost every night before or after dinner we would go for a walk along the La Mer promenade in front of the beach, and we loved it! By the way, we`ve booked this hotel at https://karta.com
That’s why we can only mention it in this list of perfect places to see and enjoy with kids in Dubai.
Atlantis or Laguna Waterpark
In a city as spectacular and fun as Dubai, where it is impossible to get bored and where it is always summer, a great plan to go with children is to go to a water park.
Spending the whole day, a morning or an afternoon in your swimsuit, barefoot and soaking in the water, isn’t it a good plan? We recommend two of them: the Atlantis Waterpark, because it is one of the most impressive in the city, and the Laguna Waterpark, which is smaller and is in La Mer.
We recommend the latter especially if you are staying at the same hotel where we stayed. Because it is very close and we know that the issue of transportation with children is essential.
Expo 2022
If you go to Dubai this year, you can’t miss Expo 2021! The Dubai Expo is a spectacle. Spending a day there going from pavilion to pavilion, enjoying its attractions and exclusive shows, is an experience!
It’s well worth it!
There are lots of things for kids: playgrounds, parks, carousels, etc. Don’t miss the Brazil pavilion with a swimming pool under the building itself, the Water Feature, an incredible waterfall that defeats the laws of gravity; or the garden in the sky called Garden in The Sky.
These are just some of the things you can visit. We leave you an article from the official website of the Expo Dubai 2020 in which they recommend what to see with children: visit the Expo with children.
In addition, the ideal thing about the Expo is that it is a huge space without cars, where the little ones can run around, playing, getting wet, eating and enjoying every attraction.
To buy a ticket you can do it here. And if you are traveling with Emirates, please note that the tickets include a free one-day ticket to Expo 2020. All you have to do is go to the Emirates website and validate your tickets with your airline ticket information. Very easy! We handle it in a few minutes.
If your children are small, we recommend you to take a stroller or a baby carrier. The Expo is a huge venue and they will surely get tired of walking everywhere. For lunch there are many restaurants with all kinds of food. And moms who breastfeed your little ones, there are wonderful breastfeeding rooms, perfect and clean for that personal and intimate moment.
Final tips for traveling to Dubai with children
And although we are not yet experts in traveling with children, we would like to leave you with a couple of final tips in case they help you:
- Always carry a sweater or jacket in your backpack. In Dubai they always have very strong air conditioning in all enclosed places, so it is essential to wear something with long sleeves on top, to avoid future colds.
- Choose a hotel with a swimming pool. We believe it is very important in Dubai to stay in a hotel with a swimming pool. To be able to enjoy in the hottest hours of the day a dip in the pool to cool off.
- Lactation rooms. Do not worry because everywhere there are lactation rooms where you can breastfeed the little ones and also spaces to change diapers. In addition, the rooms and bathrooms are very clean.
- For the plane we recommend you to take a backpack full of toys. We carry around Dubai with a small backpack full of small animals, mini stories, paints, notebooks, sticker books and even a cloth ball, everything is not enough to entertain these little ones during a 7 hour flight!
- For jet lag, our advice is to try to respect the same sleep routine you had at home, at least for the first few days. Little by little the children will get used to the new schedule without any problem. Iago, for example, two days after arriving in Dubai was already going to bed at the same time as at home.
- So much for our Dubai with kids. Do you now think that Dubai is an ideal city for a family trip? Have you felt like going? Tell us about it!
- If you have any doubts or would like to know something in particular, do not hesitate to leave us a comment below and we will answer you as soon as possible.
And if you want to live a trip like the one we lived, we leave you the link to Pangea, the travel agency with which we traveled to Dubai. You will not regret it, traveling with them is a safe bet!
