Can a 50-seater reach the door, or not?

Start with the door, not the head count

A 50-seater coach needs room to turn and a bay to stop in. Some hotel forecourts, villa streets, resort gates and soft sand are out. A 30-seater mini coach, a Toyota Coaster or similar, turns into porte-cochères, villa streets and venue gates where the big coach would have to stop on the road and leave everyone to walk.

We do not print a street width or a turning circle here, because we have not measured your hotel and nor has anyone writing a general page. What we can tell you is where trouble tends to sit, and how to find out before the day.

Where access is tight

• Marina and JBR: forecourts are busy and a full-size coach may not fit on some of them.
• Downtown: hotel forecourts can be tight for a full coach, so for twenty or more we often use the mini coach.
• Old Dubai, around Deira, Bur Dubai and Al Fahidi: streets are narrow, forecourts can be small and unloading bays short. The coach may stop on the main road while the group walks the last stretch.
• Beach resorts: each has its own forecourt, gate and procedure for guests arriving by car.
• Desert camps: the mini coach is our usual pick because it is narrower than a full coach and easier to turn in a camp car park.

Many hotels send coaches to a coach bay or a side entrance rather than the main porte-cochère. That is normal, and it changes the walk from the coach to the lobby. Tell the group before the day which door they will use. We do not know every hotel’s arrangements, so we do not guess.

Four questions for the hotel

Send these to the hotel’s events or front desk contact and forward the replies. If the answers are vague, ask again.

• Does the main entrance take a coach, or is there a coach bay or side entrance?
• Where does a coach wait while guests load, and can it stay there?
• Is there a time of day when the forecourt is closed to coaches?
• Who meets the group at the drop-off point?

If the answer to the first is no, or you do not get an answer, plan for the mini coach, and tell us the hotel so we can ask what it can take. Our drivers do not decide a hotel’s rules, and we would rather you found out before the day.

What two mini coaches do to your bags

This is the cost of going small. One 50-seater holds about 50 bags. A mini coach holds about 20. So splitting a big group across mini coaches shrinks the bag room faster than it shrinks the seats.

The first row is the one that catches people. Forty-six guests fit two mini coaches on seats, and a pair of them seats 44 at the low end of the range, so ask the quote to state the seat count. The bags are the bigger problem: six cases go on the kerb. The answers are a small luggage vehicle that leaves with the group, or the 50-seater, if the hotel confirms it can take one.

The middle row is similar. We list the mini coach as 22 to 30 seats, and the count depends on the vehicle assigned. A group of 28 needs a vehicle with at least 28 seats, and the eight extra cases need a van behind it.

The rule for choosing

Use the 50-seater when the hotel confirms in writing that a coach can reach the entrance or a coach bay, and the group is more than about thirty. Use the mini coach when the hotel says no, says nothing, or the street is a villa lane or Old Dubai alley. Mix them when one hotel in the programme is tight and the others are not: a 50-seater for the big hotels, a mini coach for the small one, all on one quote.

Tell us the hotels by full name and area and we plan the drop-off for each. Our comparison of four vehicle sizes shows where a coach does not fit, and the 17 to 30 people guide works the same choice from the seats side.

If the coach has to stop short

Sometimes the honest answer is that the coach stops at the edge of a district and the group walks the last few minutes. In Old Dubai that is common. Plan for it: tell guests to wear shoes for walking, ask the hotel to hold bags at the lobby and agree a meeting point and a time, not a duration.

Allow around ten minutes per pick-up without luggage and fifteen to twenty when suitcases go into the holds. A walk from the coach adds to that. For a tour that runs between sights, the private minibus city tour guide shows how a smaller vehicle handles the old quarters, and the coach rental page covers both sizes.

Asking for a quote

Send the hotel names, the head count, the bag count and what the hotel said about coaches. We reply with a fixed written quote that names the vehicle and the drop-off point for each hotel. See what is in a bus rental quote for how to read it, and use the booking page to start.

Related: HiAce vs Sprinter vs Coaster vs 50-seater · Coach rental Dubai · 30-Seater Mini Coach · 50-Seater Coach · Group transfers for tour operators · Get a quote

Keep reading

• Transport for 31 to 50 people: Thirty-one to fifty people on one coach: what a 50-seater carries, how leaders and guides eat into the seats, and the places a full-size coach cannot go.
• Coach rental Dubai: Mini coaches and 50-seat coaches with a driver for tours, conferences, schools and teams, sized to the group and quoted in writing.
• Transport for 17 to 30 people: Seventeen to thirty people: one mini coach or two vans or Sprinters. A seat-count check, a luggage table for 26 people and a rule for choosing.
• Coach PA system and guide microphone: Does the coach have a PA for the guide? What the 50-seater and the mini coach have on board, what to ask us about the rest, and how to brief the driver for a group of 45.
• Dubai Airport to your hotel: Metro, bus, taxi rank, app ride, hotel transfer or a driver in arrivals: how to reach your hotel from DXB, area by area.
• V-Class or 13-seater van for 7 to 9: Seven, eight or nine people with bags: how the Mercedes V-Class and the 13-seater van compare on seats, suitcases, cabin and splitting the party, with three worked parties.