Eat Drink Stay Dubai Newsletter NYE

Hi Dubai friends,

Welcome to the New Year’s Eve Special Edition.

Here’s your latest edition of Dubai news, deals & tips, every Friday, in 10 mins or less.

To follow up the Christmas Special Edition, here’s a quick guide to New Year in Dubai, where I’ll cover :-

⭐ ‘Top tips’ about NYE in Dubai

👯‍♂️ Where to go and what to do for NYE

 ✅ How Dubai copes so well

🏩 Hotels and Restaurants for New Year

So here’s to a Happy New Year to one and all, thanks for everything!

PS. You can always email me here also.

PPS. As this is a Special Edition, the normal weekly edition may go out a day late - Saturday 03 January.

Please note: some links in this newsletter may be affiliate links, and will be denoted with an asterisk (*). This is a link to a partner site that may pay me a commission - at no further cost to you - and if so, helps to support me & this newsletter. For more info, please see Disclosure and Policies

NYE TOP TIPS

To make one thing clear straight away, New Year’s Eve in Dubai is amazing, wonderful, unique and many other superlatives. However, it can also be hectic, expensive and overwhelming.

To anyone that’s read or heard me comment about NYE in Dubai previously, you may think I’ve a downer on it. I haven’t at all, but I would say it is the one time of the year when it’s essential that you do all those things that make for good travel - research, plan, think about a priority, your drivers and so on.

So without further ado, here are a few tips about NYE in Dubai.

1. Numbers - It’s often the case that first-time visitors to Dubai for NYE grossly underestimate the influx of people, both into the city, but also to events, public transport and around. Downtown Dubai, for instance, is expecting close to a million people for its events.

2. Cost - whether it’s hotels, restaurants, attractions or whatever, expect to pay ‘through the nose’, often exponentially compared to normal prices. Some of this is price-gouging by venues or merchants, but it can sometimes be forced upon venues by landlords, developers etc. keen to cash in too. So don’t necessarily blame the venue or management.

3. ‘Free’ - is hardly ever a thing in Dubai, as it often costs somewhere else down the line, and it’s even rarer on NYE. You can always get lucky, often by pure chance - e.g. finding a rooftop in a hotel or apartment block that may offer some view of fireworks - but the odds are stacked against you.

4. Organisation - Dubai does a lot of things extremely well, but occasionally things go wrong (see below).

5. Transport - ‘pinch points’ are the words here. Dubai is congested at the best of times, so imagine what it can get like with massive crowds trying to get into the same place. For instance, imagine how busy the Metro stops get for Burj Khalifa/Mall.

6. Time - to ease congestion and chaos, many venues want you in very early. Restaurants often will say a latest time to be seated by, which could be around 8pm. Downtown may open up entry points in the afternoon, and people rush to them. You need to manage expectations that you could be ‘in situ’ for some hours before the big event at midnight.

7. Exit strategy - this is often the most overlooked, because taxis and rideshare platforms like Careem or Uber are in massive demand, and with limited availability, which may lead to surge pricing. In some cases, there may be pedestrian management plans to move to certain spots, so you may not necessarily be able to get to where you plan to get picked up from - and then you may have to navigate a driver to you.

A few examples of how it can, and does, go wrong.

• One year, Atlantis The Palm hosted ‘Sandance’ and the traffic gridlocked so much that many of the 17,000 people didn’t make it to the show, and were stranded on Palm Jumeirah.

• People who paid a hefty up-front cost for a Fountain-side table at Dubai Fountain were refused access to the Downtown perimeter and were never refunded.

• In some years, crowd surges on public transport led to injuries and incidents, which is why there is such detailed planning by ESC.

• On NYE 2015, The Address Downtown Dubai caught fire, but it was quickly contained and the firework display went ahead as planned.

I’ll end this list with this quote from Mike Tyson - “Everyone thinks they have a plan until they get punched in the face”.

Every year, I’m often involved in communication with someone who seriously underestimates some of the above (numbers, cost, traffic, organisation etc.) and on top of it, wants to try to get something ‘free’. And this is why I always say, if you ask me, prioritise convenience and find somewhere less likely to be hectic, and chill with cocktails and cigars.

IF you want to go to an event, it’s going to cost you somehow - time, money, hassle, transport issues or something else.

For example, you could find a ‘free’ display of fireworks or drones, but then you need to think about viewpoints, how early you need to be there, and if there are any ‘pinch points’ e.g. getting away from there afterwards, size of crowd and transport restrictions.

In summary, please don’t let any of the above put you off. I always try to work off “prepare for the worst, and hope for the best”, and NYE in Dubai can bring both of those!

I would rather be open and say, consider all these points, be aware and hopefully, everything goes swimmingly, rather than say, no problem - you will be fine. In the vast majority of cases, you will be fine - just plan accordingly and research well!

WHERE

Let’s start with the biggie - Dubai Fountain and Burj Khalifa. There are free viewing spots available around Downtown on a first-come, first-served basis, but not all may offer clear views of DF and BK; instead, some may feature LED screens.

Emaar, the developer behind Downtown, Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa and Dubai Fountain has an excellent website detailing all the locations with shows, including Burj Park (which is nowhere near as hectic). They usually will have a live-stream based on the Dubai Fountain if you fancy a hassle-free way to watch the event.

There are heaps of unique events around Dubai for New Year’s Eve, ranging from hot air balloons at Atlantis, an underwater experience at Ossiano, a desert experience at Liwa Moreeb Dubai Festival or Atlantis The Palm Dubai’s Gala Dinner Under The Stars, this year featuring Maroon 5.

Dubai Frame will have a drone show, and parks will stay open late.

If you’re looking for somewhere less ‘full on’ and more family focused, check out Expo City Dubai, or perhaps go more traditional in Old Dubai at Al Seef.

There are so many parties, it’s impossible to cover here so perhaps check the usual sources (Time Out Dubai, What’s On, Visit Dubai, local and social media etc.).For example, this is a good starting point for ‘the best places to celebrate New Year’s Eve in Dubai’ from What’s on.

It wouldn’t be Dubai without fireworks, and there are over 40 locations offering displays. There are also some ‘free’ firework displays around, especially beaches.

Or how about celebrating not one New Year’s experience, but 7 different ones at Global Village? Starting at 8pm for China, and every hour through to 1am for Turkey.

An often-overlooked form of transport in Dubai is RTA’s Marine Transport, and you can watch fireworks via Dubai Ferry, Traditional Abra and Water Taxis. Areas covered include Marina, Al Jaddaf, Bluewaters and Al Fahidi.

Ain Dubai at Bluewaters is offering a unique experience to board the wheel for a full rotation to view the celebrations at midnight, with prices from 395 AED per person up 20,000 AED for group bookings.

Whilst Abu Dhabi is not as hectic nor as popular as Dubai for New Year’s Eve, The Sheikh Zayed Festival at Al Wathba will be trying to break five Guinness World Records.

HOW

The Dubai Event Security Committee (ESC), which includes the Roads and Transport Authority, determines all the logistics of New Year’s Eve 2026 celebrations. These include extended Dubai Metro operating hours, shuttle buses and road closures (which start as early as 4pm around Downtown/Burj Khalifa district.

There will be free parking across the city on 01 January, as part of the New Year holiday arrangements.

Perhaps this is one of the biggest challenge on New Year’s Eve - how the authorities will manage crowds.

It can get so busy, Dubai Police are appealing for volunteers to help out.

If you’re using ride-hailing platforms like Bolt, Uber and Careem, be sure to allow time and patience as there can be a lot of disruption. This article shows how the platforms deal with all the factors to keep moving.

Dubai Municipality have announced that four public beaches (Jumeirah Beach 2, Jumeirah Beach 3, Umm Suqeim Beach 1, and Umm Suqeim Beach) will be designated ‘families only’ from 31 December through to 01 January.

HOTELS

The ‘peak weeks’ of Christmas and New Year in Dubai are usually some of the more expensive prices for hotels.

On top of high rates, hotels will often add restrictions around NYE such as minimum stays and mandatory ‘gala dinner’ fees, so watch out.

You can’t blame the hotels, because the truth is, as long as people keep paying inflated prices, the practice will continue.

Tip - like any peak event pricing for hotels, one tactic that may work is the ‘blinking competition’, i.e. holding your nerve to book at the very last moment, in the hope prices drop. The challenge with this is you’re up against what’s known as “peak panic pricing” - think like surge pricing on Uber - whereby there’s an increase in people searching, so sales channels put prices up. What you have to hope for is that they don’t all book, so then the algorithms drop prices back down. It can work, but it’s still a gamble!

RESTAURANTS

Pai Thai at Al Qasr is offering a five-course menu from 1,950 AED, and has the added ambience of the waterways and a Burj al Arab backdrop.

Ten sky-high restaurants with views for New Year’s Eve.

Some restaurants are aiming at the ‘family friendly’ market, and others at the ‘under 500 AED’ price point (check out Girl and the Goose at Anantara Downtown Dubai).

Both Four Seasons hotels are offering ‘experiences’, but this is where details matter. Luna Dubai at the DIFC property references “Burj Khalifa fireworks”, but how many people will realise the hotel is on the other side of Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa and Dubai Fountain? Yes, you will see some fireworks, but be aware the main action is on the opposite side so there may be some diminishment of experience.

Nikki Beach Resort & Spa could be option if you’re more into the ‘by the beach’ vibe, especially as they are offering three different experiences.

Here are a few ideas of brunches for New Year’s Day, with Giardino, Zuma, SAL, Mina’s Kitchen and Tasca being the picks.

TIME OUT LINKS

(Note - as is to prove a point about demand, the Time Out Dubai website was giving a ’403’ error today, which is often when there are web traffic spikes i.e. too many requests to access the page/s!)

Note - these links may not work, but I’ll list them anyway in case the Time Out ‘outage’ was only temporary, or something wrong with my connection.

https://www.timeoutdubai.com/things-to-do/things-to-do-features/slow-ways-celebrate-new-years-eve-in-dubai

https://www.timeoutdubai.com/new-years-eve-in-dubai/2026-parties-events-best-dubai

https://www.timeoutdubai.com/news/new-years-eve-concerts

https://www.timeoutdubai.com/news/most-expensive-new-years-eve-dubai-mall-2026

https://www.timeoutdubai.com/news/burj-khalifa-2026-fireworks-nye-show