Luggage
If your transfer is by seaplane, pack for its limit as well as your airline’s. Seaplanes usually allow 20 kg in the hold and 5 kg of hand luggage per person, with no extra allowance for infants, and charge for extra weight by the kilo.
Clothes
- Light clothes: the average temperature is between 25°C and 32°C all year.
- Swimwear for the resort.
- Something for showers, if you travel in the southwest monsoon, from about mid-May to October.
Jumeirah Olhahali Island
For the sun and the sea
- A reef-safe sun cream, such as one made with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide.
- A refillable water bottle.
- Your own snorkel mask, if you prefer it.
- A camera you can use without flash, if you hope to swim with whale sharks.
Papers and money
- A passport with a machine-readable zone and at least one month’s validity.
- Your return ticket and booking confirmation.
- Your IMUGA Traveller Declaration, filled in within 96 hours before arrival.
- A yellow fever certificate, if you are arriving from a country with a risk of yellow fever.
- A credit card: all major cards are accepted. The local currency is the rufiyaa, and businesses may take payment from tourists in foreign currency, such as US dollars.
Leave at home
- Vapes and e-cigarettes: banned, and taken at the border.
- Alcohol and pork: not allowed in without approval; duty-free alcohol bought on the way is confiscated.
- Anything on the banned list: Visas and entry sets it out.
Ask your resort first
What resorts provide differs, so check before you pack: beach towels, snorkelling gear, reef shoes, a hairdryer, an adaptor, and for children a cot, a high chair or a pushchair.