Dubai desert safari for families: the camel ride in Dubai desert trips that work with children

Search for a family desert safari with camels in Dubai and you will get twenty results that look like the same picture. They are not the same day. The differences that matter to a family are four: how long it runs, whether the hotel pickup is in the fare, whether dinner is in the fare, and how much of the afternoon is spent strapped into something with an engine.

Take the length first. The listings here run from one hour to seven, and the two ends are genuinely different products. The four-hour trips are an afternoon: collection, a run over the dunes, the camp, the camel, the food, home. The seven-hour trips are the same afternoon with a long evening attached — more buffet, more show, stargazing after dark. With children under about eight, the four-hour version is usually the better night’s sleep for everyone, and the camel ride in Dubai desert dunes is in both of them.

Pickup is the second thing, and it is worth more than the price difference it usually represents. $30, $30, $30, $35, $41 and $69 all say pickup included on their own pages. Others say pickup available, which means it exists as an option. Getting a tired family back from the dunes without arranging your own car is the whole argument.

Third, the camel itself. On almost every listing here a camel ride in Dubai desert dunes is a short, slow loop on the sand beside the camp, led at walking pace. That is why it works with children who would not sit still for anything else: it is brief, it is calm, and it happens with an adult walking alongside. Only $79 turns it into the main event, and that listing is built as a trek rather than a stop.

Fourth, the engines. Dune bashing in a 4WD is on nearly every listing here and it is the loud part; quad bikes and buggies are extras that some families take and some sit out. You do not have to buy the loudest version of the day to get the camel and the camp.

The buggy hours. $95 runs one hour and $91 runs an hour and a half, both built around a 1000cc machine that one adult drives with up to three passengers. They are excellent at what they are for, and they are the wrong shape for a family evening: short, engine-first, and over before the camp part begins. If somebody in the party wants the buggy, $69 folds it into a seven-hour day that also has the camels, the sandboarding, the show and the BBQ.

The seven-hour evening with a small child. $69, $46, $55, $59 and $27 all run seven hours. They are wonderful days and they finish late. With teenagers, book them without hesitating. With a four-year-old, take the four-hour version of the same desert and keep the evening.

The self-drive quad, for anyone too young to drive it. $59 is built around you driving the quad bike yourself, and $55 is a quad safari with the camel ride after it. If the children cannot use the main thing you are paying for, you have bought an expensive wait. The listings that treat the quad as optional — $30 and $45 — let you decide on the day.

What to book instead is consistent: a four-hour camp evening, pickup in the fare, dinner in the fare, engines optional. That is $30 at the front of the queue, with $30 and $35 close behind it. All three put a camel ride in Dubai desert dunes into the calm half of the evening rather than the loud one.

People book a camel ride Dubai family trip expecting the camel to be the adventurous bit. It is the opposite. At the camp the animals are led on sand at walking pace, in a loop, with a handler alongside. Children who found the dune bashing too much find this part completely manageable, and it is the photograph that ends up on the fridge.

The listings are honest about where it sits. $30 lists camel rides between the dune bashing and the falcon encounter. $30 puts the camel ride next to a visit to the camel farm, which is the one listing here that gives children a proper look at the animals standing still. $55 describes riding a camel the way a Bedouin of the past would have, after the quad and the sandboarding are done.

If the camel is the reason you are going, the honest recommendation is $79. Six hours, pickup included, a meal included, and the camel is a trek into the Arabian desert rather than a loop by the tents. The same evening adds henna painting, a makeover, falcon photographs, a telescope for the stars and a BBQ dinner at the Bedouin camp, which between them cover the gap between a child who wants animals and a teenager who wants something to post. A Dubai desert safari family camel ride sunset evening is exactly what that listing sells, and its 2,630 reviews sit at 4.8.

One planning note. The camel is a stop on a schedule, not a queue you can join twice, so it is worth being ready for it rather than being at the sandboard when it comes round. Guides move the group through the camp in order, and a camel ride in Dubai desert light is best photographed early in that order, before the sun has gone.