Hatta Winter Festival: Fireworks at the sign, live music, illuminations and adventure

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You’d have to be mad as a Hatta to miss it…

The Hatta Winter Festival is a merry blizzard of entertainment and outdoor adventures and it all kicks off this Friday, December 12.

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Hatta stay options are pretty diverse

Your invitation to discover outside of the city lines, 90 minutes from Dubai sits an enclave of stunning natural beauty. Go for the day to Hatta and enjoy kayaking on the dam, hiking the craggy mountain trails, or all manner of activities at the Wadi Hub. Or make a weekend of it and book one of the trailers, caravans or dome tents – all glamping options with a luxe Dubai touch. You pay for activities individually (starting from Dhs20), while glamping rates start from Dhs680.

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There’s a lot of family fun available at Hatta Winter Festival

Hatta has caravan stays

Explore the Hatta Mountain Trails

Bask in the bonfire glow of Damani Lodges at Hatta Resorts

The proposed Hatta sustainable waterfall

Hatta Sustainable Waterfall

Hatta Wadi Hub

No car? No problem, The Hatta Express makes travel easy (and affordable)

The Hatta Beach project

JA Hatta Fort Hotel

Time on the water in Hatta

The Hatta scenery is stunning

The future of Hatta is green

Hatta offers some raified vistas

Last year’s inaugural event pulled in more than 500,000 visitors from the UAE and GCC countries in just two weeks. But Hatta Winter Festival is set to go even bigger.

The 2024–2025 season has been extended to a 40-day celebration with headline experiences utilising the region’s dramatic geography and alfresco leisure pursuits.

The central stage for the Hatta Winter Festival is the cinematic Leem Lake, a rock-hemmed oasis within Hatta’s mountainous folds.

Getting to the heart of the Hatta

Taking place between December 12 and January 22, 2025 a calendar of engaging festivities will be available to visitors from 4pm until 10pm on weekdays, and from 4pm until midnight on weekends.

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The Hatta Winter Festival line-up includes a theatrical fireworks show (Fri and Sat, 8pm) over the iconic sign each weekend, 120 different workshops, live music, the spectacular Hatta Mountain Light Show, pop-up restaurants (including Salt and Sadeem), and a range of cultural experiences.

T-Hatta’s entertainment

But Hatta has so much more to offer. Alongside the Winter Festival fun you can get stuck into wadi-hikes, kayaking trips, horse riding, mountain biking, zip-lining, axe-throwing, archery, zorbing, climbing, bodyboarding and a rucksack more alfresco adventure.

There’s a lot to do, so if you fancy making it a weekend trip, your stay options run from camping to star-gazing-enabled bubble domes; there’s luxury on tap at JA Hatta Fort Hotel; mountain terrace lodges at Damani Lodges Resort, and retro Sedr trailers for a bit of rustic ‘Gram-fit glam. And as a special inclusion for Hatta Winter Festival, Damani is including free access to 18 adventure activities at HattaOutdoor with their stay packages.

Getting there

The RTA has made Hatta even more accessible for the Winter Festival. There are Hop On Hop Off buses, offering 29 daily trips to sight-seeing hotspots in Hatta (including the Hatta Dam), and there are 14 direct Hatta Express shuttles that link the region with other areas in Dubai.

Driving? The RTA has allocated over 1,100 parking spaces for visitors seeking the refreshing breeze of mountain air.

All part of the Master Plan

Proejects attached to H.H Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai’s Hatta Master Development Plan include the minimum impact, environmentally conscious construction of more hotels and luxury resorts; cable cars (which will take a scenic route over Hatta Dam); waterfalls; hiking trails; biking trails; the restoration of Wadi Lim Lake; enhancing UNESCO World Heritage sites such as the Hatta tombs and the Falaj Al Shari’a (places of deep archaeological importance dating back to the Bronze and Iron Ages); Hatta Souq, which will be home to 70 commercial units; the residential and commercial development of Hatta downtown; new attractions at Hatta Heritage Village and the development of the Leem lake area.

Images: Provided