How To Experience Dubai On Emirates’ Dubai Connect Service With #3under5
Using the Dubai Connect Service on our way home has become somewhat of a family tradition.
When you are living abroad, a considerable amount of time might be spent on visiting family and friends in your passport country. Therefore, not many paid leave days for an actual vacation are left. Taking this small time window of the stop over on the way back, diving into the world of Dubai with its different culture is like a mini vacation.
We have now done the stop over and going out into Dubai some four or five times. Each time, the stay was very well organized and felt just easy. Even with little babies and kids.
Find out more about it by reading the below post. Compare it to our Stop Over Experience in Istanbul with Turkish Airlines later.
The Booking Procedure
The Emirate’s Stop Over Program is called ‘Dubai Connect‘. You are only eligible for this service if your travel fulfills certain booking and stop over requirements. Your flights must have been the best flight alternative available and contain a stop over of more than 8 to 26 hours in (Premium) Economy Class.
You have to book the service at least 24 hours in advance to your inbound flight to Dubai. After arrival in Dubai you have to meet them at the Dubai Connect desk in Arrivals.
There you receive the voucher for the hotel and they inform you about the shuttle bus service.
Make sure to check whether you need a visa to enter the UAE and whether your connecting time requires you to take your luggage and check it in again. This is what happened to us on the last stop over. I believe the threshold is 24 hours. We were able to store our luggage at the airport so that it wasn’t too bad. The procedure of getting our things, finding the right place to leave it and later checking it in again just took a lot of time (especially when you’re moving with three little kids).
The Accommodation
For our last two stop overs we were accommodated at the Copthorne Airport Hotel Dubai. This is not to confuse with the Copthorne Hotel Dubai which also exists.
The Copthorne Airport Hotel Dubai is located a very short 5 minute drive from the International Airport. That is from the station the shuttle bus leaves from. Inside the airport there was quite some walking to get to the right place. Despite being close to the airport you don’t notice any loud noise from flights while staying at the hotel.
The location is also convenient enough to go and explore Dubai on your stop over. It is about a 20 minute drive to Dubai Mall or Burj Khalifa,
The hotel seems to be specialized in stop over stays. You receive a room very quickly after arrival, dpeneidng on how many travelers are checking in at the same time. While there are usually set check out times, you can stay in your room until you actually have to leave for your connecting flight. This was very convenient.
The hotel has xx stars. It has a restaurant that doesn’t seem fancy but has a good buffet. There is a swimming pool with a bar, a playground for kids, a gym, spa and salon, some shops and counters to book tours in the lobby, and other amenities.
The Flight
Flying with Emirates with small children has been the most pleasant. I’ve flown with them with babies as little as 2.5 months old, in combination of 3 and 1 years old, and lastly 5, 3 and 1.5 years old.
From the moment you step on the plane the crews are open and friendly. They are pro-active and helpful when they find you could need a helping hand with your kids or luggage.
The time until take off is bridged by taking a polaroid picture of the whole family and the handing out of the small kids bags. For children these include a back pack, a notebook with games and quizzes and 6 small crayons. For babies, they hand out a blanket with a little toy plushy.
When it comes to meal time, they pro-actively bring the food for children out first. It is a kids’ plate that differs from the adults’ food. You get about 10-15 minutes until the food for everyone arrives. While we could always need a little bit more time for them to finish their food, it is really helpful to not receive everything at once. I really appreciate that Emirates takes the perspective of the parents here as not all airlines do this.
What seems to be a new way of entertaining the kids (and other flight passengers) is that the air hostesses share their beautiful red hats with the white scarf for them to wear and take a picture with. They didn’t do it on all flights and not with every passenger of course but on two out of four flights.
The Airport Transfer
The Airport Transfer was another very easy and smooth aspect of the Dubai Connect Service.
At the Dubai Connect Desk they informed us about where to take the shuttle from. It runs a few times per hour so that the wait time is never too long. It’s a small bus that holds around 20-30 people with space for your hand luggage in the back.
The drive is a short 5 minutes and it takes you right to the front of the hotel.
The shuttle bus is complementary and you don’t have to pay for it.
The Actual Stay
We arrived very early in the morning. After we had finally figured out our luggage at the airport we got to the hotel and checked into our room. I was knackered by then as I didn’t get much sleep on the flight. So I went to take a nap. My husband took the kids to get something to eat and to check out the playground. Then they also took a nap and it wasn’t until 4pm ish that we all got up. We went back to the playground and for a swim in the hotel pool.
Once we had freshened up, we went to the hotel restaurant to have dinner. From there we got an Uber to go to Dubai Mall. It was 9:30pm by the time we left. Since our rhythm was all over the place I didn’t mind it with regards to kids’ bedtime.
Dubai Mall was not very busy. We just walked around for a little bit. Of course, we spent some time at the aquarium observing the fish. We didn’t know the fountain stopped at 23pm but luckily caught the very last moment of the last showing. The kids got an ice cream from one of the funny Turkish ice cream salesmen who keep teasing the kids until they actually get it outside at the lake.
My husband who grew up in the UK for a big part of his life wanted to go to Nando’s. Even though we’d been before, we walked around for way too long looking for it with people sending us in all different kinds of directions, levels of the malls… It’s just outside beside the lake, in case you might be looking for it.
This time we didn’t do much during our stop over. During previous stop overs that we’re still baby free, we did however visit the Burj Khalifa and went all the way to the top. On yet another stop over we had lunch in , then spent time around a fun beach promenade at La Mer Beach and went to Ting Airi for dinner.
The last stop over before CoVid put the world on pause, we were travelling back from Dakar with our 2.5-3 months old baby. At that time, we went to explore the Deira Souks during our stop over.
There are a lot of different things you can do on a stop over to Dubai, even with young children. Check how much time you have and check in with your family’s energy to decide what you want to do.
The Kids
The kids did great considering what a long trip it is to do the connection Tokyo – Dubai – Germany, either way and I am really proud of them for how they were handling it.
We had all their regular and routine bed time items with us in the cabin baggage: pyjamas, tooth brush and paste, their ‘doudou’ and 2 of their favorite bed time books. This helps them to feel comfortable whether on the plane or in the hotel.
Baby was really cranky during the first take off. She couldn’t understand why her sisters had their own seats and she didn’t. She could still fly as a lap child so that of course we took advantage of that.
They got a little more screen time in during the flights this time but also managed to get some reasonable hours of sleep. As all parents flying with small children we were just happy that there weren’t any major melt downs or tantrums.
During the Dubai Stop Over, they enjoyed playing at the playground and swimming in the pool. There was just a small breeze and it got a bit chilly during our swim. Cold coupled with hunger is not enjoyable for anyone but we could luckily resolve the situation quickly with a good meal.
For our visit to the Dubai Mall we took our travel stroller, the Cybex Libelle, with us. Baby took a short nap in it and the girls took turns sitting in it as they got more tired.
Conclusion
If you get a chance you should absolutely take advantage of the Dubai Connect Service – even or especially when you’re traveling with small children. It’s so well organized that even with kids it feels easy to move between airport, hotel and any activity in the city in the rather short time frame of 26 hours or less.
