Dubai & Abu Dhabi (Lonely Planet)

This has all the major attractions and tips that you would need for a trip to the city. The fold out maps are pretty good but not very durable. They could also have a bit more detail on them. Overall this was exactly what I was looking for. Perfect size to toss in a purse or small bag.

I used this book to plan a 3 day trip to Dubai. I found it very suitable for my purpose and reasonably accurate. I knew in advance what I wanted to do there and it worked out as planned. The hotel gives a detailed map so it is not necessary to have it bulk up a guidebook. The deceptive thing about Dubai is distances. Things look close but are not. For example to walk from the Dubai Mall metro to the fountains took 45 minutes as they are on the opposite side and the mall is at least a mile long. Taxi's are cheap though. Walking from Burj Al Arab to Mall to the Emirates looks possible, but trust me - take a cab. The metro took almost an hour from the new part of Dubai to the old, including a change. The book does not tell you that although the metro is easy to use. The book's tip to buy a gold card was essential. Also when it says that roads are impossible to cross, it is correct. Use taxi's. It is not worth the hassle. The most I paid for a cab was $20 from the souq's to Burj Al Arab. I also recommend a Yellow Boat tour which was not in the book. Get tickets to the Burj Khalifa in advance and get there an hour early .. we had 5.30 tickets and got to the top at 6.25.

We spent 5 days in Dubai and used the guide for some basic orientation and for suggestions on sightseeing. It served this purpose. However, I found the guide to be very basic....it does not describe all the sites very well and does not go into depth. Also, it would be nice if it included a few pictures and provided recommendations on on things like "what is the best time to visit the Burj Khalifa", or "which are the good desert safaris" etc.

I find the city guide to be very helpful, with lots and lots of information - both on Dubai and Abu Dhabi. I will be using it on my trip to Dubai in May.

Very helpful and very informative. It has every nook and cranny of Dubai and tells you how to discover everything. This guide is all you need.

I give it a 4 star because it doesn't have a very easy to read map. Also, the book is only in color print for the first a dozen pages, then it's all black and white. For those that wants more pretty photos of the attractions (for to know which ones you'd like to go to) maybe this is not the book for you. The book isn't that easy to navigate, probably because it doesn't want to sound biased on how it recommends places to go, but for a place like Dubai, you know you want to visit the Burj Al-Arab Hotel and Burj Khalifa, but the information in this book is not as descriptive as I imagined it would be. It would be a great book if you're doing an intensive, 3 week backpack to Dubai since it has all the directories you need. But who stays in Dubai for that long? If you're looking for a crash course of what to do, where to go in Dubai, maybe this book is a bit too much for you.

The guide covers all aspects of visitng Dubai in a well- organized manner. It is very current and was a good price.

I spent more time in Abu Dhabi than Dubai, and there didn't seem to be very much information for Abu Dhabi. I had to do a lot of research elsewhere.