Things to do in Dubai, decided by price and by who is allowed in
Most “things to do” lists tell you what somebody enjoyed. This one tells you what each thing costs, who is allowed in, and where the operator publishes nothing at all. 54 of the 128 attractions here publish an adult price, from AED 3 at Al Safa Park to AED 699 at XLine Dubai Marina. Of the remaining 74, 11 publishes that entry is free, 5 sell activities rather than admission, 2 sell no admission at all, and 56 publish no figure you can budget from. That last number is stated rather than filled in. Below, the same set organised by the question people actually arrive with: how old are the children, how much is there to spend, and what is the occasion.
If it is your first trip
Four pages that answer the questions people actually arrive with — what is worth the money, how the days fit together, and what is still open — using published prices and published closing times rather than a ranking.
- First time in DubaiThe landmarks a first visit converges on, priced from each operator’s own page
- Three days, hour by hourAn itinerary built backwards from last-entry times, because that is what breaks a plan
- Dubai at nightDubai Mall publishes eight sets of hours for one building; RTA publishes no last train
- Dubai in summerWhat genuinely shuts, the federal midday rule in full, and the temperature figure we will not print
By the age of your children
The age gate is what decides a day out, and it is published nowhere in one place. Every threshold in these six pages is the operator’s or the authority’s own wording — including the venues that publish two different rules on two of their own pages.
- With a babyFree entry from under 2 to under 3, two attractions that refuse prams, and the metro rule RTA never published
- With a toddlerEvery free-entry threshold lands between 2 and 3, so a toddler is free at one gate and paid at the next
- With 4 to 6 year oldsThe band where height replaces age: 80cm, 90cm, 95cm, 105cm, and one ride with a maximum
- With 7 to 10 year oldsThe 1.07m and 1.2m rides open, but unaccompanied entry waits until 12–13 and 14
- With teenagersTwelve unlocks the zipline, the Edge Walk and the metro alone; eighteen unlocks the rest
- Every child threshold, city-wideFree transport ages, supervision cut-offs and why no two operators agree
By what it costs
Ordered by the operator’s own published figure, cheapest first. Where an operator publishes no price, the page says so instead of estimating one.
- Everything under AED 100Nine published adult prices under AED 100, the cheapest of them an AED 1 cash-only abra
- The published high endThe most expensive published experiences, and the famous names whose sites publish no figure
- Every attraction, pricedRanked by published adult admission, with the ones that publish nothing named
- What is genuinely freeOne operator writes that entry is free without qualification. The rest are unpriced, which is different
- Child ticket pricesWhat a child actually saves, and the venues that publish no child rate at all
- Annual passes and break-evenFour pay back inside two visits; the arithmetic is ours and labelled as ours
- Restaurant prices, rankedMedian main course across every menu we hold, worked out from published prices
By the kind of day
The same venues grouped by what you are actually doing, each page carrying the operator’s own hours, prices and conditions.
- Extreme sports and eligibilityPrices, and the age, weight and medical rules that stop people at the desk
- Water parks comparedPublished adult price, height cut-off, resident rate and what the gate adds
- Theme parksWhere one operator publishes three different prices for the same two-park ticket
- Indoor, for the hot monthsWhat is actually indoor, and the four venues that price only inside a booking widget
- Observation decksFour decks, four different child-age splits, one flat adult price
- The desertWhat a safari costs from the operators that publish a price on their own site
- MuseumsAdmission where it is published, and the ones deleted from the official list
- Boat tours and the abraThe AED 1 crossing, and why no Creek dhow operator publishes a first-party price
By the occasion
Pages where the useful finding is often what nobody publishes.
- Dubai for couplesRestaurants publish prices; hotel “experiences” publish dress codes and age rules instead
- Proposals and celebrationsAin Dubai publishes AED 3,499 to AED 9,499. The landmarks publish no price at all
- New Year’s EveNothing is published for this year yet, and no official source has ever named a free viewing spot
- RamadanWhat changes, and which operators publish revised hours rather than assuming you know
- Public holidaysThe published calendar, and where the ministry and the portal disagree about it
Also in Things to do
The rest of this section, each page carrying its own sources and its own verification date.
- A Dubai layover — Six, eight or twelve hours from DXB, built from the Metro's published station hours and luggage limits and RTA's AED 20 airport taxi start
- One day in Dubai — The old Creek in the morning, Downtown in the evening: AED 190 in tickets, ordered by published last entry
- Two days in Dubai — Creek and Downtown, then the Frame, the beach and Ain Dubai: AED 385 in tickets, and one stop you must book 72 hours ahead
Why there is no ranking here
There is no “best of” list on this page and there will not be one. A ranking by enjoyment is an opinion with a number attached, and this site does not publish opinions — the reasoning is set out in the editorial policy. What you will find instead is every table ordered by something an operator actually published: a price, an age, a height, a closing time. Where we have worked something out ourselves — a median, a break-even, VAT added to a pre-VAT figure — the page says so on the page.
The other thing you will find is absence, stated plainly. Those 56 of 128 attractions publish no price you can budget from. Sky Views publishes two different height limits for the same walk. RTA publishes no rule at all about prams on the metro. Those are not gaps in our research; they are the finding, and a list that smoothed them over would be less useful than one that names them.