Forgive me for making a sweeping statement, but for guaranteed winter sun with a less than 8 hour direct flight from Manchester, don’t most people just press the Dubai default button?  Of course, Dubai is great if you want a city that shouts at you 24 hours a day and has a sort of “look at me” feel about it.  And of course it does have rather a lot of good hotel options. But that’s the thing about Dubai, there’s just a lot of everything – hotels, skyscrapers, people, bling. For something a lot calmer and with less crowds my preference is Abu Dhabi, Dubai’s less brash neighbour.

Here are some of the reasons why I think it’s time to consider ditching Dubai as the default for winter sun and maybe give Abu Dhabi a whirl instead: