Dubai 12 hour stopover

I don't claim to be an expert but wanted to add a couple of thoughts:

(1) if you are flying Emirates you can often get a free hotel and hotel meals through the airline for a night or two in Dubai if you are laying over. The hotel is near the airport and the food was not memborable, but free is free. As such, you may have a possibility of changing your trip from a 12 hour layover to an overnight stay.

(2) if you plan to go to the viewing deck of the Burj Khalifa, book tickets in advance so you don't get stuck walking around the mall for a couple of hours waiting for your time. I think sunset is the best time to go. http://www.burjkhalifa.ae/language/en-us/home.aspx

so you'll probably get out of the airport around 14:00, and start going back around 22:00-22:30? Not sure how paranoid you are about being late. Dubai and the airport are pretty efficient. And this is not high season.

so you have 8 hours to see stuff. if you have some money to splurge, you might want to take the hop on hop off bus tours to see the sights, that costs about $50 USD. or you might want to have a taxi take you around to the main places.
you might want to kill a lot of time at the giant The Dubai Mall because there's lots of stuff to see, and a large food court where you can have dinner or anything. You could spend the whole day or a couple days at that mall really.

I would say number 1 read all the old post on here asking the same question.,because it everywhere.

I have heard mix reactions to the hop on hop of bus in Dubai so you might just want to get on the new metro which is very nice and efficient and cheap.It goes right to a lot of the malls and it goes close to a lot of sights where you can just hop a taxi.to get there the rest of the way.

my opinion of the metro is that it is cheap, best way to get to the airport. no reason to take the taxi to the airport unless you are nowhere near a metro station.
however, it was to me a little confusing to use and pay, especially if i didnt know how much i was going to use it or where exactly i wanted to go. it also helps to be already familiar with the city. they have maps at the station, but they are not "tourist friendly". i mean, if this was your first time in dubai, they wouldn't mean much. people were asking ME where the trains were going. but yeah, it saves money.

When we travel we take public transportation and have done metros and trams in all kinds of non English speaking countries and yes once you get to the station it can be a little chaotic but once you start figuring thing out they are easy to negotiate.
Most couries have their merto map on the net with the stations and a lot of them have the stops for sites so we go prepared with printouts and when we get there its very easy.Many sight seeing sight have the metro stop listed on their website.

We also have done the hop on hop off bus in many cities and its great,but I read a review from one people saying they were stuck in traffic in Dubai a lot of the ride and the buses did not come that often.I have not taken it here so I can not back that up.

Edited by: ctown