Old Town

The flats are quite small but the location and having a small garden compensates for that.

I've lived in the same apartment since 2008 and have slowly seen the degradation of the area and those living in it. It would appear that everyone living in the block now needs to move their furniture every night around their room. It seems they need to wait until 10pm to start drilling and doing their DIY. The hard surfaces create unacceptable noise levels. If your single and party all the time it's probably for you as you will no doubtledly be able to sleep through the noise! Or even join your neighbours! Parking is terrible, you get your spot but if you have more then one car, be aware paid parking is everywhere and theyr have even spent 1000s drilling the car park floors and erecting bollards in spaces not being paid for (65%of parking is unused!) The smells that eminate through the ventilation system is a mystery, onions, drains you name it, however the excellent maintenance men will usually advice you to close of the vents as a great solution. No free gym is shocking, your paying best part of £33000 a year for a two bed apartment, it's not New York or London! Enjoy your stay it's wonderful

Safe-Clean-Pretty-Quiet-Convenient-Trendy-Luxurious-Central-Green-Affluent-Gyms... +Great restaurants (Baker and Spice, Clinton Street Baking, La Serre Bistro, Fume, Eataly, etc.)

The apartment is in perfect shape! The finishing is one of the best I have seen in Dubai. The kitchen layout and finishing are out of this world. Although I am the 3rd or 4th tenant, I feel I moved into a brand new apartment. The Maintenance teams are super in terms of response and capability.

The best and central place to stay in Dubai.The biggest community in downtown with a boundary wall which makes the place so peaceful that it becomes easier for the resident to walk within the premises without any traffic. Also it has a souq which has all facilities like doctor clinic, pharmacy, super market, restaurant and a five star hotel. The gym is great(Fitness first platinum) but you have to pay for the same. As per the community they have 4 different pools in Al Manzil district, which makes it all the more better. Great place to stay.

One of the most stylish and classiest regions in Dubai. You make a jump in the past living in these Arabic style residences. It's in close walking distance of Souk Al Bahar, Dubai Mall/Fountains/Burj Khalifa. The Old town is separated in Regions. Mine is Zaafaran and contains 1-bedroom apartments and is 4 floors hight. The rooms are pretty big and the furniture is colonial style. They contain a living room, separate kitchen with a washroom, a dressing , bedroom, bathroom with bath/toilet/lavabeau. It's a piece of Green in the city of sand, with nice trees in every yard on the ground floor. Thanks to all the trees, there are a lot of birds around, what gives it a suburban feeling. The pool is one of the best I've seen so far. surrounded by palm trees, nice cool (but not cold) temperature and, even though the population is big, there are always sofa's available.

The one bedroom we lived in was located on the third level so we had neighbours above us. Very noisy with traffic and now there is a mosque open right next door. The walls were very thin and we had many sleepless nights from our neighbours above, beside and below us. We are non-smokers so we did not appreciate the smell of smoke that often came in through the central air system as people often smoked in their apartment and the fire alarm rang regularly at all hours of the day. The apartment had a small balcony and the Arabic design features was beautiful.

Read the other review and don't really agree. Traffic - yes, construction may be a problem along with weekend folks on the boulevard. However Emaar has built a few new roundabouts and it's very easy to get into the parking from behind Old Town / Business Bay. Especially if you know the shortcuts. Parking - there's fairly big guest parking available at Qamardeen and two at Al Manzil districts (Old Town is split into these two parts). Absolutely no issues here. Territory & buildings - something that most people fell in love with immediately. Low rise beautifully landscaped buildings with plenty of different pools. Actually feels like hotel on vacation. Very friendly neighbours and staff. Apartments on G floor have their own gardens. Inside the apartments it may be a bit dark but saves from the heat. Finishing is a bit worse than you would expect. Especially cooling system - it can't really keep the set temperature, feels more like AC not climate control. On the other hand it rarely gets hot even in summer. Apartment layouts are very different - you need to spend some time to understand which one you'd prefer while searching for one. Some have spacious living rooms while some are quite awkward and narrow. There are few small shops in a short walking distance (e.g. Spinneys, Carrefour), as well as Dubai Mall. You'll soon be bored with Fountains due to their close proximity. :))) Schools/nurseries - there are no schools around. However there's a nursery in Old Town and several good ones in the nearby buildings.

The perfect area for us, a couple with a small dog and no children. Walking distance to Dubai Mall, Burj Khalifa and all the facilities along the boulevard. Spectacular views of Burj Khalifa from our terrace, amazing when there are fireworks, like NYE.

I have been living in Zanzabeel for almost 3 years. First, I must say that in general, I was happy here: the neighborhood is really beautiful, our apartment too, everything is very close, included good restaurants or more simple ones, Dubai Mall, etc. And you can WALK. We are a community of people who wants to WALK and we don't like driving the car for every little thing. Zanzabeel is in the "Qamardeen" side of Old town and unfortunately, the features are pretty less good than in the other side (al Manzil with Yansoon, Reehan and Zaffaran). 1. The beautiful souk never opened. Since 3 years, we are waiting for that, and there's absolutely nothing in it. It means we must take the car / walk to the other side for every single thing. Not a big deal, would you say, but it is, if you rented / bought a flat thinking that you'll have a small spinneys nearby. 2. This means that the souk is barely cleaned, actually we have pieces of glass and dog leftovers for days and weeks in it. 3. If you have children and you need to use your stroller, you HAVE TO cross the dirty -empty souk. Honestly, I don't let my daughter walk in it, because I'm afraid if she falls, she'll have plenty of piece of glass mixed with dog poo in her wounds. 4. The access to Zanzabeel next to Vida Hotel became absolutely dangerous, especially with children. Cars are coming from everywhere, nobody ever understood why they changed everything over there, if it was better before. 5. Other access is dangerous to and the sidewalk is approx. 50 cm large, you can barely pass with a stroller, then you have to cross between all the cars coming for the parking. 6. There used to be a nursery what they closed, telling us that its building was for community purpose, as a gym for example. It was left empty with light on 24h/24h, then they finally rented it for Vida hotel. What isn't really serving the community. 7. THERE'S NO KID'S POOL!!!!!! There was one, it's broken since 2 years and nobody seems to care about it. We are actually crossing the road and going to the other side of Old town for their kids pool. 8. The new Mosque is definitely audible. 9. There are 2 high building constructions right next to Zanzabeel - what means AT LEAST 1 1/2 years of noise ALL THIS MEANS THAT IT ISN'T REALLY THE THING IT SEEMS LIKE: YOU JUST CAN'T REALLY WALK AROUND AS YOU WANTED, BECAUSE EVERYTHING YOU NEED ON DAILY BASIS (spinneys, nursery, pharmacy, kid's pool) IS ABOUT 15 MIN WALK FROM YOUR HOUSE. WHAT IS MUCH FROM APRIL UNTIL DECEMBER!!! Above all these problems, rents are almost as high as in Yansoon, Zaffaran or Reehan - but they have lots more of facilities. This is really not right and the developer should really rethink about this neighborhood. Especially because with all these noise we didn't have one year ago, almost everybody is leaving. Landlords, owners must be really upset of all these crazy and let's say, not really intelligent decisions about Qamardeen and neighborhood. Two positive thing, the flats and the pools are really beautiful. And you are still very close to everything, even though the Qamardeen souk is empty.

We loved living in Downtown but there were rats in the Old Town Buildings. Complaints to the developer were useless as they kept saying it was a landlord issue. Unfortunately the rats were in the public corridors ceilings - we had several die when we were there. Also getting into/out of the old town area is a nightmare during the evenings. It would take me 20min to get to work and over an hour to get home.

I live in Old Town for a year, the appartment is amazing if you want to avoid towers, I have great balcony very useful in good weather for a breakfast or dinner, the finishing of the appartment is amazing with little flaws but you can manage it with maintenance. The area is great for walks and very much kids friendly for playing and running. The pool is 5 stars very clean and huge. I live opposite to dubai mall and still have spinneys in old souq and carrefour just around the corner.

Getting lost in the streets of the complex makes you realize how nice of a life you can live under the hustle and bustle of the Burj. Families with babies stroll, many options for eating out and just plain taking a walk. If you like, you park your car on a Thu night and don't take it out until Sunday morning. This in a car based city is a huge advantage.

We arrived in old town in September 2013. Our tenancy was for 2 months. As we were new to Dubai we wanted to have a good look around the area before committing ourselves to an apartment. My first impressions of the apartment and community were very favourable. The apartment is big enough for the 2 of us, very nicely decorated and furnished to a high standard, with everything we could possibly need. The pool is very close by to the apartment. It has plenty of sun beds around and a pool attendant is always visible. The pool is a good size for length swimming and surrounded by plants and palm trees, which makes sitting around the pool pleasurable. There is a souk within approx 200yds from the apartment, with a supermarket, pharmacy, spa, hairdresser/barber. There are also shops and cafés within the souk. So everything you need is close at hand. There is also a hotel close by, so you can use their facilities and the largest mall is across the road from the community. Public transport is very close, buses, taxis and the metro within walking distance. With all this in mind, we didn't find any other apartment that meet with such fabulous facilities, so we signed up for 1years tenancy and are likely to stay another year