Dubai

April 01, 2024

Day 1

With much excitement in our house, we embarked on our family holiday to the Middle East and Europe. The kids went to school in the morning, to build their anticipation and so we could get a few last minute jobs done.

Upon arriving in MEL we met up with Conor who was on our flight as he headed back to Poland after 3+ months in Australia visiting family and friends. It was a long 13+ hour flight, but as it was overnight, we managed some (broken) sleep which made the next day bearable.

Dubai is a fantastic city. So modern, clean, fast paced, vibrant and safe. The temperature at this time of year was perfect. Not too hot - mid to high 20s, with cooler nights. In fact by day 3 we were in jeans. We were a bit worried about cultural norms, particularly as it is currently Ramadan, where Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, which often means shops could be closed and eating and drinking in public is frowned upon. However, the was nothing to worry about. Dubai is a modern multi-cultural city, which depends on tourism, so there are no restrictions on practices or attire. It was absolutely fine. It was remarkable to think that only a few years ago, it was all desert. I recall flying over Dubai in 2005 and seeing ‘The Palm’ archipelago being constructed. Now, it is established with over 25,000 inhabitants and a monorail, multiple resorts and another two palm islands.

Some of the highlights were going up the Burj Khalifa - the tallest man made structure on the planet. Ollie has been obsessed with this since he was little. Often we'd hear "What’s the tallest building in the world, Dad?" And out would come the Guinness Book of Records. So, our stopover in Dubai was partly so we could experience the Burj Khalifa and a new city for all of us. After Dubai, we are heading to Europe to visit some key cities and landmarks, that Nook and I have seen before, but would like our children to experience and give them a taste of travel for later in life.

Back to Dubai - where everything is big. We spent some time in the Dubai Mall, again, the second largest in the world. However, very high end stores, so just some window shopping for us!

As we arrived just before 6am, we couldn't check into out hotel until the afternoon so we spent the day at the Atlantis Aquaventure Waterpark- again, the largest in the world! We had a great day, other than the thousands of people and waiting in lines.

Day 2

We stared with a lazy morning and time by the pool where a few cocktails were to be had. Our desert tour had been postponed to the following day due to winds, so we found a walking tour of Old Dubai, which proved to be a hidden gem. There was so much Arabian history with perfume, spice and gold souqs. To learn the history of this a ancient and cosmopolitan culture was amazing. We even found Baskin Robbins, which is the best ice cream shop I've every found to have my favourite - Peanut Butter and Chocolate! We finished the day at the Dubai Fountain which was very similar to the Belaggio Fountain in Las Vegas. With weary feet, we ended up having a late night walk back to our hotel.

Day 3

After attending Easter Sunday Mass with thousands of others, we headed back to Old Dubai to continue looking through the Souqs and perhaps another visit to Baskin Robbins!

We were collected from our hotel and headed out on our desert safari. This was approximately an hour drive where we then went dune bashing, had a camel ride, tried sandboarding and rode ATVs through the dunes. The evening included a cultural bbq and Arabian entertainment, before a hair rasing ride back through the dunes in the dark and high speed with hundreds of other 4WDs and seemingly no road/dune rules!