Dubai May Half Term

We've not long come back from an amazing week with family and friends in Dubai and I cant recommend it highly enough!

Ok it was quite warm for my pasty husband and my fair skinned kids but we were armed with sunsuits and factor 50 so managed that bit. The hotel helped too easing the pressure of the 40 degrees heat and wall-to-wall sunshine by chilling the pools, coming round with cold scented towels, and spraying chilled water on you whilst cooking on the beach......the service in Dubai is another level, when you ask for 5 star in Dubai you get it and some!

We stayed on the long sand stretch of the Jumeirah beach which is home to the iconic Burj, Jumeirah Beach Hotel and the Mina Al Salem, Madinat Jumeirah and not forgetting the very useful and free with the hotel Wild Wadi Park !!!

We stayed in the Dar Al Masyaf, part of the Madinat and its suites in Villas and was an economical way to house a family of 5, the villas are great, quiet, close to the beach and pool specially for a few villas and each villa has a butler and so check-out is in the room, really smooths the process. We all rather enjoyed the happy hour in the villa too from 6-8pm. Its a popular choice and some of the lovely people we met in our villa have been to the hotel more than 10 times and I can honestly say we will be going back soon.

So for us we had an amazing array of restaurants to choose from, most were part of the half board scheme, and our butlers kindly pre-booked and organised these for us. There are bars (but children are allowed) and a souk inside the resort selling souvenirs, clothes, pharmacy and most things you could ever need. If you didn't want to leave the resort you definitely dont need to. The gym is state of the art with a great indoor pool offering all sorts of gym extras including swimming lessons for the energetic!

Staying in the resort gives automatic access to the wonderful Wild Wadi Park which is a smaller perfectly adequate version of the Atlantis, again another reason to stay rooted to the sunbed. Access around resort is either by brand new golf buggies or abra on the waterways - its a great and novel way to get around and the kids love it.

So we were there this year with a few other families and as the resort is so large you could actually avoid them if you needed to but we didn't and so spent a great balance of quality family time and time with our/their friends. We had a few evenings together with pre-organised dinners for 31 (I did organise these in advance) and I even organised a late afternoon yacht trip with water sports round the Dubai Marina. In the past we've done Dune Bashing, Burge Al Khalifa, horse riding, shopping - all of which are possible. We also had a fabulous evening without kids enjoying the sunset and luxury of the Burj, drinking cocktails in the Burj Skybar which is worth a visit.

Every year I'm sure its the last time that we will go to Dubai as it really is just a fly and flop holiday and there are so many places to go ! But every year with the great flight time, minimal time difference, guaranteed sun and sea, amazing service levels we end up drawn to this place for those half term weeks February and October its a no-brainer!

But if you are still drawn to these qualities and are really done with Dubai contact me as I have other ideas worth exploring like - Oman, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain to name but a few........