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Old 21 Oct 18, 02:13 PM  
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Geordieprincess
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First trip to Dubai April 2017 Mini trippie

There seem to be loads of Dibbers heading to Dubai at the moment so I thought I'd do a quick mini trippie from our first visit last year...

Our first trip to Dubai was Easter 2017 when we stopped en route home from my cousin's wedding in Australia. We stayed 5 nights at Atlantis The Palm with the free half board offer and it was fantastic - LOVED the hotel.



DAY 1
We arrived on Tuesday morning after an overnight flight from Perth and had emailed the hotel to ask if we could swap breakfast from our last day to the first as we would be leaving for our flight home before breakfast. This was no problem so we went for breakfast, then explored the hotel before hitting the pool. Around 2pm we got a text to say our room was ready so checked in, unpacked then had another couple of hours by the pool.

View from our room of the Burj Al Arab



We had dinner in the hotel buffet which was lovely then did the City Sightseeing open top bus night tour which was included in the 48 hour ticket. It wasn't great - just a quick drive past lots of skyscrapers which was so fast the photos were all blurry! DD7 fell asleep on it.



DAY 2
On Wednesday we got the city sightseeing bus to Dubai Mall and went up the Burj Khalifa. The surrounding skyscrapers looked tiny!



We wandered round the mall, saw the divers waterfall, visited the aquarium (included in bus ticket), saw the fountains in the day light then jumped back on the bus to the creek area. We visited the spice souk and took a dhow boat ride (also included on bus ticket).





As we headed back to the hotel on the HOHO bus we passed the Burj al Arab as sun was setting.



We rounded the evening off with a visit to Atlantis's own aquarium after dinner.

DAY 3
On Thursday, we had planned to take the city sightseeing bus to the marina / walk area but after our full day yesterday we decided to hit the pool instead. In late afternoon we used the last of our 48 hour bus ticket to go to Emirates mall to see the ski slope then back to Dubai mall to see the fountains after dark. We watched the fountains a couple of times, once from a boat on the lake.



Before I booked the hotel you used to be able to swap half board between lunch and dinner which would have been great. However they changed the rules at the turn of the year and wouldn't honour the previous set up despite our booking occurring before the change. So we headed back to the hotel for a late dinner. We would already not be using the next 2 days dinners so didn't want to miss out on any more!

DAY 4
On Friday, DS10 wanted to ride the Palm monorail so we did the return journey first thing



Then we headed to Atlantis's water park (included in price of hotel stay). We had a great day although we aren't big on water rides.





In the evening we headed to the Burj al Arab for high tea. As we had kids with us we had to have it in the lobby bar not the sky view bar but it was still lovely and an amazing experience. Not cheap but we were stuffed and can say we've been in the 7 star hotel. As it was DH's birthday they brought an extra cake with candle in it and the string quartet played happy birthday to him.



View from our table of the entrance to the Burj Al Arab



DAY 5
Saturday, our last full day was another pool day, then we did the desert safari and BBQ. We chose the non-dune bashing version as a couple of us get travel sick, but even this was a bit much - getting over the dunes to the BBQ site we felt queasy. Once there, we dressed up in Arabic clothes, had henna tattoos, kids bought some Arabian tat, we could have done a camel ride and sand boarding but have done them before and they had queues so we didn't bother. The sunset was beautiful.



Had food then watched the tanura and belly dancing etc. The kids enjoyed it but it is a tourist trap and I wouldn't rush to do it again. I know lots of people rave about dune bashing too but it's not for us!



FINAL THOUGHTS
We flew home early Sunday morning. We all enjoyed Dubai, although we didn't LOVE it. It's busy, traffic can be crazy, still a building site with cranes everywhere, there is the (slight) worry about what to wear/modesty when out and about, but it did tick a lot of boxes.

The hotel (Atlantis) was amazing, pools were a lovely temperature (like summer in Florida, no cold knees/belly getting in).

While everything is expensive we felt like we got good value for money with what was included in the hotel and City sightseeing bus ticket.

There is loads to see and do and we only scratched the surface. So when I got a good deal on October half term 2018 we decided to head back, but to a different (cheaper) hotel over the other side of town...
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Old 21 Oct 18, 02:46 PM  
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WileyCoyote
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Really helpful thanks. Heading there in a few weeks and intending to do trippie as there aren’t many in here so this is super useful !
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Old 7 Dec 18, 03:44 PM  
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Jules32
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Thanks for sharing this, pics look amazing
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