Warning about Tour ‘Dubai by Night’ and FTI Tour Operator ‘Meeting Point’ !!!

Unfortunately we have to inform you not to trust the overpriced tour operator ‘Meeting Point’ of FTI apparently run by mostly Egyptians!!! We were sold a disastrous tour ‘Dubai by Night’ by the responsible person/FTI representative Hatem for Ajman/UAE.

It started already with the pick-up/transfer to our tour bus, being done by a driver that was smelling just unacceptably bad, did not, as promised by Hatem, supply any water/drinks for 1,5 hours and drove like a maniac with children incl. our 6 year old daughter among the 7 passengers we were in total. (he also picked us up at nighttime smelling even worse and now being distracted by a girlfriend of his on the passenger seat)

After we arrived drained at the tour bus pick-up close to the ’Atlantis Hotel’, we switched to a big tour bus that did not even have cooled bottles of waters on hand & stopped immediately 5 minutes after we boarded at the first ‘photo stop’ Atlantis Hotel.

After this “stop” the whole tour turned out to be a mixture between a completely overpriced “Photo-/Biased-Shopping Tour” that either did not provide for enough time to enjoy the few “nicer” shopping stops or left you in a completely overpriced jewelry store with amateur salesmen and a, at best, pathetically equipped selection still not being supplied by any other drink choices (as promised) but water & without ANY snacks for 9 hours!!!

Just simply a disgrace & rip-off tour by ‘Meeting Point’!

As we arrived finally at our anticipated stop at the Burj Kahlifa/Dubai Mall we were already so “hangry” & frustrated, that even the Aquarium (of course at additional charge!) or the ridiculously short ‘Bellagio/Vegas Copy Water Fountain Show’ that didn’t even last for 5 Minutes, could change the feeling of this ‘disastrous tour’, being left for over 3 hours before the last “highlight” of the tour, the boat trip from the Dubai marina through the canal of the lit up skyscraper skyline of Dubai was scheduled!

The Egyptian, german speaking tour guide ‘proudly’ announced & praised the buffet onboard & told us we can be excited since all drinks would be included & we would have the “privilege” being seated in the air conditioned lower deck of the traditional boat. “Of course” not even 1!!! beer or alcoholic beverage was included & waiters tried desperately to sell $10/€9 CANS of Heineken or ridiculously overpriced wine to us, meanwhile the countless air conditioners onboard were either damaged, blowing HOT air out or did not cool the “dining deck sufficiently” to be seated without getting ‘drenched’ during your meal!

Needless to mention that the selection of the cheap buffet is not even worth to talk about & consisted of the cheapest available type of foods around in Dubai!

To sell a tour like this for the staggering amount of €150/Person €75/Children is an offense to all tourists of the UAE & we urgently recommend to NEVER book any tour with ‘Meeting Point’ given the lies & misinformation that were given to sell the tour to uninformed tourists in 5-Star Hotels!!!

We like to mention that the tour guide at least was kind & informative, but seemed just to be a big biased part of the entire RIP-OFF!

Now comes the ‘Kicker’, motivating us to leave this thorough feedback for all customers not to ‘fall’ for this tour operator:

“We immediately filed an official complaint incl. our wish of a partial refund with our “SalesPerson & FTI Representative” Hatem among several others (non-related) hotel guests complaining about this “Tour”!”

Hatem promised he’d get back to us no later than Saturday (since the following Friday was a ‘holiday’) with a decision about at least a partial refund, however NO apology for the unacceptable experience whatsoever.

After he did not return to any guests nor us, until late Sunday, we filed now a complain about his inexcusable ‘lack of responsibility/attention’ to our matter.
Only then were informed by him that he was “sorry” but had so many WhatsApp complaints & to attend to so many other issues in other hotels in the Emirates that he messed up informing either us or any other rightfully ‘fuming’ hotel guests about the decision of the ‘amateur management’ of Meeting Point (probably also Egyptian)!

The compensation offer/decision that “Meeting Point” has come up with? Not 1!!! Euro/Dollar will be refunded and we should try to deal with FTI back home after our return, offering a worthless complain report for us, that we partially even filled out ourselves, because he could have cared less!

Therefore we explicitly want to inform all curious tourist to refrain from using ‘Meeting Point’ at any given time and considering to either take a private much cheaper alternative or at least avoid this company all together!