Dubai Creek Dhow Sightseeing Cruise

Good food and good ssrvice from Margie and Alfred. Suggestion to change your music and have some international sounds if possible.

This is a scam to get you to pay online for a tour and then Viator does everything possible to prevent you from taking the tour. Here are the details. The email we got after paying our money said the Departure Point was: Al Seef - Dubai Creek Building, Near Al Saif - Al Fahidi Building - شارع خالد بن الوليد - Al Hamriya. I will take each item to show you how Viator actively tries to prevent you from taking the tour. 1. Al Seef. Al Seef is an area of Dubai. It comprises 232,258 square meters of space (2,500,000 square feet). It has a shoreline on the Creek of 1.8 km (1.1 miles). That is a large area to roam around in to find the departure point. 2. Dubai Creek Building. If you enter those words into google, you get zero hits except for a "future" building that hasn't been built yet. If you search google maps, and accept the top link of "Dubai Creek "Tower" Building", you are directed to a building on the opposite side of the Dubai Creek from where we finally found the cruise departure point. 3. Near Al Saif. Google "Al Saif". There is no such place in Dubai. 4. Al Fahidi Building. Map it, and you will find that it does in fact exist but it is inland from the Creek at a distance of 1 kilometer from the departure point. 5. شارع خالد بن الوليد. Translates to Khaled Bin Al-Waleed street. Also inland at a distance of 1 kilometer from the departure point. 6. Al Hamriya. Again, an absolutely useless piece of information. The Al Hamriya has an area of 720,000 square meters (7,750,000 square feet). It seems that the objective of Viatour is to collect as much money online and then make it impossible for people to actually find the Creek Sightseeing Cruise. We found the departure point by wandering in the withering Dubai heat for 45 minutes and asking shop keepers as we wandered. Aha, maybe that is Viator's tactic, get us to buy spices, perfumes and stuffed camels as we search for the departure point. BTW, the tour was a non-event. We went up the Creek (without any paddles) and came down the Creek. There was no tour guide or even a recorded commentary. The same experience can be had on one of the numerous water taxis that take you across the Creek for 2 AED. To add insult to injury, the tour was to include "1 Bottle of Mineral water or 1 can of soft drink". We were charged 5 AED for our 1 bottle of water. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

I booked a guided (English commentary) tour of Dubai Creek lasting 1 hr from 10.30 with water included. It was a disappointment on every element. I received a booking confirmation but no tickets. Thankfully a very helpful and friendly employee named Alfred was on hand to assist and got things sorted before directing us to the boat. It was then that things went wrong. We were informed we would not be setting off til 11. This was a bit of a concern as we were on a schedule but we figured we could just about make it work. Then we were informed there was no water on board. Finally at 11.15 a large group of Russian speakers boarded, prompting us to check with staff that the commentary would indeed be in English. They advised there was to be no commentary. We set off at about 11.20, chugged around a small stretch of the creek for half an hour with no idea what we were looking at and then disembarked. All in all a complete waste of time and money, redeemed only by Alfred who,as far as we can tell, was the only positive element of the entire organisation. I initially wrote this feedback in a message to the operators in order to give them the opportunity to respond and reimburse us but as it has now been a full week with no response, I don't feel any guilt for making my views public. Save yourself the (admittedly very low) cost and do something else.