Dubai Airport

This airport is huge and bustling. Thank goodness and at long last they seem to have purchased baby strollers so these are actually available now. Avoid buying gold at the duty free its a rip off and u are paying at least 10% over spot. I guess they just try and trap the captive client base they have.

DOH-DXB: Arrived at a gate far away at terminal 1. Once in the hall the usual (regular traveller) chaos of Dubai ensued queues building up then lanes opened up with a mad dash of desperate travellers looking to beat the rush. Unfriendly immigration staff spending as much time talking to each other as actually serving travellers. The only sure way of beating the rush is to book the Marhaba meet and great service I'm suspicious they make immigration so bad that you are forced to use the Marhaba service!. A lovely 65 minutes in the queue then off to find the bags as they had been taken off the belt as normal.

MRU-DXB-MUC with stopover in Dubai. Arrival in the early morning (5.40am) short way to immigration counters. Only half of counters were open each queue of about 20 people. Waiting time 65 minutes! Officers unfriendly and without any kind of motivation. Poor English knowledge. Baggage claim has already finished suitcases were left next to the belt. Quick exit to taxis which are easily accessible and enough in numbers. Check-In (online) so baggage-drop was quick. Efficient security checks but again terrible conditions at the immigration. No problems to spend your waiting time at the shops and cafes.

MUC-DXB-MRU. Transfer from the plane with busses to crowded Terminal 3. 3 hours connecting time in DXB at not a problem with shops and restaurants but too many people. Toilets clean but queues everywhere. Departure from B38 - a terrible small dirty and old part between B and C gates. Again transfer with busses to the plane.

Flew into DXB on 06/11/12. Getting off the plane was fine and had a bit of a walk to Immigration. Then it was a nightmare from then on in. The queues for immigration where horrendous and the whole area was full to the brim. We think nearly every desk was open but you could not see it was that far back every now and then a new line would form and a scramble ensued. We decided to stick with our original line. They took between 3-10 minutes to process 1 passenger. 3 hours later we got through! With no apology or anything we would avoid this airport in future. It is quite appalling and they need to sort this out. The knock on effect is that your bags have been taken off the carousel and stored so more time added. Avoid DXB at all costs fly somewhere else until they sort it out!

GLA-DXB-SYD return (with EK). Have used this airport in the past and have concluded that as long as your aircraft does not end up at a remote stand the airport works fine. Incoming the transfer arrangements in Concourse 2 were OK - not sure that yet another security screen is needed. Outgoing some stellar service from the EK airport staff allowed a group of transit passengers to get off a late-running flight from Sydney at one end of Concourse 2 and onto an outgoing service to GLA - at the other end of Concourse 1 - within 45 minutes; and have our luggage make it as well. Am prepared to go through DXB again as it can work well if they try.

Although it is a very modern impressive airport each time I use Dubai airport I get the feeling that the security level though the hand luggage and body scanners is a bit shambolic. A few days ago on leaving Dubai I forgot that I had a 500ml bottle of water clearly on show in a mesh pocket on my back pack type bag this was not picked out either in the scanner or by the security staff. If the 100ml limit of liquids is very much a safety limit this should be a worry.

Arrival - fine bit of a long taxi and long walk from ramp to get to terminal building Passport Control busy even at 5am but moved quite quickly staff reasonable helpful no real problem. Depart - Terminal 1 was dirty over crowded full of rude people full and full of shops (can't remember seeing any food spaces) taking up all space toilets not nice check in ok but pre security / normal security rowdy chaotic experience. Long queues through passport area to be stamped out of country. Would not recommend as awful experience LHR terminal 3 is better! Future flight to Australia being planned now through Asia rather than Dubai to avoid the airport.

We arrived for the weekend and spent as long trying to get through the immigration process as we had on our flight. The staff were inadequate in numbers badly trained and rude. Our return experience was much the same thank goodness we arrived early. We spent an hour getting through the process. We experienced an extremely rude and unhelpful policeman/security person. An immigration lady who was unable to smile greet and could only grunt! The airport is one long bottle neck with not enough facilities. Our experience has left us in no doubt that next time we shall travel by car. All the staff need retraining. What a truly dismal experience. Rating 0/10!

The other comments are exactly right - was expecting a modern clean world-class airport instead arrived at 2am into an overcrowded chaotic and grubby 3km-long shopping centre.