Dubai Safari Park Tickets and Tours | GetExperience.com

Dubai Safari Park covers 119 hectares in Al Warqa, on the eastern edge of the city, and holds around three thousand animals of two hundred and fifty species. It replaced the old Dubai Zoo in Jumeirah, which had been open since 1967 and had become indefensible, and it is built as a set of geographic villages — African, Asian, Arabian — with a safari drive through open enclosures where lions, giraffes, white rhino and Arabian oryx are kept behind ditches rather than bars. It opened in 2017, closed for two years of rebuilding and reopened in 2020. The park runs on solar power and recycles its water, which in this climate is not a marketing line but a condition of operating.

A visit takes three to four hours. The safari journey by bus or open vehicle is the centrepiece, and the villages are walked between shows — bird of prey demonstrations, feeding sessions, a crocodile enclosure with an underwater window. There is a large children's area and a set of paid extras: giraffe feeding, behind-the-scenes tours and animal encounters, all of which need booking on arrival because slots go early. It is one of the better half-days in Dubai for families and is rarely on a standard city tour, which is part of its appeal.

Practical. Like the Miracle Garden, the park is seasonal and closes for the summer, running roughly from October to May. Within the season, go at opening: the animals are active in the first two hours and asleep by midday, and the walking areas have limited shade. Buy tickets online for a lower price. Strollers and wheelchairs are available and the paths are flat. It is thirty minutes by taxi from Downtown with no useful metro connection. Outside food is not permitted and the on-site prices are what you would expect.