Dubai Creek Near DXB: Terminals 1 and 3

Dubai International Airport (DXB) sits on the edge of Dubai Creek, close enough that an evening dhow dinner cruise from the Deira creekfront, or the dhow-sail clubhouse of Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club two metro stops from Terminal 1, fits a layover too short for Downtown.

Dubai airport’s Terminal 2 has no metro station

Which of Dubai International Airport’s three terminals you land in decides how easily you can leave it. Terminal 3, the Emirates terminal, and Terminal 1, used by most other international airlines, both have their own stations on the Dubai Metro’s Red Line, and the Terminal 3 station connects straight to the arrivals hall. Terminal 2, mostly flydubai, has none: it links to the other two by shuttle bus, and a taxi is the direct way out. Trains run every few minutes from 5am to midnight Monday to Thursday and on Saturday, until 1am on Friday, and from 8am on Sunday.

None of that matters until you are through immigration, which is the real cost of leaving. Plan on it twice, once out and once back in through departures security, before deciding how far from the terminal to go.

A dhow dinner cruise on Dubai Creek

Dhows are the wooden trading boats of the Gulf, and a number of those moored along the Deira side of Dubai Creek now work as floating restaurants. The usual evening sailing boards around 8pm on the Deira creekfront and spends about two hours on the water, with a buffet of Arabic and international food and a tanoura show, the spinning skirt dance, on deck, while the lit waterfronts of Deira and Bur Dubai slide past on either side.

It needs a flight late enough to spare the whole evening, since it stays out on the water for the full two hours, and booking a place on the creek cruise ahead is the way to make sure there is a seat on the night.

Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club’s dhow-sail clubhouse

The clubhouse at Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club, on Dubai Creek Club Street in Port Saeed, is a cluster of white peaked roofs designed by the British architect Brian Johnson and opened in 1993 to look like the lateen sails of a dhow under way. It is also the building printed on the front of the UAE’s 20-dirham note, next to the national coat of arms.

The fairways are for golfers, but the club’s restaurants take anyone, including Boardwalk on a deck built out over the creek, open from noon until midnight most days. City Centre Deira station, two stops from Terminal 1 on the metro, is the nearest, and Deira City Centre mall across the road from the club is the fallback if the afternoon is too hot to be outside.

DXB’s left-luggage desks sit landside in arrivals

A passenger whose bags are checked through never sees them in Dubai, so the question of where to put a suitcase only applies to travellers who clear immigration carrying one, and the airport’s own left-luggage desks are all landside in the arrivals halls, at roughly AED 35 to 50 per 12 hours depending on the terminal and the size of the bag.

City Centre Deira station is two stops from Terminal 1

The return is short by any measure. From City Centre Deira, the Red Line runs back through GGICO to Airport Terminal 1, then one stop further to Airport Terminal 3, a few minutes either way for a few dirhams on a Silver nol card; the card itself costs AED 25, with AED 19 of that loaded as credit. From the Deira creekfront after a dinner cruise, a taxi is simpler at that hour than the metro. Flights from Terminal 2 need a taxi or the inter-terminal shuttle whichever way you go. Allow at least 90 minutes back at the airport on top of the ride, since departures security comes after immigration.

With five hours or more to spare, the full Dubai itinerary takes the same metro line on to Burj Khalifa and the fountain, and back to the Al Fahidi lanes and the one-dirham abra across the creek. Without a suitcase in tow, either version is a matter of stepping onto a train at the terminal.