What it is like once you are on the boat
What to wear, what to bring, who can come and what the hours actually feel like. The questions crews here get asked most, answered by the people who get asked them.
Boarding is fifteen minutes before departure, at a berth number and a map pin you get the evening before. Charter time runs berth to berth, so arriving late shortens the trip rather than moving the end of it — which is the single most useful thing to know before a first charter and the thing most often found out the hard way.
What the hours buy is fairly rigid. Two hours covers the Marina channel, JBR and Bluewaters and cannot anchor to swim. Three adds a forty-minute swim stop in the flat water inside the Palm crescent. Four is the first length at which you can eat aboard properly rather than snack, and five reaches the World Islands and back. Most people want three and book two.
The guest number on each boat is set by its vessel licence rather than by deck space, it includes children and infants, and it cannot be exceeded for any reason. Beyond thirty-five people the answer stops being a yacht and becomes a privately hired dhow, which takes up to a hundred.
9 minute read
Your first time on a yacht: what to expect, hour by hour
Here is what to expect the first time on a yacht: you arrive fifteen minutes early at a numbered berth, the crew take your bags and brief you in about two minutes, and the boat leaves.
9 minute read
A 2 hour sunset yacht charter in Dubai, minute by minute
A 2 hour yacht charter from Dubai Marina costs AED 1,500 for up to twelve guests and leaves about ninety minutes before the actual sunset.
7 minute read
What to wear to a yacht party, and the one rule that matters
What to wear to a yacht party in Dubai comes down to one real rule: flat shoes or bare feet.
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What not to bring on a yacht
What not to bring on a yacht, in one line: heels, open flames of any kind including cake candles, confetti and glitter, anything that can go overboard, and unlicensed alcohol.
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Avoiding seasickness on a Dubai boat trip
Seasickness on a boat in Dubai is rarer than people expect, because the water inside the Palm crescent and along the Creek is close to flat.
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Alcohol on a yacht in Dubai: the rules, plainly
Yes, alcohol is allowed on a yacht in Dubai on boats that permit it and by prior arrangement.
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Taking kids on a yacht charter in Dubai
For a yacht charter with kids in Dubai, book three hours rather than two, choose a boat with a low swim platform and real shade, and keep the route inside the Palm Jumeirah crescent where the water is flat.
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Taking a baby on a yacht in Dubai: what actually works
Yes, at any age.
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How many people fit on a Dubai charter yacht?
How many people can go on a yacht in Dubai comes down to the vessel licence: between 12 and 35 guests on a typical charter yacht, depending on the boat's length.
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What facilities does a dhow cruise have?
Dhow cruise facilities are plainer than people expect and entirely adequate.
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A yacht charter for two people in Dubai: is it worth it?
A yacht charter for two in Dubai costs AED 1,500 for two hours, AED 750 each, against AED 99 a head for a shared dhow cruise with dinner.
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Charter yacht speed: how fast is 10 knots, really?
A charter yacht in Dubai cruises at about 10 knots, which is roughly 18 km/h.
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The overnight yacht experience in Dubai: a night at anchor
An overnight yacht experience in Dubai runs about 6pm to 10am and costs from AED 14,000 on a 62ft sleeping six.
Questions people ask
What actually happens in the first ten minutes on board?
A safety brief from the captain, life jacket locations, where the heads are, and where you can and cannot stand while the boat is moving. It takes about four minutes and it happens alongside, before the lines come off, so it does not eat into your time on the water.
Can we choose the route, or is it fixed?
It is yours to change on the day. The captain will suggest a route for your hours and the light, and groups regularly swap the swim stop for more coastline or vice versa once they are out. The only fixed points are the departure berth and the finish time.
Is there anything that will stop a charter going out?
Sea state, almost exclusively. The coastguard closes the marina to leisure traffic in a strong shamal, and a captain will call it earlier than that if the swell would make the trip unpleasant rather than unsafe. In both cases the charter moves to another date rather than being lost.
Sunset cruise in Dubai
A private sunset cruise in Dubai costs from AED 1,500 for two hours on a boat carrying up to twelve, and leaves Dubai Marina about ninety minutes before sunset. You get the light on the way out, the sun going down behind the Palm, and the skyline lit on the run home.
The rest of the library
Seven more groups of guides, each answering a different part of the same day.
- Choosing and bookingWhat to ask for, what a real quote looks like, and how the booking actually works from the first message to the pontoon. Start here if you have not chartered before.
- What it costsRates, minimums, what is inside the hourly price and what is not. Every figure here comes from the same rate card the booking pages use.
- Season and weatherDubai's charter season runs October to April, and the rest of the year is a question of timing rather than a closed door. What each month is actually like.
- Dubai MarinaEvery charter here boards in Dubai Marina, so it is worth knowing the place properly: where to park, where to walk, where to eat, and how it fits against JBR and Bluewaters.
- The coastlineThe Palm, the World Islands, the Burj Al Arab and how close a boat really gets to each. What is worth the fuel and what looks better from land.
- Dubai after darkThe Creek, Al Seef and the skyline are all different places at night, and most of the water here is better after six. Where to be, and when.
- Swimming and the seaWhere the swim stops are, what the sea is actually like off this coast, and the question everybody asks and nobody wants to ask out loud.
Tell us when, and we will tell you what is free.
Weekends and sunset slots go first between October and April. Leave the date and the headcount below, or message us on WhatsApp. If your date is close, WhatsApp is quicker than any form.
- No deposit to enquire
- A reply within a couple of hours
- Licensed boats, licensed crew, price all-in
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