Prior to visiting Dubai for the first time, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel about it.

I LOVED it.

As shallow as it is, I loved the excess – the utter bling – all around. I adored the searing heat that hit you like a dry wave when you left your air conditioned hotel room. The service in restaurants and hotels was out of this world. On a night out or around the pool, you could find yourself chatting to people from all different cultures, from all around the world, learning new things about them and where they came from, which I utterly adored.

I could also leave my phone and purse on my table in a restaurant while I went to the loo, without fear of it being stolen, and I could walk down the street on my own at whatever time I liked – day or night – and feel 100% safe.

Of course, there are reasons for this, but putting the politics and ruling of Dubai to one side, it appears I am not alone in my love for this shrine to excess:

• In 2023, over 17 million visitors arrived in Dubai – 19% more than the previous year
• 19% of those visitors were from western Europe
• It’s the third most visited city in the world (that’s quite an achievement for the former ruler, who recognised Dubai needed another revenue stream for when the oil ran dry)
• It now has more than 800 hotels and 150,000 hotel rooms
• A crazy 157 of those are five star, with 52,000 rooms
• Mastercard says that tourists spend more in Dubai than in any other city in the world
• Last year, revenue from tourism exceed $16 billion and surpassed the oil industry

We partied hard whilst there, taking care to respect the culture, ie not drunkenly staggering about and being rowdy in the streets, but instead limiting our behaviour to resorts. I have gay friends who holiday there and we chatted to gay people who lived there too (homosexuality is illegal in Dubai) and they said that they exist happily.

Dubai to many is the ultimate holiday destination – an uber-rich playground where service, attractions and almost everything else is top notch. But it’s Marmite to some.

Peter Taylor-Whiffen went and wasn’t a fan. Here’s his personal account:

“It all depends,” I said to myself as we touched down in Dubai, “on how you look at things.”

To be honest, I hadn’t been that fussed about coming. Shiny stuff, designer labels, supercars, shopping – none of that impresses me much. But my influencer-led teenager currently values such status symbols, and so when we gave him the choice of this year’s holiday destination, he unhesitatingly opted for Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

And Dubai didn’t disappoint him. It’s a sparkly utopia that breathes effortless wealth and aspiration. The world’s most glittering shopping malls house its most exclusive stores; Ferraris, Lambos and McLarens fizz along the ultra-clean highways; and the planet’s tallest, shiniest buildings sparkle under a searing Arabian sun. Online travel surveys regularly rate this emirate the world’s No1 holiday destination, and no wonder. If that floats your yacht, you can, for a few cossetted days, live out an uber-rich fantasy.

But it is merely that – a fantasy, and it does depend on how you look at things. I also faced a personal challenge of holidaying in a country, the laws and the governing of which fundamentally challenge my own beliefs.

So, I was always going to take some winning over. But I will say this: Dubai is fascinating, and it is unique. Over the past half-century, and particularly the last 25 years, it has emerged upwards out of the desert to boast one of the most distinctive skylines on earth.

And boy does it boast it, for Dubai is shameless in pushing the biggest and best. For a start, it has no fewer than 28 buildings over 300m tall – more than any other city on Earth. The Dubai Mall is the planet’s largest shopping centre, with 1,200 retail outlets, an Olympic-sized skating rink and the world’s largest in-mall aquarium – which, by the way, also features at 700m2  the world’s largest video wall.

 

The city’s other attractions also include the world’s tallest big wheel, the deepest diving pool, the highest infinity pool (75 floors up the SLS Dubai Hotel) and the largest outdoor floral arrangement (72m x 78m x 21m) at the Dubai Miracle Garden. The city has hosted the world’s largest laser show and its highest fountain show. And in addition to all that, there’s the Dubai Frame, the world’s largest picture frame – a 150m-high curiosity with, at the top, an observation deck and glass floor, which is all very nice but for me begged the question: Why?

 

And literally topping all of these is the mighty Burj Khalifa, which rises an extraordinary 828m – more than half a mile – and is, inevitably, the tallest building in the world. It equally inevitably houses the world’s highest viewing platform (124^th floor) and the highest occupied floor (164^th) and its lift is another world record holder, vertically travelling 504metres.

Burj Khalifa is a spectacular feat of engineering. It’s also a beautiful piece of art, glistening through the sandy air. So, it’s a shame that once you pay your £55 to get up there (and, in our case, refuse to pay another £55 for a green-screen souvenir photograph), the view of the city so far below is a bit underwhelming. For all its glossy sheen – or perhaps because of it – Dubai from the air is no New York.

 

However, as if to prove that it really does depend on how you look at things, what you can see is the sunset – twice. This building is the only one in the world so tall where you can stand on the ground to view the sun’s last rays disappear below the horizon and then take the lift to the top and see them do it again.

Dubai does offer some other special experiences too. Directly in front of the Burj Khalifa, between it and the neighbouring Dubai Mall, is a small manmade lake, which every evening on the half-hour hosts a display of 100ft-high coloured fountains dancing to music. This is spectacular anyway, but even more enchanting if you coincide it with a boat ride.

But the best viewpoint in this emirate is actually considerably lower than the Burj and around six miles south west of it, on Dubai’s famous Palm Jumeirah. This is another extraordinary engineering endeavour – a development of villas, apartments and hotels on what is effectively a symmetrical palm-shaped island, with seven ‘fronds’ reaching out each side of a main thoroughfare across the water. From a platform called The View, at the top of the Nakheel Mall, you can see the whole of the Palm spread out in front of you. Lit up against a cobalt evening sky, it’s wondrous to behold.

So, there’s no doubt Dubai offers a glorious experience for those who like what it’s selling. There are the views, the adventurous can head for the desert for dune buggy safaris and Bedouin ‘experiences’ –  camel riding, star-gazing, traditional dancing, fire-eating shows, authentic meals. The numerous beachfront hotels offer island tours and speedboat rides. You can hire that supercar for the day (approx £900 per day) – or book a limo instead of that taxi.

 

And then, yes, there are the shops – Cartier, Rolex, Versace, Louboutin, Louis Vuitton and ALL the rest. If you can’t find your luxury of choice here, be assured it’s not worth having. And all this in a place where the streets are safe to walk, there’s glorious sunshine, 100F heat and the people can’t do enough for you. This is a beautiful place for those fancying themselves as beautiful people.

So why do I still not like it? Why did I leave feeling so empty? I think it’s because, to me, it is all artifice. It is soulless and completely lacking a national identity. To me, this is not a nation, it is a one-man corporation: Sheikh Maktoum plc.

Native Emiratis make up just six per cent of Dubai’s population, outnumbered 15-1 by ex-patriates. They, and many foreign service workers, exist out of sight of the glitterati, shunted off-stage into the desert slums. According to Amnesty International, one in six struggle on just $20 a day. No fancy shopping for them. I had a major issue with the injustice of that, a discomfiting emotion my mind would not shake off the whole time I was there.

So, enjoying Dubai, I think, comes down to a choice. It’s the very ultimate in luxury. But, in my opinion, it’s also completely unreal – a calculating, effective business designed to entrap you in a place where you can live out a fantasy existence, fancy yourself as a princess or a prince, where your eyes are diverted constantly to the pretty shiny things in front of you –  while those inconvenient truths of real life are deliberately magically banished somewhere far enough away that you can pretend they don’t exist.

But then, you could say exactly the same about Disney World. It all depends on how you look at things.

Liked what you just read? Please subscribe to The Sun Lounger for more travel news, reviews and interviews.

Please follow The Sun Lounger on social media:

https://www.instagram.com/thesunlounger/

https://www.facebook.com/thesunlounger