A lot of details incoming. I knew going in I probably wouldn't like it but I tried to keep an open mind. One week in it realized I hated it more than I expected.
I wasn't "in the know" about these parties but you hear about them. It's made all the more hypocritical especially considering it's a strict muslim theocracy. They make a big show of respect for the sheik, for god and spirituality but it's a place absolutely devoid of spirituality or soul. It's a spirituality bankrupt place. It's cutthroat capitalism and untethered consumerism in bed with a theocratic dictatorship.
Women have to cover themselves up, especially if they are arab or look like they could be arab. You gotta be careful about kissing your girl in public. Yet you see cards for prostitution scattered all over the streets including places where there are tourists with kids. People advertise glamorous yacht parties with hot chicks. Everything is about material wealth and showing it off. Everything there is "the most expensive" "the biggest" "the fanciest" bullshit. No substance, just flash. They use literal slave labor yet show off the fact the cops have police lambos and rich douchebags can own jaguars as pets.
It's also a place that attracts a certain type of people. I met a guy who's lived there for many years and he said it's difficult to make real friends because everybody just wants to get something out of you. He said almost everybody he knows is in debt trying to show off a certain lifestyle. I also developed a general dislike for arab guys from being there. All of them supposedly pious muslims who drink, cheat on their wives, and just so fucking desperate to show off how cool and rich they are. And because the government provides Emiratis with everything, people are extremely lazy and foreigners do all the work.
Despite it being expensive and ostensibly fancy, things are poor quality. New buildings start to show cracks very fast. It's what you get for using slave labor I guess. You get 3rd world country quality for 1st world prices. Dubai tries to dazzle you with fancy buildings but look a bit closer and you'll see how cheaply things are made. I lived in Vietnam for a bit after Dubai and I felt things in Vietnam were better built and designed and things actually worked better despite it being many times cheaper.
It's also a very poorly and weirdly designed city. You can tell they didn't plan it with people living there in mind. It doesn't feel like any other city I've been to where you get a sense of energy, vibe, life but it just feels lifeless. It feels kind of like disney world or las vegas in a way. The arab aesthetic seems to me a kid's idea of what rich people like.
Driving there is an extremely frustrating experience and there isn't much in the way of public transit.
I can say you'd probably have fun there for a short time if you have money, like being in externally glamorous environments, and don't care about the hypocrisy. There are things to do, but I'd rather do those same things in a place that has more soul and culture that's also cheaper. There's better parties in say, Thailand where it's much cheaper with less oppressive rules. Like why would you spend all that money so you can snowboard in a building in the middle of a desert? I'd rather spend that money in a place that actually has good snowboarding.
I did enjoy finally having authentic middle eastern food in the middle east, but if middle eastern/arab culture or islam is your thing, you'd be better off going somewhere else. Even other cities within the UAE are better but I'd avoid the UAE entirely. It's difficult to get a sense of culture in a place where 90% of the population aren't locals and most of them are slaves from Pakistan and the Philippines.
I'm repeating myself but basically Dubai offers fucking nothing that any other place in the world can offer for better and likely cheaper. Culture, nature, food, activities, even parties and hedonistic pleasure, are all better and cheaper in a lot of other places. One thing that gets lauded a lot is the lack of crime in Dubai, which is true, but I also been to much better places with the same level of safety (pretty much most of east and south east asia). The feeling I got was that the entire society was held together by a thin thread. With the majority of the population being foreign male laborers who are being treated like shit, if things go wrong, shit can get out of hand fast. Even their military is made up of foreign contractors because they don't have enough of their own citizens. It's a joke of a country.
The only upside about Dubai is if you're a rich person who wants to set up a business without having to pay taxes and to hide your wealth from your own government. Or you're a hot chick who wants to make a quick buck fucking camels or whatever.
One thousand percent this.
I lived with a businessman friend living there, vacationing with a couple of my friends. He had a cool apartment with a pool on the roof, where we lived.
The people are extremely slimey, and just as said above, soulless. Again, the general air of showing off expensive things, but having absolutely zero style or class.
On top of it, completely correct about the city, it seems like it has been designed to be as impractical as possible. Roads literally ending in nothing, road network making zero sense and making everything take double the time to reach, because of traffic congestion due the before mentioned factors. Buildings not being properly connected to the sever systems, being half finished, being horrendous quality.
The arabs there are gross and arrogant, trying to keep up a thin veneer of piety, but clearly going against every single tenet of their religion (I see this alot from that segment)
Actually felt kind of dirty being there after a few days
Vibes are of course also really strange, with the female/male dynamics, and massive amount of desi slaves there.
The only cool thing we did was actually getting out of the city, where we got out to a settlement out in the desert, where we drove around and drifted on the sand dunes in a jeep, and just drove around the desert at night. So basically, the only worthwhile thing was happening outside/away from the actual city.
Even if you do not care about the hipocracy, general sliminess, slavery and so forth, the place is just a shopping center basically. There's nothing interesting there you cannot find elsewhere.
Would absolutely not recommend in any way shape or form.
on me
