Dubai does not have a single best time to visit; it has several quite different ones, and choosing between them is mostly a question of what you are willing to trade.
November to March
Between roughly November and March the weather is what the photographs promise, and everything outdoors is pleasant — the beaches, the creek, the desert, the terraces that sit empty for half the year. It is also when the city is fullest. Flights and hotels are at their most expensive, the popular attractions want booking ahead, and the difference between a Tuesday and a Friday on a fare is at its widest. If your dates are fixed in this window, book early rather than waiting for a deal that historically does not arrive.
Summer
The summer months are hot in a way that is hard to overstate if you have not experienced it, and the city moves indoors accordingly. That is not automatically a bad trip: hotel rates fall a long way, the malls, museums, aquariums and indoor attractions are genuinely built for it, and the city is noticeably less crowded. It suits a short stay, a stopover, or a trip where the point is the hotel rather than the sightseeing. It suits a walking itinerary badly.
The shoulder weeks
The shoulder weeks at either end — late October, and April into early May — are where most of the value sits. Weather that still works outdoors for most of the day, prices closer to the low season than the high, and attractions you can reach without a reservation made a month earlier. If your dates are flexible at all, look here first.
What cuts across the calendar
A few things cut across the calendar. Ramadan changes the rhythm of the day, the opening hours of a lot of places and the atmosphere of the evenings; for some travellers that is the reason to come and for others it is a reason to move the dates, but either way it is worth knowing about in advance rather than discovering. Major events and exhibitions can fill the city's hotels in a way the season alone would not predict, so if a rate looks strange for the time of year, that is usually why. And school holidays across the Gulf move fares as much as the weather does.
If you are connecting through Dubai rather than staying, a long layover is genuinely usable here — the airport is close to the city and a half-day is enough for something real rather than a rushed circuit. Whether your ticket and your passport allow it is a separate question, and one worth asking us before you plan around it.
Have a look at what we are running or at how we build a holiday package, then tell our desk the week you are thinking about and what you want out of the trip, and we will tell you honestly whether it is the right week.