Dubai vacation

Just back from an awesome one week vacation in Dubai. It was a continuous party from one moment to another and a total overload of all senses ! The best part was that we stayed at the Atlantis the Palm, which is on an island near the Dubai Marina. Its an amazing property and I would highly recommend it for familities with kids. Its so kid friendly, that for once I did not have to nag at the children to walk around/talk softly. It has its own water park, beach, dolphin bay, kids club etc so do I need to say more? We were at the water park nearly every other day.

Our action packed schedules went something like this…

Thursday : Fly out with the girls from Zurich to Dubai. The hubby was already there on work and was waiting for us at the hotel. Luckily he had insisted that we avail of the Marhaba service as the airport was totally packed when we landed. Even with the Marhaba queue it took us more than half an hour to clear immigration. We asked the hotel to send us a taxi which was also great because it would have been a struggle to find a taxi amidst all that crowd. We finally reached our room at 11 pm Dubai time (9 pm Zurich) and settled down to a nice dinner of pizza (for the girls) and fatoush (my favourite!!)

Friday: We had a late lazy morning on account of our jet lag and long travel the previous day. We did venture out around 11 am and went straight to Aquaventure, the water park. As a resident of the hotel we have unlimited access to the water park which is good as it meant we didn’t have to spend the whole day outside in the heat. We were a bit disappointed with the 1.2 m height restriction on most of the water rides which meant that A could not come on most of them .She seemed to be happy playing in the children’s splash area (which also had quite a few fun slides) and going about in the lazy river while the hubby and I took turns going with S on the water slides. We went together on two family tubes on the lazy river, but the hubby and S were not so lucky on the Rapids (they both fell off) while A and I were a bit luckier. We came back to the room for an afternoon siesta – we had also decided to have breakfast everyday in our room – we had carried cereal, bread etc and also one more meal in our room, otherwise we end up putting on a lot of weight eating out in holidays (and we have the city run/marathon coming up in a few weeks). In the evening we went to the Souk Madinat  Jumeirah – a lovely shopping mall near the Burj Al Arab.  I got some shopping done, the girls got some photos taken holding a falcon and we had a nice Chinese dinner at one of the restaurants. It felt great to be able to 

step out in our sandals and without carrying jackets,caps, gloves etc….

Saturday :  We had booked the dolphin encounter in the morning in the dolphin bay of the hotel. We all changed into wet suits and got instructions on how to behave with the dolphins. The encounter was in the shallow water of the dolphin bay and our dolphin was a young 5 year old named Butter Lily. We were thrilled to touch her, kiss her, rub our noses against her and I danced with her, while the hubby and the kids played with her (threw a ball for her to retrieve). It was a magical half an hour and S is more convinced of growing up to become a dolphin trainer than ever before! We went back to the water park and tried out some of the water slides and reached back to our room for a quick lunch. The kids went to the kids club for a couple of hours while the hubby and I just lazed around. In the evening we went to the Wafi Mall in Dubai  -the mall itself was nothing great but it was built in the shape of a pyramid which looked amazing. The hubby had booked us for an early dinner at Qbara, a Lebanese restaurant near the Wafi mall which is one of the best Lebanese restaurants that I’ve been too. I  did full justice to the fatoush and the chick pea/couscous main course

Sunday : I finally got around to hitting the hotel gym. The weight machines were so amazing I literally could not tear myself away. So many different machines for the arms, legs etc.. We spent the day in the hotel – at the swimming pool, back to the water park etc. In the evening we took the hotel shuttle to the Dubai Mall and boy did I totally fall in love with the musical water fountains outside the Bhurj Khalifa or what. We were able to catch the  7:30 pm, 8 pm, 8:30 pm , 9 pm and 9:30 pm shows and we all agreed uunanimously that the Thriller show was the best. The girls totally loved it. We were able to get a table at a Lebanese restaurant overlooking the Burj Kkhalifa and the water fountain display so I could enjoy my favourite fatoush and humus while watching the sites, and I enjoyed the experience so much 

that I made the hubby agree that we need to come back another day

Monday : I finally got to eat my much awaited rava onion masala dosa from Sarava Bhawan. I had been pestering the hubby about this for ages, so he finally figured out that there was a Saravana Bhawan near the Gold Souk so we combined the two. The girls were amazed to see such a huge display of gold ornaments and precious jewels and I was more than happy to eat my south Indian dosas and vadas. It turned out to be quite a hectic day as we had booked the desert safari for that afternoon. We were picked up from the hotel in a private Range Rover and driven out 1 and a half hours into the desert. There the driver took us sand dune riding/bashing/falling where he drove the vehicle steeply and sharply up and down the sand dunes. Totally thrilling. Then we saw sunset on the desert and went to a desert camp. We went on a camel ride and the hubby and S tried some sand surfing. A did some sand tobagonning. The girls are I got some mehendi on our hands and ate some more yummy Lebanese food while watching some live belly dancing. We got back to the hotel pretty late and quite tired.

Tuesday : We took the shuttle into the Dubai Mall in the morning as we had booked tickets to go up the Burj Khalifa at 11:30. The lift was super fast, it felt like we reached the top within. I am pretty sure the lifts in my office are slower. The view from the top was amazing – we could see the island on which the Atlantis was situated, and all around we could see so much of construction work going on,. Looks like the city never stops constructuring. We had a nice chaat lunch at the food court and took the afternoon bus back to the hotel.  After a quick turnaround we went to the Dubai Marina where we tried our hand at waterskiing. It was much more difficult that I had imagined. I had to lie in the water, with skis on my feet, and my legs straight and get up when the boat started moving. I managed to get up and ski, with some help and the feeling was great. I was unduly worried about falling so I kept gripping the rope tightly, but in the end I fell and it wasn’t so bad after all. The water was nice and warm in fact. Next time I won’t be so worried. The hubby was not able to get up on the water skis s I think we will need to go again here in the Schweiz or elsewhere on holiday. After we returnbed back to our holiday I was very keen on enjoying one drink by the sea so we sat at a bar by the beach and I had a couple of wines while enjoying the view

Wednesday : We spent the day enjoying the swimming pool and the water park. We took S on most of the water rides, and A relaxed on the lazy river/children’s play area. The hubby and I were brave enough to try the Leap of Faith (it was so scaaaary) and the children finally got to eat the chicken nuggets and fries they has been eyeing for ages. In the evening we took the bus into the Dubai Mall for another experience of the dancing waterfalls. It was truly magical, I don’t mind going back there yet again…

Thursday : We woke up to a huge sandstorm. The sky was covered in sand particles. We decided to make one last trip to the waterpark. It was a bit cold without the sun, so we just did the lazy river and a couple of water slides and then went back to the room to check out. In the afternoon we had hired a taxi to take us to Abu Dhabi where we wanted to visit Ferrari World and meet up with the hubby’s uncle and family. Ferrari world was very disappointing as they had a height restriction of 1.2 m on most rides and 1.3 m on some rides.  We didn’t want to again leave A out of all the fun stuff, so we decided to spend the afternoon in the mall. Luckily we came across FunWorld in the mall – which had a lot of fun rides, video games and activities for children of S and A’s age. They spent a happy couple of hours there and then we finally met up with our relatives for dinner at Asha’s ( an Indian restaurant started by Asha Bhosale, nice food). It was nice meeting up with the hubby’s uncle and family – it had been more than 4 years since we last saw them.

After dinner we set off back to Dubai and directly to the international airport. The flight was delayed a bit due to the sandstorm (uncle said it was the worst he had seen in 15 years!) and we finally took off only at 2:30 am. The hubby was in business and he smuggled A into the empty seat next to him, so we had 3 seats in economy where S could sprawl out and sleep so overall a comfortable journey back home.

A lovely holiday and someplace I definetly won’t mind going back.