United Arab Emirates

[Jake]

Me and Ben only got home yesterday but I always try and do trip reports while it's still fresh in my mind...

We had a week in the UAE, flying into and out of Dubai, but we were only an hour from Abu Dhabi so just did the creds there as a day trip.

We landed at about midnight on the saturday, but with airport faff didn't get back to the hotel until 3am. It was weird staying in a Premier Inn in another country, and it was kind of in the middle of nowhere, but we had a car so it was fine!

These pics were taken later, but heh. Here is the beast:

We'd ordered a small hatchback car, but small cars really don't exist in this country. This was the smallest and least powerful car they had.

The next day we had a bit of a lie in, chilled at the pool in the morning before mincing to the Dubai Mall. This involved driving to a metro station and catching the train the rest of the way. The metro is FAB, mincing along the main road in the city / country with plenty of stuff to see.

My personal fave section is the bit through the Marina with all the fab new towers. I got a crappy video, cus I'm a geek:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oc6ZuJbvDic&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

It took about 40mins to get to the Mall, which shares a station with the Burj Khalifa. There is a bridge connecting the metro to the mall, so you don't have to leave the aircon. This is what you can see from it:

The Mall is amazing and ridiculous. Here are some photos...

The 'Souq' section was pretty tacky

The Burj is just outside...

...but more of that later.

The fierceness of the Mall nearly made us forget there was a CRED inside! At Sega Republic.

It's a custom Gerst spinner...

It was quite fab actually. Not a huge amount to say, but for a mall coaster it was good.

They had some weird flat rides too. I don't have many pics because I was told 'no photo of machine' by an employee. Not sure if he meant the rides or the arcades, but we made a quick exit.

After the cred I popped out for a cig, which happened to be by the valet parking:

... and we finished the day with Chili's. I had never been before. The portions were huge. I ate it all and thought I was going to die.

Thanks for reading .

 

[Ian]

My dad and brother went to Dubai at the end of last year and took more or less the same photos, with the exception of the car and food obvs. I'm now under the impression there isn't that much in Dubai. Glad you got a cred out of it.

 

[owentaylor121]

^When I spent a month in Dubai I still didn't find time to do everything, the city is massive and people only tend to visit the main attractions.

Great trip report Jake, I cant wait for the next part, Dubai really is my favourite city.

 

[ATTACKHAMMER]

Great report! Awesome to read about somewhere that looks so cool, I must go some day.

 

[Gavin]

Kind of regret not doing it as a stopover on the way over here, especially as I had a week free doing basically nothing while I waited for my work visa to come through.

Definitely going to do it as a stopover whenever I head back to the UK though. Hopefully Ferrari World will still be open. I don't know why, but I always get the impression that the place is somehow only temporary.

 

[Jake]

My dad and brother went to Dubai at the end of last year and took more or less the same photos, with the exception of the car and food obvs. I'm now under the impression there isn't that much in Dubai.

I can see what you mean, but like Owen said, I think it's just because tourists (us included) see the main sites and that's it. Also, when you think about what was there 20 years ago, it's pretty amazing. It's such a young country and a very unique place. Granted, if you have money there is a lot more to do there.

Kind of regret not doing it as a stopover on the way over here, especially as I had a week free doing basically nothing while I waited for my work visa to come through.

Definitely going to do it as a stopover whenever I head back to the UK though. Hopefully Ferrari World will still be open. I don't know why, but I always get the impression that the place is somehow only temporary.

You totes should! I'm not sure how you'd do it with public transport though - buses don't really exist, there are no trains (apart from the metro, which isn't very extensive), fuel is dirt cheap and it's too hot to walk so everyone drives. I'm sure it's possible, but you'd have to be careful where you stay as a lot of roads don't even have pavements.




To start with we'd planned to go to Ferrari World on the monday, but it's closed mondays (I got the feeling that this place is barely visited and is losing a lot of money, but more of that in the next part) so we swapped it over with the Marina.

Dubai Marina was more our side of the city, but we still drove to the metro and got it for a couple of stops (parking at the metro is free, so it saved a lot of faff). This is where we saw my fave Dubai drivers, casually driving onto the motorway from the sandy verge next to the road, even though there was a slip road not far away. I actually quite liked their attitude to driving... if it saves time, **** it. You've got to have eyes in the back of your head but you get used to it.

Anyway, the Marina <3. If you don't like skyscrapers, you might want to skip this part, butthey'resofab <3 <3.

From the metro station:

... and there:

The tallest couple are over 1,300ft (Shard is just over 1000ft)

Tried to get some night photos, new camera hated it though <///3.

Ferrari and Yas next.

 

[owentaylor121]

Some amazing shots, the marina was my favourite place in Dubai, always buzzing with noise and excitement and then becomes a different place and night! Also Infinity Tower (the twisted building) looks fantastic now it's finished!

 

[Jake]

I've just realised that even though this was the main park day, I have hardly any photos. To be fair, you can't really take cameras into the waterpark, and most of the rides at Ferrari World are enclosed anyway.

The drive was about an hour and twenty (rush hour spite). We did Yas first because it opened earlier than Ferrari World. We filled up the car which cost about £8. Amazing. Plus some filipino slave does it for you so you don't have to get out <3.

These are pretty much the only photos I have of Yas Waterworld.

As you can see, it was heaving:

You can buy a wristband to both parks, so we did that. At £60 odd it was hardly cheap.

It was a lot smaller than I expected, it's basically one 'mound' where all the slides start from, and they're all intertwined with eachother. There are your usual bodyslides, a few ring ones and a racing one. There are two LIM slides and a looping one too. One of the LIM slides was spiting, and the one that was actually open was a bit of let down. Crazy river was quite fab - there's a big chute down into it which sends water cascading down into it every few seconds, making it more like a giant wave pool.

The cred was a nice addition, and a good idea, but it was pretty crap. I thought there would be water shooting up at you from the ground, but there isn't. There were water bombs on the cars, but they didn't work.

As it was dead we'd done everything in about an hour so it was time to head over the road...

This place was also PACKED. Like, I couldn't move.

First was obviously...

It was pretty much what I expected - the speed was outrageous and it's actually pretty long which is always good. The launch didn't get me in the stomach like Stealth or Rita, and seemed to go on forever... There's a bit of airtime over the last couple of hills too.

The goggles though <////3. They're really tight and unpadded and just dig into your nose <///3. Really, really uncomfortable.

There's a little outdoor viewing platform.

Dunno what happened here...

We then headed to the other two creds:

We had to queue for hours...

I'm still amazed they had both sides open.

It was so weird. Each side has 4 launches, but most of them are followed by a couple of unbanked turns and then brakes. Brake, turn, launch, turn, brake, launch, turn, brake, launch...

Once the creds were done we moved onto the dark rides. I didn't know about any of them so was quite excited once we got there - there's a Soarin, a water ride and a couple of Spiderman things. They were all TERRIBLE. Like, REALLY bad. Especially the water ride. Absolutely shocking. They all had really pathetic, stupid links to cars which didn't make any sense and were totally random, and just got in the way of the actual rides. Which were **** anyway.

Oh, there's also a cheap looking shot tower which was shut.

Couple more pics:

I didn't hate it this much at the time, but looking back, it really is a dump. Someone has spent a lot of money on it (not sure if Ferrari actually paid for it, or if some arab company has paid them to be able to use the brand?), but no thought has gone into anything, they're not looking after anything, and there's not really any scope for expansion. It's worth going for Formula Rossa, but the entrance fee is disgusting for the amount of stuff that is there. You need 2 hours at the very most. If the place lasts another 5 years I'll be surprised.

 

[peep]

Nice PTR as always Jake. Love the photos of the marina. Just looks like someone was playing SimCity and managed to crack some cheats out and just starting splurging loads of money on skyscrapers - I love it.

Shame to hear the parks were awful, especially for the amount you paid to get in.

 

[furie]

Ferrari World looks like such a joke :lol:

 

[Jake]

^ It's so dire it's actually hillarious <3.

Following our amazing day in Abu Dhabi we had another touristy day in Dubai. We got the metro into the 'old' part of the city to meet my friend from uni Mel who lives out there.

We had a wander, then went to a restaurant on the creek for some lunch. There was humus, falafel and this:

The alcohol free beer tasted like urine.

After filling our faces we minced through the Souq, got harrassed, then got on a boat to the other side of the creek. It costs 20p which is quite fab... there is a proper name for the boats but it's foreign and I can't remember!

There was an interesting mix of people doing the same...

The restaurant again:

Pictures stopped here for some reason but we did a bit more shopping (it was just like Sex and the City 2, going into the back room of shops to look at the fakes <3 <3), then Mel drove us back to the Dubai mall:

We popped over to the Burj to get our tickets for the friday (you need to book a specific time)

When we got back to the hotel we had a naughty beer (containing ACTUAL alcohol) - set us back £6 each though, and a night time dip in the pool.

Creepy.

 

[tks]

Personally I just don't see the attraction in the place. Sandpit in a pissing religious state.

 

[furie]

Personally I just don't see the attraction in the place. Sandpit in a pissing religious state.

I've got a friend who has been over there for about 20 years now. He seems to spend all of his free time on Facebook complaining about the locals and the stupid laws and how awful the people are.

I don't understand why he stays out there, he's just in a band, it's not like he's making a fortune or becoming world famous by being there. Boggles the mind.

It looks like an amazing experience though. It's the sheer opulence and completely over the top scale of everything they do. Money is less objective than your 12 year nephew. It's a place you go to, experience and get away from before you start to think too much about it :lol:

 

[Jake]

I'm shoving the last 3 days together because we didn't do a whole lot...

On the thursday we met Mel again, this time at her favourite beach. It's kind of midway between the Mall and where we were staying, near the Burj Al Arab hotel (the huge, famous one that looks like it should be in Portsmouth).

It was quiet, clean and the sea was like bath water:

The heat got to us after a few hours so we went to grab some food... I lost my Hardee's virginity and it was amazing!

It looks like we paid the Colonel a visit, but that was next door:

Friday was our penultimate day. The Burj was booked for 15:00 so we just hung out by the pool in the morning (like most days!). We ended up getting there early so Subway happened.

Although it's 2,700ft tall, the observation deck is only at 1,400ft. It's still huge, obviously, but the one we'd done in Shanghai in 2011 actually has a higher observation deck. I think the fact that it's in the middle of a load of sand makes the view less interesting, too.

Testing my new zooooommmmm

She's loving life

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Mall of the Emirates for Cheesecake Factory. The Ski Dubai thing looked interesting... there are also Penguins there but we didn't see them!

The last day we just monged out by the pool as we had to get up at disgusting o'clock for our flight back on Sunday. All in all, I pretty much agree with what everyone else has said in this thread. It's an amazing place and somewhere everybody should experience, but would I go back? Maybe. Would I live there? Allah no.

 

[Ian]

Congratulations for not being beheaded for showing flesh on the beach.

Love your reports, Jake <3

 

[tks]

The Burj looks just as I imagined. Stuck in the middle of a pretty uninteresting plot of sand. The thing that makes New York, Shanghai, Hong Kong so amazing is that they already had a city built before their towers went up so everything looks meshed and it works. The Middle East looks like someones cheated in Sim City and built all the cool commercial buildings with no residential </3

It looks like an amazing experience though. It's the sheer opulence and completely over the top scale of everything they do. Money is less objective than your 12 year nephew. It's a place you go to, experience and get away from before you start to think too much about it :lol:

Oh for the sheer audacity of some of their projects it's got to be worth a view. But it's such a strange part of the world. It's just money, shopping, hotels, more shopping, hopping between malls in air conditioned cars. Apart from being rich and spending money what else is there to do? Seems like a place to decant from an airplane for few days before carrying on to your far more interesting destination.

 

[Jason Voorhees]

I really respect one guy turning a fishing pier into a major tourist destination. If only I had a million dollars I would be in Dubai in a minute.

 

[Mike]

If only I had a million dollars I would be in Dubai in a minute.

Unless you wanted to stay at the Burj Al Arab for a month or so, I don't think a trip to Dubai costs quite that much...