DUBAI If your New Year’s Eve plans aren’t looking all that good and you are struggling to find a place in Dubai to host your bunch of friends, you could look slightly northwards to Umm Al Quwain.
“It always works as a great last minute plan. Just about an hour’s drive from Dubai, it’s a place you could head to anytime with absolutely no pre-planning at all. Sometimes we have even spent a day camping outdoors just on the beach,” said Indian expatriate Nikki Mathur who rang in the new year’s celebrations on December 31 last year in a rented three bedroom cottage there with her friends and family.
She’s booked the same place for her year-end party this time as well, but at twice what she paid last year.
“Last year we booked early and got a three-bedroom villa for only Dh700. This time the asking price was more than double, but it is still comparatively cheaper than similar properties in Dubai,” she said.
“There’s more freedom to do things like a barbeque or a karaoke in full volume. Imagine doing all that anywhere in an apartment in Dubai?” says Pakistani Ammar Akhtar, who plans to head away from Dubai this year.
Umm Al Quwain may be slightly off the beaten track, but the UAE’s least populous emirate may be a perfect getaway from the madding crowds of the big city on a busy day.
“People love coming to us because we offer them complete privacy of a home away from home. They have the entire villa to themselves, their own parking and a gate whose access only they have during their stay,” says Maroun Diab, the Lebanese Manager of Hotel Royal Residence located just 2km from the Umm Al Quwain beach.
His line of 97 chalets – 20 studios, eight one-bedroom villas, 41 two-bedroom, 25 three-bedroom and three luxury villas – were all booked for December 31 last year.
This year, only a dozen bedroom villas going for Dh1,500 and two luxury villas going for Dh6,000 are left for the night of December 31.
