For our visit to the UAE back in late April, we spent our first two nights in Abu Dhabi, before moving on for the last night to Dubai. I reviewed the two hotels we stayed at, the wonderful Shangri-La in Abu Dhabi and the Heritage Hotel in Dubai, a few months ago, but thought in this post to cover what we did while we were there, and how we found both places. I say that, of course, as someone whose prior impression of Dubai especially was full-on influencer flex territory.

We were determined not to spend all our time both in the respective hotels, but also not just wandering aimlessly in the heat around both cities.

Having arrived quite late the first evening, we planned our first activity for the following afternoon – an ‘island-hopping’ tour of Abu Dhabi, a place most would consider an unlikely destination to be island-hopping.

A word of warning for anyone who partakes in this activity – there were no toilets on-board the boat, although thankfully they found another boat to allow us use the facilities prior to departure.

After a brief offshore tour of the downtown city area, we headed out to nearby Dolphin Island, an unbelievable stretch of beach with crystal-clear waters and – at least initially – very peaceful. Perfect for a quick 40-minute stop to swim – although we could’ve stayed all day given a barbecue and some changing facilities.

Next stop was a sandbank en-route, where we decanted to quickly walk back and forth on the sandbank before getting back on-board and continuing to another island for lunch. This place, Bahrani Island if I’m not mistaken, was hilarious for all the wrong reasons.

After our guides started pitching their tent to set up lunch, and sent us all off to explore the island (we found a construction site and a mobile phone tower in our search for apparent wild oryx’s), we were all quickly summoned back as the island was getting ‘rowdy’ shall we say with other party boats nearby. It was beginning to feel very mildly like some kind of tepid European party island.

Back at our original location, Dolphin Bay, things had come to life here too – although we still had our lunch regardless – with a wealth of other boats, jetskis, and people trying to swim precariously in and around both. It was terrifying, yet very entertaining to watch, though a sharp contrast to just a few short hours earlier.

For our next tour, we went on a ‘multi-activity’ safari tour in the Al Khatim desert – although truthfully, we were both really all about the 4×4 dune bashing trip – much less the camel farm visit and sand boarding.

The camel visit – similar to Bahrani Island – was hilarious, but again for most unexpected reasons. We didn’t realize our good fortune, but we were to be in the company of the camel beauty contest winner; merrily slurping from an old bathtub and looking severely delapidated – which apparently is the sign of immense camel beauty.

The dune bashing (and indeed the sand boarding) was tremendous fun and so well worth the potential for puking in someone else’s car so early in the morning.

As you can imagine, no picture taken inside the car really does it justice so you’ll have to take my word for it; it was a lot of rollercoaster-like fun, and we only wished it could have lasted a little longer. How the drivers even know where they’re going, I’ll never know.

On our way back, we were even treated to a view of this fascinating method of camel transport – the back of a Toyota Hilux.

Abu Dhabi, sadly, was over way too quick and we really surprised ourselves by how much we enjoyed the place – the hotel was lovely, people were friendly, the tours were great if not all for the intended reasons, and it just seems like such a liveable place. On to Dubai!

We had so little time in Dubai so our first port of call was a nighttime bus tour of the city and its surroundings. To be honest, the bus was a little bit disappointing – the pre-recorded narration jarred with our drivers apparent lack of desire to pause or slow down past any of the main major sights; we tore past the Burj al-Arab for example far faster than anyone could take a picture, for example.

After that extreme whistlestop tour, we basked in the malls of downtown Dubai – which I found surprisingly not all ridiculously high-end – before indulging in an apparent tourist favourite, watching the light show on the Burj Khalifa.

Dubai, impressively, was also far more liveable and ‘regular’ than I might have gone expecting; and far more cultured than its reputation as a mega-hub for glitz and glamour would suggest.

Overall, we really enjoyed visiting both places – although Abu Dhabi still sticks out as a favourite. Who wouldn’t want to see the camel beauty contest winner, after all?