Hacking Dubai

After living in Dubai for few months, I have found out workarounds and loopholes and hacks into the way Dubai works. I am sure it’s true for any city but since Dubai claims to be oh-so-organized and huge and what not, it gives ineffable pleasure to do something in a different way and beat the masses to it.

This includes minor things like roads to avoid during rush hours, how to get a taxi quickly (relatively), best time to go for shopping, where to go for cheap shopping, and major things like how to cheat the speed detector cameras on highways and drive without a license.

Today I am going to share a small tip. This is for those who don’t have a car or are visiting Dubai and depend on taxis to move around the city.

Deira City Center is one of the busiest malls of Dubai, and if you don’t have a car then it is a very painful process to get a taxi when you are leaving the mall.

So in order to avoid the pain you can visit the mall in the mornings and make sure to leave the mall before 3 PM. This is the time when offices start to close and local residents start rushing towards the mall, thus increasing the traffic on the road and extending the queue for the taxi. Until 3 PM the taxi queue is minimum and you can get the taxi in less than 30 minutes (which is nothing compared to peak hours).

If you must visit the mall in the evenings or nights, then it is best to watch the last movie showing at the cinema which ends around 2 in the morning. That’s when taxi queue is smallest and you can get a taxi easily. If you leave at 12 or so, it will take you a couple of hours to get the taxi, which is the average running time of a movie. You are better off watching a movie.

Here’s a recap. If you depend on taxis, go to City Center mall either in the mornings and leave before 3 pm, or go in the nights leave after 2 am.

So that’s it. A very small tip to avoid taxi queues in the busiest mall of Dubai.