Dubai Diary

Helloooo…..…Dubai Ah??? This is the first thing that comes to our heads (Tamil film buffs) when we say ‘Dubai’. Anyway, our whole idea to visit Dubai was started off by my husband. He always wanted to take a family trip abroad, so in 2014, everyone agreed and we decided to visit Dubai!!! Initially, I was a little skeptical about taking my 8 month old abroad, but after knowing that it was a family trip with almost 10-15 of us, I was a little relieved. There was no dearth of information in the web regarding places to see in and around Dubai. Since one of our cousins was living in Dubai, we did most of the planning with her help. So we charted out this elaborate plan with places to see and things to do, and headed out excitedly to fascinating Dubai!! 

For everyone’s convenience, we planned this trip during the Christmas holidays of 2014, which turned out to be a great time to be in Dubai weather wise. We had our family coming from Theni, Bangalore, London and us from Maldives. So this was in true sense a great family get together. Getting a visa to UAE was a little difficult for us. Normally for tourists, the airlines or the travel agency would arrange visas. But, since we had diplomatic passports, Sri Lankan Airlines said they could not do it. After a few enquiries, we found out that diplomatic passport holders could get tourist visas only through the U.A.E Embassy. There was no U.A.E Embassy or Consulate in Maldives, so my husband had to arrange visas through his colleague in the Embassy in Delhi. In our experience, this was probably the first time holding a diplomatic passport was a disadvantage, while visiting a country.

Once that was sorted out, all I was worried about was how we were going to spend the odd early morning transit at Colombo. Since this was the first long flight for our little one, we decided to stay at the Serendiva Transit Hotel in Colombo airport. It was very convenient for our 8-hour transit at a cost of 65USD, including meals. We even got to meet a famous Tamil director, Bharathiraja, who is coincidentally from my husband’s hometown. So we quickly jumped at the opportunity and clicked some pictures with him.

Once we were off from Colombo, we landed in Dubai around 10 pm. When we reached the airport, we walked and walked and walked to get from the terminal to the immigration. I have never travelled through such a huge and busy airport. At the immigration, all the officials at the counter were in the traditional white galabiyyah type of gown, which was a little unexpected. Since we had already got our visa, we passed through immigration and customs easily. Once we were out of the airport, there were so many people at the arrivals area that it was really difficult to find our cousin. In that entire crowd, she managed to find us and met us with a warm hug. We then loaded our luggage and headed to the apartment. We stayed in an apartment in a neighbourhood very close to Sharjah. It was a very spacious three-bedroom service apartment for our entire family to stay together. Once we settled in, we went straight to bed. Thankfully my son was very tired and did not make too much of fuss about the new place. Our family from India was supposed to reach at the same time, but their flight was delayed and the tired gang reached only at 4 am.

Our first day at Dubai started rather slowly, as everyone was still tired from the travel. We initially planned to visit IBN Battuta Mall and then Dubai Mall; instead we went directly to the most awesome Dubai Mall. Late on a Christmas morning, our entire gang of 14 took our first trip on the Dubai metro. As the train approached the station, we excitedly got into it. But the excitement lasted only for two stops. As the train drew closer and closer to the mall, there were more people getting into the metro rather than getting out. This trip turned out to be the most disturbing trip for all of us. With 4 small kids, we were all crushed to our bones, not knowing how to stand without being poked and prodded, trying hard to control the tears of my 8 month old who didn’t stop crying for the entire  journey in the metro. To our utter dismay, almost the entire crowd got off at the Dubai Mall. Once out of the train, we all just had to take a breather. It took us some time to pacify the kids after the crowd dispersed.

As we exited the metro, we were invited by the most spectacular view of the Burj Khalifa, following us every step of the way. We went past a few travelators, wondering why they had it in the first place. But then as we walked and walked, the path was just never ending. Finally when we did reach the mall, we were all too hungry to even look around, as all our eyes were looking for was the food court. We went past so many shops, which we vowed to come back; finally parking ourselves in this huge food court. Without getting too confused about what to eat, we took the safe bet and headed straight to KFC and gobbled our food. It was almost 3 pm by the time we got ready to actually explore the mall!!!

The Dubai Mall is a must see place in Dubai, with many different places to explore apart from excellent shopping. It is always my personal opinion to not visit malls, when during vacations. But  googling about the mall made me eager to go there. So our first stop was of course, the Aquarium, which was at the ground level of the mall. We reached this amazing floor to ceiling glass wall, with such beautiful fishes, stingrays and other sea creatures swimming around. It was just spectacular to see such a breath-taking sight, being in the middle of the desert. The place where we stood was cordoned off, so we couldn’t actually get closer to the glass. Since our sweet cousin was with us, she knew exactly where we could get a closer look. We went right to that spot and experienced the sights of the fish, sharks and stingrays whizz past us. It was beyond stunning!!! To experience the aquarium up close, there is also an amazing underwater tunnel and zoo attached to the aquarium costing about AED70 per person. They even have other activities, like scuba diving, shark feeding and the like. We decided to skip them, and headed over to our next stop, the Ice Rink!!!

As we were heading to the rink, we walked past the Shuk of the mall. It was really beautiful, since it looked more traditional than the rest of the mall. It even had a small fountain in the centre surrounded by a number of gold shops. Since the kids were really excited to get to the rink we just walked past all the shops without stopping. Once we got to the Ice rink, the kids ran in, while we walked up to the gallery to watch them. But unfortunately the entry to the gallery was charged, so we headed to one of the cafes surrounding the rink and enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate. Once they were done, we got out of the mall for the next attraction - the fountain show. When we got there, people were already lining up around the fountain area to catch this visual treat. Yet, we managed to get a great spot and settled down, literally sitting near the railings.

At exactly 6pm the fountains started, giving us a splendour show of water and music. With the Burj Khalifa as a background we enjoyed the fountain show, which ended with everyone’s favourite Jai Ho!! The show ended quite soon as compared to what I had expected. Once we were done with the show, we headed back to the mall to take the metro back home. On our way we decided to do some shopping although we were really tired. The word shopping, gave us a little extra energy I guess. This would also give us some time to avoid the peak hour traffic at the metro. As expected, we had no hassles on the way back home. Enroute, we stopped at Saravana Bhavan where one of our cousins from London met us. We all had crispy dosas and tiredly got back home.

The next day, we headed out early to Ferrari World near Abu Dhabi. This is yet another must-watch in UAE, recommended in so many travel websites and forums. And we had a few car-crazy men in the group; so we decided to visit the place. We hired a small van and left Dubai around 9 am. Despite the excellent roads, the drive to  Ferrari World was nearly 2-hours from Dubai due to the traffic. We had a great time in the van, chatting away and playing songs. The Ferrari world is this massive structure, located on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi. Apart from this, the island also has Yas Mall and Yas Waterworld. We missed the water theme park, as we had time only for one of the attractions. The Ferrari World gives you a grand welcome with its gigantic red colour arches that covers the entire amusement park. As we enter the park, we saw these flamboyant red arches and a display of the engines, cars and what not. My knowledge on cars was not enough to match all the displays. Our cousin had already purchased the tickets online for AED 250 per person, so we managed to jump the long winding queue at the counters.

We entered the park, and headed straight to the Formula Rossa, the rollercoaster, which was the main attraction of the park. Since this was a must-do attraction in the park, we decided to finish it first. There were a number of F1 related activities all along the way, which we promised ourselves to visit later. In our entire group, only 6 of us had the courage to go for ride in the world’s fastest rollercoaster (that’s what they claim). I was petrified seeing the speed at which the ride was going. But I had decided not to miss  my very first experience on a rollercoaster. As we got closer to the ride, my heart beat faster and louder. We were asked to remove any accessories that could fall off, given plastic goggles to cover our eyes and made to sit on the seats. The moment it moved, I just shut my eyes and screamed my guts out. Every time I opened my eyes, it was even scarier. The website claims that the roller coaster goes at 250 km/h in just 5 secs. I think it went faster than that. Oh my god..what an experience it was. We were all literally shaking when we got out. It was bloody brilliant!! An experience of a lifetime I can say!!!

We then explored the rest of the park, had lunch at Il Podio, and continued on enjoying various attractions. Our next stop was at Tyre Twist. We had a great time in this traditional family teacup themed ride. We enjoyed this ride a lot while the kids were riding their Ferraris on the junior GT challenge, which had a miniature street course including traffic signs, stoplights and roads with lane dividers. The kids had good time bumping each other as we watched them from the gallery. While we wanted to finish all other rides, we missed out on certain very good ones as it had too much waiting time. One thing I missed was the Karting. I was really excited about it, but we had to take slots, which were not within our time window. In the meantime, a few of us got to see the RED show, which was an amazing acrobatic show. We then went to this exciting ride called Speed of Magic. It was a 4-D ride, featuring a 3-D movie, including temperature, light and motion. We were made to wear 3D glasses and got onto the ride. Although it seemed more kiddish, we had a good time in this ride. We got to go on more rides in the evening, as the crowd was less. So just before leaving the park, we quickly went for many rides, sometimes twice too. Ferrari World had so many rides that we couldn't finish all the rides in a day. Overall, it was a day well spent at Ferrari world, which we finished with an unexpected fountain show at the mall. Famished, we got into the van and headed back to Dubai. It was a quiet ride back home, as most of us were fast asleep. Once we got home, we ordered some food and went straight to bed.

The next day we hired a van, and headed to the massive Burj Khalifa. On our way we drove through the highways, looking at all the beautiful buildings of Dubai. It was truly a spectacle.  The entrance to the Burj Khalifa was again through the Dubai Mall. We had to be there by 10 am. So we rushed to the counter, collected our tickets for a cost of 125AED and made our way to the 125^th floor of the highest tower in the world. The path to the elevators was nicely decked up with information regarding the building, its construction and pictures, models of the building at every stage and more such statistics.

We finally reached the elevators, which took us to the observation deck on the 125^th floor. The topmost point that is accessible to the public is the 148^th floor, which includes luxury lounges even. Once we entered the observation deck, we were awe struck by the view of Dubai’s skyline. Thanks to the clear sunny day, we had a really spectacular view of the vast desert from a height of 456 m above ground. On one side, we could see the winding highways and the amazing skyline of Dubai. We did not have any time limit to stay up at the observation deck, so we spent almost an hour taking photographs and enjoying the 360-degree view of Dubai. They even had a small souvenir shop at this level. Finally when we decided to leave, we were caught in yet-another-long-queue to get back to the ground. It took us more than 20 min to get back on the elevators.

Back on the ground, we left to our next stop, the Creek Park in Downtown Dubai. On our way to the park, we stopped at Burj Al Arab, the famous hotel which is housed in a sail shaped building. All we wanted were photographs in front of the building, which turned out to be quite a busy tourist spot. Right next to this hotel, is the Wild Wadi water themed park, which had good reviews, but we did not have the time to visit. As we were on the way to the park, we ordered food at our favourite Saravana Bhavan and made a picnic out of our visit to the park. The Creek park of Dubai was very beautiful with various activities for kids like bicycle ride, play area and even a cable car. We found a good shady spot and settled to have our lunch. Once we had our lunch, all the kids decided to go the play area, which gave us sometime to just laze around and chat. We took a walk around this huge park, which had a small promenade along the Dubai Creek. We even got to see a few seaplanes land in the creek. Also, there was an area, where some people were feeding some birds. It was really spectacular to see all the birds flying around trying to catch the food thrown at them. It was a nice place to sit and relax, in the early hours of the evening. The Creek Park also housed the Dolphinarium, for which we had bought tickets for about 100AED. We roamed around the park for some more time, and reached the Dolphinarium for the 6 pm show. 

The Dolphinarium had a number of shows, which included a bird show and also a dolphin feeding show. But we stuck to the traditional Dolphin and Seal show, which was most fascinating. Once the show started, we were a little let down, as they had some kind of magic cum acrobatic show. We were expecting the animals and not some sad acrobatic show. But once the dolphins came, we had fun. It was a really great show, which was enjoyed not only by the kids, but also by the adults too!! We had a great time watching the seals jump through hoops and the dolphin wave and impress the crowd. Our cousin had ensured we had the best seats in the hall. It was a good one-hour show, which we did not want to end. Once the show was over, we headed back home. Since we had some time, some of us even went to Sharjah for some souvenir shopping. That night we ordered Pizza in our apartment and spent some nice time, chatting away.

The next day was very relaxed, since the only program was the Desert Safari. We planned to stay in the desert overnight so we had to leave only around 3 pm, after lunch. Dubai is known for its gold shuk and everyone was interested in buying gold. Since I was not very keen, I stayed back with the kids while the rest of them went gold shopping. We decided to take the kids to the nearby mall, which had a good indoor play area. As the day passed, we felt too lazy and just stayed home, packed for the desert safari and entertained the kids. Once everyone was back from shopping, we quickly had our lunch and left to the much awaited Desert Safari.

We went straight to the pickup point for the safari and excitedly waited for the 4X4 vehicles that were supposed to pick us up. Once the two land cruisers were there, we were awed by the size of the cars. We were told that these vehicles would take us to the desert after which we will be transferred to SUVs, in which we would do the dune bashing and reach the Bedouin camp in the middle of the desert. We were very thrilled, as we planned to stay the night in the desert. This activity is something any one who travels to Dubai must do. 

We finally reached the desert around 4.30 pm where there were 20-30 white SUV’s doing the rounds taking everybody for the exciting dune bashing. Since small children are not allowed in dune bashing, me along with a few others decided not to take the dune bashing. We took some pictures here and there and were waiting patiently for our turn, which never came. It was almost 5.30pm and still we were not being picked up. We started to get really upset, as we had to reach the camp by 6pm. So the time window for dune bashing was closing very fast. Then we realised that this was a common thing happening there, where they take you late in order to reduce the time for bashing. After many quarrels, one SUV stopped for us, and he was too impatient as we were getting into the car, taking only a few of our family. The rest of us who did not want dune bashing were left behind, not knowing if we will even get to see where the rest of the family went. This was really upsetting for me, as it was just we ladies with a small kid, standing in the desert. We had half a mind to just go back home. Finally another car came to pick us up. Then the horror started. The driver had to rush to the camp before sunset, as it was getting late. I kept telling him the entire time to go slow, but he wouldn’t listen. This almost got me to tears, since I had read that dune bashing is not good for infants, and I did not want him to go fast. This was the worst experience I had, that once I reached the camp, I did not want to even take part in any activity. So I stayed at the table, which we had difficulty getting, while the others tried out some activities, like ATV riding and camel riding with whatever little time they had.

The entire family was very furious with the organisers, who did not take any responsibility for what had happened in the evening. As the sun was setting, we tried to enjoy what was left of the night. It was a nice setup; where floor level tables surrounded the centre stage, and the outer periphery had a number of different stalls like mehendi, costume photography etc. Once it had become dark, the centre stage lit up, and there were a number of shows that we enjoyed. They even had audience participation for one of the dances, where my husband volunteered, just to cheer me up.  So as the shows continued, I took this chance to take a walk around the place, and thought of getting some mehendi done, but the queue was way too long. Guess the queues are never short in Dubai. As the show was half way, we were informed that the buffet was open and were told to fill our plates. In the next few minutes, the entire crowd was at the buffet counter. It was a maddening crowd, which had made two queues for men and women. Seeing the number of people, we were worried if we will even get food. So all of us ladies, planned on taking each dish in a plate, so that we can cover everything in a single trip. The food was typically Indian, so we didn’t have any problem with that. As we were having dinner, they started the much awaited belly dance show, which everyone enjoyed. Once dinner and the show were over, around 9 pm, the entire crowd suddenly vanished. In the flash of an eye, we were the only ones left sitting in the desert.

With the desert camp in the background

This was the most enjoyable part of the desert safari. We had the entire place to ourselves. We could feel the night getting colder and younger. The organizers had set up a closed tent, for the ladies and kids and another open tent for the men. They set up sleeping bags for all of us and even a campfire. As the kids went to sleep, we sat around the campfire, dancing to latest songs and having loads of fun under the starry night. This was what we really wanted, and we were all happy that at least this part of our night went without any hiccup. It was a quality family night spent in the lap of nature. It was beyond stunning to breathe the desert air and stare into the numerous stars above our head. We all went to bed around 2 am, all huddled together in our tents. The next day, most of them planned to get up early, to witness the sunrise.

It was really beautiful and inspiring to see the sunrise in the vast stretches of wonderful barren desert. Since we did not have a good session of dune bashing the previous day, the organisers tried compensating by giving us another go at it. So on our way back from the camp, one group went on their way with the kids, and the rest of us got what we missed out the previous evening. I had some experience of dune bashing in Israel, but nothing compared to this really awesome fun. The more we screamed, the more our driver was enthused to continue. By the end of our desert safari, we got all that we wanted - a breath-taking experience of spending a night out in the desert and the exciting dune-bashing. So what can I say; despite our disappointments in the beginning, everything was worthwhile in the end.

On our last day with the entire family, we were back early to our apartment, where we packed up and immediately left to the wonderful Atlantis hotel in the Palm Islands. We had booked tickets at the water park in Atlantis, and were very excited to try out the awesome rides. That day, we hired a car and drove through the most beautiful Jumeirah neighbourhood to reach Atlantis. As we went past the entrance of the hotel, we could see quite a bit of crowd. We headed to the parking, which was quite far from the hotel. A shuttle bus dropped us off at the hotel where we could see the real maddening crowd. As we entered the ticketing area, we were just shocked to see the number of people waiting outside. We were confident that we wouldn’t take too much time since we had already made the booking online. But we waited for more than an hour in this crowded lobby with everyone sitting on the floor here and there. Apparently it doesn’t matter if you have booked your tickets in advance, it was the Christmas-new year holidays and the whole world seemed to be there. Finally when we did get inside, it was almost 1pm. So one of us took the map and planned out what we were to do.

None of us thought about lunch, as the water park closed at 6pm, and all the rides had long queues. So we headed first to the kids  pool area, where this amazing pool with slides and water barrels was enough for my little one to have a great time. We found some place for our luggage and directly headed into the heated kids pool. I enjoyed watching my baby walk around the pool. Most of the others took the map and headed out to the awesome slides, which had rave reviews online. Since all our bags were in the kid’s pool area, I did not budge much. Me and another sister of mine played in the kid’s slides on and off and enjoyed the rest of the evening. Since it was too crowded, I didn’t bother others to take care of my son, and waited for my husband to finish and relieve me.

In the mean time, we had some pizza for lunch, tried putting my baby to sleep, but who would when there is so many people having fun around. Around 5-ish, my husband came over and sent me to enjoy the rides. As my sister and I went around the park, we could find only a couple of slides, which didn’t have long queues. So we enjoyed them and finished with the river ride, which started off with a bang and ended with us leisurely floating around the park in a small river. I quite enjoyed that ride, by which time; announcements were going off about the park closing. So we quickly headed back and started changing and packing up our stuff. I could have enjoyed the park better, had we had the time. I think it was too big a park for us to get the most of it in half a day, especially with a small baby in our arms. The best way to enjoy the park was to arrive early before people start queueing up in the morning. Bit I was happy with what little I could do, and really enjoyed the fact that my son had a great time. Famished, we got back home and went straight to bed.

The next day was our travel day. We had our flight in the night, but most of the others were to catch their flights in the afternoon. So all of us got busy packing our stuff, since the check out time was 11am. We quickly left to our cousin’s place, dropped our bags there and headed to a mall. This time, we just had enough time to have our lunch and bid goodbye to our family as all of them rushed to the airport. Throughout this time, my son started showing signs of a cough and a cold. By the time we finished lunch he had gotten quite warm. So after everyone left, the first thing we did was searched for a pharmacy and gave him some medicine. Once he was taken care of, we headed out for some shopping. We were very interested in buying souvenirs since this was something we didn’t even think of until then. Unfortunately this mall, was not the touristy kind, and didn’t have any type of souvenir shops. So we just did a little bit of shopping, bought something for our cousin in Dubai, who made everything possible and headed back home by around 5pm. By this time, my son was terribly sick and had none of the energy he had the previous day. So we gave him something to eat and headed to the airport hoping he will sleep on the way.

On reaching the airport, everything went off smoothly, but once we finished our boarding formalities, my son got really cranky and wouldn’t stop crying. In a crowded gate, we had to push through the entire crowd to get on to the flight. Since it was a night flight both of us were really tired, but having a sick baby was not easy. We didn’t get even a minute of sleep throughout our journey from Dubai to Colombo. He finally slept on the flight from Colombo-Male, which was just an hour. We too got some rest in this short flight back home.

Dubai's skyline as seen from Burj Khalifa

To sum up my experience, I would say Dubai is a wonderful place with umpteen things to do for any age group. But what everyone fails to tell and we experienced was the crowd, the queues and the hype. Maybe we just picked the wrong season. I think the websites makes us expect more than what we see. But overall, Dubai is a great vacation spot, a dreamy oasis in a sprawling desert.

-->