If you see the way Russian tourists behave whilst in the UAE, we Aussies dont have much to worry about.
Agreed. Just got back from DXB last night flying PER-DXB-JFK-DXB-PER. EK in Y. Stayed 3 nights following on from a trip to New York and points north. First time my wife and I had been to DXB and we were careful because she takes a lot of various medications at times. So we made sure we didnt have any of the 4 pages of banned medications on the website and read up on all the "rules" about not showing affection in public, not taking photos of people without permission, not wearing shorts, not exposing the shoulders, etc, etc...
We chose EK before the announcement due to cost and joined skywards. Having flown them I've got to say they beat QF for quality at least in Y, but then so do SQ, CX, and just about every other flag carrier. And they had perfectly adequate wines available with the meals so definitely not a 'dry' airline.
As to staying in DXB, our hotel had plenty of booze in the minibar, not cheap but available. There were also a couple of 'winebars' in the shopping centres we visited. The pharmacies had most stuff. You could tell tourists from Expats because the expats dressed a bit more respectfully and some tourists obviously hadnt been told anything or werent aware they were breaking the rules, which did draw some disapproving stares from the locals and was quite conspicuous, but was mostly ignored.
Overall I'd say there was nothing really worth worrying about. Apart from the heat, which was oppressive when not in airconditioning. And the sand everywhere, no grass anywhere. And the 30 degree fog on our departure morning that delayed all the flights and meant a 15 minute bus ride to the plane. But that worked in our favour because there were 170 connections that couldnt land so the plane was half empty instead of chock-a-block full.
Might be a bit different out of the tourist traps, but again nothing new there if you travel in SE Asia or anywhere similar.
