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Average Customer Rating:

Vital in a world of miscommunication

Customer Rating:

I moved to Dubai at the start of this year (2007) and my wife purchased the Red Tape guide on a friend's recommendation. What a massive help it has proved. Dubai is in a catagory by itself when it comes to officialdom. Everyone here carries about 20 passport photos, coppies of their visas and stamped company letters of "no objection" with them just to buy milk. Okay, so it's not as bad as that, but when you get here there are things you'll need to sort out very quickly, like driving licences, electricity supplies, bank accounts and cable TV. All of these will require you to wander through a sometimes bewildering maze of locations, forms and translations and one missing document means you may have wasted an entire day. The Red Tape guide is updated annually (although, to be fair, proceedures change here so often it sometimes takes a "Belt and Braces" approach) and for every process provides step by step instructions of where to go and what to do. It has a "shopping list" for each section too, letting you know where a photocopy will suffice or where original documents are required, for example. All this is written in an open and accessable fashion and, when coupled with the other Explorer book (Dubai Explorer, Resident's Guide, and no, I don't work for them!) will ease you into life in Dubai so you can focus on sundowner cocktails at Barasti or 360! A must for new arrivals.