Hi,
Can you please share your experience for Dubai travel and biometrics appointment? My appointment is scheduled for next week and would really appreciate your help.
The whole experience is smooth as such, just ensure to take your negative Covid test report from an ICMR approved lab. Also keep the message related to COVID test that you get from the lab, sometimes the airlines ask about that. You may be required to wear face shield and PPE kit (middle seat) during the entire duration of the flight. Once you land at DXB, they will take your sample for COVID and put a sticker at the back of your passport (while they register you for a Covid test you need to provide a Dubai mobile number, you can ask some fellow passenger/ friend, whose number you can give for registration). However, you can download the report by scanning the QR code which they stick to the back of your passport.
The result comes within 12 hrs (mine took this much tie, could be more/less for different cases), once the results are out, download your report and ask the hotel to give a printout of same. Then you are free to go outside.
I would suggest you to leave with sufficient time at hand (I travelled by metro and left 2 hours before for Wafi mall, however my travel time was ~1 hour. Bonus here is that they may allow you to give your biometrics earlier that your appointment time.
I am suggesting to leave with enough time in hand coz finding the Wafi mall entrance and VFS global office is a bit difficult. Rest everything is smooth.
While returning, make sure you return to India within 72 hrs of the Covid test timing of Dubai, otherwise you may have to get a retest done, which will cost 150-200 AED in Dubai or 3400 INR in Delhi.
You can try filling the self declaration and quarantine exemption online on air suvidha (which I tried but was not able to do). If not able to do, it can be done at the airport itself. After landing in Delhi, it can take around 1 hour or more with all formalities that are in place right now.
Hope this helps, you can ask if you have any specific queries.
PS: I took 2000 AED cash, however, no one enquired about it. You can take it partially as a forex card as well (better exchange rate) and partial cash.