Trip to Dubai

Alas, I seem unable to keep this thing current.  Oh well, I guess I will just start back up where I left off, which was back in mid-October.  So, onwards through time! 

Way, way back in October, we had a big Muslim holiday.  It is casually known amongst the expats as the "second Eid."  Eid means "holiday" and there are two of them in the Muslim calendar.  The first happens at the end of Ramadan, which is an entire holy month of fasting during the day (read gorging at night), followed by a four-day Eid.  The other Eid happens....um....later.  Yeah.  Yeah, so we call it the "second Eid."  (Well, duh. :)  )

Incidentally, the Muslim calendar is lunar, causing the months travel backward through the regular (solar) calendar.  This year, the Ramadan Eid happened in July, so the Second Eid happened in October.  Next year, they will both happen ten days earlier. 

Both Mike and Everett got days off for the Second Eid, so we decided to go on a trip!  (A big part of this decision was knowing (from experience) that if you don't take a trip during a holiday, you are the ONLY people left on camp and there is NOTHING to do.  This time, we were not going to be left out.)  We were looking for a nearby place (because we didn't want to deal with jet lag) that was Out of Kingdom (anywhere I have to wear an abaya is not a vacation).  After an exhaustive search, the winner was DUBAI!

Here is an aerial picture of Dubai from Google Maps.

See the coast?  See the really amazing palm tree peninsulas that they have constructed in the ocean?  See all the dots of islands that will one day be a complete map of the world that they have constructed in the ocean?  See the tallest building in the world?  See the indoor snow skiing?  (OK, well the last two might be hard to see in an overhead shot, but still.)  WOW!!  Dubai is the place where they have taken an infinite amount of money and said "let's build something amazing" and then they DID it.  It's magical.  And it's all BRAND NEW.  The roads are new, the subway is new, all the buildings are new, the street lights, the trash cans, everything is new.  And really clean.  It's as though the entire city has that new-city-smell. 

Well, we decided to make the most of our magical Dubai journey.  See that palm tree in the ocean up there?  The trunk is a monorail.  The fronds are luxury condos and townhomes.  And the top is a five star hotel.  Oh yeah.  How could we stay anywhere else?   

So we got the trip booked and off we went!  

First, on the way out of Saudi, we encountered a truck full of goats. 

Sigh.  Oh, Saudi.  You are a third-world-country in a first-world-country's clothes. 

Then we drove across the causeway to Bahrain to fly on Emirates to Dubai.  We had some time to kill in Bahrain before we had to be at the airport, so we went to the mall and bummed around on the stairless escalator.  

 Bahrain has a pretty cool mall with regular stores, and (see above) no abayas necessary.  Hooray!  (Although, also see above, abayas welcome.  Boo.) 

After window shopping and two giant ice cream cones later, we headed to the airport.

 Thank goodness for LeapPads.  With headphones.  

It's an hour long nonstop flight from Bahrain to Dubai.  To us, that's like the blink of an eye after our 34 hour marathon journeys to get home and back.  One hour?  No problem!

When we got there, WOW right away!  The airport is so big and new and beautiful and clean and NORMAL.  It felt great. At the baggage claim, we found a giant bronze camel to ride on while we waited for the bags.  Thrilling!

 Already, Dubai is so cool. 

In the taxi on the way to our hotel. 

We arrived at night, but the next morning, here is what it looked like:

We walked through the enormous bronze doors to get in.  And then a beautiful and also enormous glass sculpture greeted us in the lobby.  It was SO beautiful.  And SO big.

Also in the lobby were giant oyster shell fountains (maybe 6 or 8 of them) with enormous marble pearls that spun with the flowing water.  This was Lawrence's favorite.  He was entranced by them. 

The oysters were placed at the perimeter of the lobby...see how they go on and on by the windows? 

Just off the lobby is....an enormous, multi-story aquarium that was positively PACKED with fish. And the floors...look at the floors!  This place was amazing.   

 There's no scale here, but trust me, this ray was about 8-10 feet across.  It was enormous.

 Look at all those fish!

The hotel had a water park with pools, wave pools, slides, lazy river, and tubing on rapids.  It also had an additional aquarium called the Lost Chambers, in which you walk all through a maze of rooms and aquariums.  It had several "avenues" of very high class shops and restaurants, multiple other pools, and, of course, the beach.  Wow.  Part of the reason we chose this hotel was because all the entertainment was right here, with no need to venture out to find something to do.  Check! 

Of course, being at the top of the palm (The Palm Jumierah is the name of it), there are rooms on both sides of the hotel.  We got an "Island View" room that looked back toward the Palm and the Dubai skyline.  On the other side of the hallway were the "Ocean View" rooms that looked out over the Persian Gulf.

 View from our room back toward the Palm, with the monorail showing.

  Farther to the right, more of the Dubai skyline.  Also see that giant shell at the bottom?  Yeah, that's a downspout.

We all squeezed into one room, which worked ok.  We also packed in our own food for breakfasts and lunches, which was a really good decision.  When it was time for breakfast or lunch, there was no finding a restaurant and waiting and only eating a little of it anyway.  The kids had their own foods that they like, and they were immediately available. 

Lunch, day one. 

On the first day, we explored the hotel and played in the pool and went to the water park.  Mike and I took turns going with Everett down the tubing rapids while the other stayed with the little ones in the lazy river or one of the zero entry pools.  Then after lunch, Everett and Daddy went down to the Lost Chambers during little ones' naps.

So many fish!

They had a touch tank!

When everyone woke up, it was late afternoon.  We opted for early dinner out on the terrace, at one of the restaurants between the pool and the beach.  It was very much like the Caribbean.  Here we are at the table:

And this was the view from the terrace!

Then Everett led us back to the Lost Chambers to show his sister and brother what he had seen earlier.

One of the Avenues had a Marble Slab Creamery, so we went for ice cream after the Lost Chambers.  The best part about this was that they had ambient music playing inside!  Music is forbidden in Saudi Arabia, so we really noticed it.  Catherine danced in her stroller! 

Ice cream 'stache.

Then baths and to bed.  Our bathroom had big doors behind the bathtub so you could see into the room from there. 

The next day, we got up early and headed out to see the Burj Kalipha, the tallest building in the world!  Taxi ride there....

took us under the monorail...

and we had a good view of our destination from the bottom of the palm.  That's it - that pointy one. 

It's hard to tell how very tall it is from the above picture, so check out this one from farther away:



Whoa.  Yeah, it dwarfs everything around it.






As with everything in Dubai, it's very new!  It started being built in 2005 and was finished and opened for visitors in 2012.  We had to go to the Mall of Dubai to pick up our tickets and start the tour.  It's connected to the Mall at the bottom, so there are moving sidewalks to get you to the elevators.

The observation deck is not all the way up at the top...this is the view up to the top from the observation deck.  WOW. 

Watching the kids like this makes my toes tingle!

It's open on the bottom and in the middle and at the top.  See how the window doesn't go all the way to the bottom? 

View down to the Dubai Fountain, which was off at the time.  And look how tiny those skyscrapers look from way up here!

It's like being in an airplane rather than a building. 

Yeah, it's open, and you can stick your hands outside from there.  It was very windy outside the windows, but very calm inside the deck area.  

We took the subway back to the bottom of the Palm.  It was great!  Clean and new and so exciting to be riding a train!

After we returned to the hotel, we spent the afternoon at the waterpark and pools.  We did another pool-/beach-side restaurant for dinner, and we ate under the moon and the rustling palm fronds. 

Even the elevator in this place was pretty.  It had a big shell chandelier. 

The following day, it was time to go.  This is us walking down the hallway toward the lobby.  This place was bigger than life, like being at Disney. 

Waiting for our taxi to take us to the airport. 

The Dubai airport is so amazing.  Instead of escalators, they have enormous elevators next to this really neat fountain and waterfall in the background (hard to see).  The water rises up with you. 

Even the jetways are awesome! Made of glass so you can see the airport in motion!  So exciting!

On our way home again.  Dubai gets a five-star rating from the Benchichs.

By the way, did you see those fireworks in the movie way up at the top of the page?  Dubai is (obviously) big on doing things over the top, bigger than everyone else.  For the recent 2013-2014 New Years, Dubai held the largest fireworks display ever in the history of mankind, with over 400,000 fireworks.   And they don't even follow the Gregorian calendar!  I love Dubai!  Here's the CNN blurb:

"In Dubai -- a city obsessed with superlatives -- organizers pulled off a world record for the biggest fireworks display near the world's tallest building.

The spectacular show featured 400,000 pyrotechnics over 400 parts of the Dubai shoreline. That's 100 kilometers (62 miles) of waterfront lighting up.

The Guinness World Records staff later labeled it the largest ever. The show blew Kuwait's world record out of the water when last year it set off 77,000 fireworks over 64 minutes."

Yeah!  Go Dubai!  Way to not be constrained by your religion!!  (Unlike some other countries who will remain nameless.)  What a great trip!  How nice to be in a first world country again!