Club Mina Beach Club Review: Mama hits the beach avec les Minis

There are tons of cool, hip and fancy beach clubs around town but let’s face it; when will we ever take a whole day without kids to enjoy those places? Exactly, that would be never. So, this mama decided to check out one of the more kid-friendly options around to see if it lives up to its reputation. (Oh, I hope they don’t mind not making the cool and hip category, they will be so disappointed….)

Club Mina is nestled between the Westin and Le Meridien hotel and has one of the longer stretches of private beach here in Dubai. At the entrance we opted for, or rather got upsold by the clever ticketing man, to the entry+ bbq buffet. At AED 425 per adult this isn’t cheap by any means BUT a lot of other clubs charge similar amounts with no lunch included. And let’s face it, if you are draggin’ the whole bunch to the beach for a day of fun (?) in the sun you might just as well make sure lunch has been taken care of.

I went during the weekend (needed full backup from hubby), which means prices are higher and the beach is more crowded. But if you get there early, which us mamas tend to do, you will have plenty of time to find good shaded seats and collect a tower of towels- since we all know we need minimum four towels per child when going to the beach. So what’s inside mamas? Well, a lovely long stretch of sandy beach with more than 1,000 sun loungers plus five swimming pools and kids pools to splash about in. All of the pools are temperature controlled, so even a little beat-the-heat this summer is totally doable. There are also a heap of watersports available for the older kids (banana boating, water skiing, wind surfing and more) which we weren’t in the market for this time.

The beach is super clean, overlooks parts of the Palm (and the random cargo ships you get here) and has a good set of beach toys for the kids to get busy with. On the day that we visited there were quite a lot of jelly fish in the water so we spent more time at the pool area to avoid those slippery guys (although the boys were completely fascinated as you can imagine!) At lunch time my clan hit the buffet which was really, really good. Lots of healthy options to choose from for mama (erm, not for this mama) and a pasta station which hit home with the littlies. Hubby went all out on the freshly bbq’d ribs, burgers and crabs… what the heck- so did I! All seriously yummy. And then the dessert buffet. Why do they do this to you when they know you are in a bikini while eating? We kind of loved that they had Jelly Beans for the kids, just scoop out a handful and dessert is over without sticky fingers and stained clothes.

After lunch mama plus youngest son needed a snooze so sent hubby off to the kids club with our eldest. After 5 minutes he came back with a smirk on his face- kids aged four years and up can be dropped off for supervised fun – score! Once the three of us had snoozed happily in the shade for what seemed like hours, we picked up a happy (face-painted) toddler from the kids club who then proceeded to pass out on the loungers next to us –score again!

Verdict:

Kids pool- check!
Kids food offers- got to love a good buffet where they can browse around for ages and annoy somebody else for a change.
Lots of space to go bananas- yep
Kids club- oh yeah!

Overall this Sassy Mama gives Club Mina a big thumbs up for families and less so for the hipsters looking for the next cool place to be seen.

Prices:
Weekdays: Adults: 225 AED – Children (4-12yrs): 125 AED
Weekends: Adults: 350 AED – Children (4–12yrs): 175 AED
Weekends + BBQ: Adults: 425 AED – Children (4–12yrs): 225 AED

Club Mina Seyahi
The Westin Hotel
Al Sufouh Road, Jumeirah Beach
Tel: (+971) (0)4 399 4141

www.westinminaseyahi.com/en/dubai-resort-jumeirah-beach