Dubai 4x4 Desert Safari Quad Bike Camel Ride and Sandboarding

ATV

Best experience ever. Everything was great. Professional & kind staff.Must try. They made our day. Even the picture they took for us was perfect.

Good but be prepared to pay for unwanted extras

This experience was ok considering it was £23pp and ticked all our boxes that we wanted to do. I only booked this tour the afternoon before so my husband and I were thrilled we could get on it at such short notice. We were picked up at 8am (from our hotel - bonus!) on the dot and escorted to a lovely clean 4x4 by our guide. He didn’t talk much but it was early and we were just taking in the views of Dubai. We weren’t sure what our first port of all was which added to the excitement, was it going to be camel riding, dune bashing? Who knew. Turns out it was a quick stop at the local fuel station which we didn’t expect, but cars have to be fuelled right? Anyway onwards and upwards to the outskirts of the desert to some random shops where the air was let down from the tyres (standard practice for dune bashing) when we were approached by another man who asked which colour traditional headwear we wanted? Now I’d seen in quite a few other photos of tourists in the dunes wearing the same headwear so assumed this was part of it so he lead us away into this shop and started literally dressing us in traditional Arabic clothing which we both thought was very strange. That was until we were then surrounded by 3 males, one of which was our tour guide and just my husband and I being encouraged to pay for all The items we were wearing. We explained that we didn’t want to buy the items and proceeded to remove (asap) all the items we had on while 2 of the men continued to question why we weren’t buying it. Being the only tourists around, We felt very intimidated and handed them 20AED in the hope we could make a quick exit and return to the safety of the car. I personally would try and avoid the encouragement of entering the shop if you don’t want to be put in this position. A few minutes later, our guide returns and thankfully carries on with the tour and takes us to the dunes. Now, this was an excellent experience, it was absolutely terrifying but in a good way if that can even be possible. He was pinging around these dunes, sliding across the sand, it was epic! I felt very safe in the sturdy 4x4 and our guides driving was great! There may have been a scratchy moment with a sandboarder vs our 4x4 but honestly I was pretty oblivious to it. So much fun. We then parked up and got the snowboard out which looked brand new. Our guide explained the best way to go about sand boarding. I went first and fell almost immediately but I managed to cut my ankle as I fell out as the edges were quite sharp where you would normally clip in snowboard boots. I quietly warned my husband about this before he took his first go, again, he fell but managed to quite literally take a chunk out of his toe, and ankles. He did inform the guide to his injuries and was advised to pull off the skin that was hanging from his toe and that he’d be ok. We were then a bit nervous to inflict more injuries so we just sat on it and rode now Which was far more comfortable and if it meant no toes were lost then fine. We were given as much time as we wanted to sand board which was great and our guide took loads of pictures for us. At this point another man appeared from nowhere with a bird encouraging us to hold it. My husband has a genuine fear so ran about 100m where as I don’t but this bird was continually thrusted at me until I nervously took it, had a photo and bam, he asked for another 20AED bit annoying since it really wasn’t something I wanted to do and felt pressured into it. Back in the car for another dune bashing experience and back to the ‘scary shop’ where the filters of the car were cleaned. We were asked to head over to the shop again so the tyres could be pumped back up but we just lurked outside. The other two males from last time still persistently asked if we wanted a coffee/snacks/coconut drink etc but at this point we just kept saying no thank you. Car all prepped so hopped back in where we drove passed lots of people riding camels. I asked our guide if he was taking us back to the hotel to which he replied yes, which was strange as our tour included camel ride so I reluctantly questioned this as I didn’t want us to be put in a compromising position to be paying out more cash yet again. Our Guide slammed on the breaks and pulled over on the highway. Now we were worried. He made a quick phone call and then proceeded to reverse about 100m back down the highway and pulled over into a quad bike hiring company. Then walked us round the side where there were a couple of camels enjoying some peace and quiet. We waited a few minutes and another man arrived and instructed us to stand on this plastic chair and leap onto the camel and we were then taken on a camel ride which was essentially around a building site. We both couldn’t help but laugh at this point. Our photos are great don’t get me wrong but the reality was that there was rubble and a jcb just a few meters to the right of the photo. Yet again, another person comes out with a professional camera asking us to smile for the camera and I explicitly asked him not to take our photo, yet he still did and it was printed off and in a paper frame by the time our ride a finished a few minutes later yet again for another fee. Not quite the desert experience we thought it would be but it ticked the boxes and really wasn’t too bad for £23pp!