When in Dubai, a day trip to the incredible Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi is a must. It’s an amazing place with some absolutely incredible features that really set it apart. It is really worth experiencing if you’re in that part of the world.

We didn’t want to spend too long getting there, so we booked this tour through Get Your Guide: From Dubai: Abu Dhabi Sheikh Zayed Mosque Guided Tour. We chose this one as it had lots of great reviews, something we rely on heavily when booking tours. We’ve decided to give you this detailed review with all of our honest feelings about the tour. We hope that you can make the most informed decision before booking your tour of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque from Dubai.

1. Tour overview
2. Cost and inclusions
3. Highlights
4. Lowlights
5. Would we recommend it?

This tour will pick you up directly from your hotel in Dubai. They will either collect you in the tour bus, or in a car to drive you to a meeting point with the bus. From there you’ll drive about an hour and a half to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. Along the way, your guide will give you all sorts of information on the Mosque and on the UAE.

At the mosque, they will provide every woman with an Abaya, a lose fitting garment that covers the body from the neck to the ankles. The ones we used were black and gold and also included a headscarf.

You’ll walk through a little shopping centre before heading into the mosque. There is no guided tour of the mosque so you’ll have about 1.5 hours of free time to look around. After you’ve had your time at the mosque, there will be a bathroom break the shopping centre before you head back to Dubail. The tour will end when you’re dropped off back at your hotel.

There are three tour options to choose from and all of them run for approximately 5 hours:

• Half-Day English Shared Tour: This tour meets or picks you up at 8:45am so is only a half day. It costs around 219 AED but can get up to 264 AED in the higher season.
• Sunset Half-Day English Shared Tour: This tour is exactly the same as the other half day tour, but just starts at 3pm instead. Prices are almost the same as well but change by a couple of Dirhams based on the season.
• Half-Day English Private Tour: This is a private version of the tour, also running for 5 hours. You can choose a start time of either 8:45am or 4:15pm. This version costs either 869 AED or 1087 AED depending on the season. Obviously this tour is private so you’ll have the guide all to yourself!

Firstly, a huge highlight was being picked up and dropped off at our hotel, as we didn’t have to worry about getting anywhere to meet the bus. While it is possible to get to the Mosque from Dubai on public transport, it takes almost double the time and is a bit tricky. Because of this we really think booking a tour was the best option for us on our trip. The drive itself was super quick and comfortable and we got some facts from our guide along the way.

They also organised a smooth entry into the Mosque and made sure we were wearing the correct clothes to enter. The outfits provided were great and easily went over our clothes too. It’s just such an easy way to see the Mosque if you only have a couple of spare hours free, especially if you’re not planning on spending any time in Abu Dhabi.

Of course the main highlight was the Mosque itself, which is absolutely stunning and completely worth the drive out there. Look forward to the incredible marble courtyard with its marble floral designs, using marble from all over the world. There are barriers around the courtyard meaning you can get photos with no one else in the background. Of course there’s also the amazing Swarovski crystal chandelier which hangs over the world largest hand knotted carpet. There really are so many amazing things to see and experience at the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.

There really weren’t many lowlights from this tour! We were worried before the tour that the amount of time we had in the Mosque might not be enough, but really we had more than enough time to wander through and look around. The only tiny thing we would say is to bring bobby pins or hair clips to pin the head scarf to your hair, as it kept sliding off and it got a bit annoying. But really if that’s the only lowlight from the day, then you can see it was a pretty good day trip!

We would absolutely recommend this tour if you want to easily see the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque from Dubai. It was super easy to get there and back, great that we were given outfits and we loved getting some fun facts along the way. The mosque itself is absolutely beautiful and we had more than enough time to take it all in on the tour. It really is definitely worth the time and money to experience this amazing place while in Dubai.

To see our time at the Mosque (and everything else we did during our time in Dubai), you can watch our vlog:

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