Dubai Museums: Art, Heritage and Indoor Experiences

Al Shindagha Museum is the largest open heritage museum in the Emirates, in restored houses on the bank of Dubai Creek: the Al Maktoum family house, the perfume house, the story of the Creek and life by the sea. It is the place where Dubai began. The Queen Elizabeth 2 is permanently moored in Dubai and today serves as a floating hotel. On the heritage tour you go up on deck, see the captain's cabin, an original passenger cabin and a vintage Rolls-Royce in the ship's garage. Dubai Frame is a giant picture frame with a glass floor, showing Old Dubai on one side and the new on the other.

ARTE Museum is a museum of immersive digital art: waves, waterfalls, forests and Van Gogh paintings that surround the whole room, with music and scents. AYA Universe has 12 worlds of light, sound and projections at Wafi City: a glowing forest, a giant ball pit, an upside-down waterfall and a mirror room with moons.

Madame Tussauds is an indoor, air-conditioned place for the whole family, with more than 70 wax figures of stars, athletes and leaders, on Bluewaters Island opposite JBR. The Museum of Candy has more than 15 colorful rooms: a forest of lollipops, a pool of gummy bears and clouds of cotton candy, with tastings along the way. At Dinosaurs: The Immersive Odyssey you take a journey of about an hour in the world of dinosaurs, with a fossil warehouse, free walking in virtual reality, life-size animatronic dinosaurs and a craft corner for children.

The guided tour of Dubai Opera goes into a building shaped like a dhow: the main hall, the royal boxes, the hospitality areas, and on some tours also backstage areas. You can see the opera even without a ticket to a performance. At a cultural meal at the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding you sit on cushions in the courtyard of an old wind tower house in Al Fahidi, taste Emirati food and ask an Emirati host about life, customs and religion. Expo City Dubai was built on the Expo 2020 site: the Terra sustainability pavilion, the Al Wasl dome and the Surreal fountain. The public area is open to all, and entry to Terra is by ticket.