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Dubai - United Arab Emirates |
Create Date: 5-Oct-2022 |
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Friday, September 23rd through October 3rd, 2022 |
Last Update: 7-Oct-2022 |
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This trip can be considered a "bucket list" of places to go and see once in a lifetime. Genia has already been to Dubai twice before, and this was my first trip. Genia started planning the trip three months in advance so that we could get all the reservations and tickets for the places to go and see.
The only item that we could not go was the Ain Dubai Ferris Wheel, which is the tallest in the world, because of mechanical maintenance. Fortunately, we did get to pass directly next to the Ain Dubai on an evening river boat cruise.
We had many great hotels to select from, where we chose the J W Marriott Marquis Hotel because of its ideal central location, awesome amentias and the ability to accumulate points for future vacations. Upon arrival, we also purchased a very nice meal deal for each of us which included breakfast, afternoon snack/meal/drinks/deserts and an evening snack/meal/drinks/deserts at the Executive Lounge which came in very handy for very delicious breakfasts every morning and options on the other usage times.
The city of Dubai is a beautiful showcase city for the nation of United Arab Emirates. Almost all buildings are unique and designed to be extraordinary state-of-the-art engineering visual masterpieces.
Everywhere we went there a was no liter, graffiti, fear of crime and high level of customer service with almost immaculate cleanliness everywhere. The difference for Dubai, while we did observe some cultural superiority actions by some locals, the culture of Dubai is zero tolerance for bad bad behavior and a high level of Muslim family values where there was also an absolute openness for female rights other than a dress code requirement in a Mosque.
| 1 | Genia excited to get our trip started at the Houston Intercontinental Airport |
The hotel's pool is on the fifth floor located between Tower A and B. It has a very nice view of most parts of southern Dubai, a very large outside lounge area and outside grill and drinks service.
The Dubai Mall definitely deserves the reputation as one of the world's greatest malls. Like so many places that are extremely large, the Dubai Mall has a downloadable application that uses free mall WIFI and blue tooth positioning to direct users with walking directions and pinpoint accuracy. The Dubai Mall Application is absolutely needed to find any place because of the multiple floors and hundreds of stores, restaurants and exhibits. The Dubai Mall is also adjacent to the Burj Khalifa tallest building in the world and the very large beautiful Burj Khalifa lake that has huge daily water fountain shows that are a must see.
| Hotel | |
| 8 | View of the sunrise from our hotel room which shows a haze from possibly sand in the air |
| 9 | View one from our hotel room looking down on the ocean canal |
| 10 | View two from out hotel room looking towards downtown were we can see the world's largest building: "Burj Khalifa" |
| 11 | Daytime view of the ocean access from Hotel's 5th floor health club |
| Pool | |
| 12 | Genia getting into the pool |
| Dubai Mall | |
| 13 | Dubai Mall's main salt water aquarium which has a large variety of fish including stingrays and sharks with the option for scuba diving. |
| 14 | Dubai Mall's salt water aquarium detailed view with scuba divers who paid for time slots to enjoy the very large aquarium. |
| 15 | Genia and Keith in the outside pavilion adjacent to the Burj Khalifa lake. |
| 16 | Barj Khalifa Tower next to the pavilion |
| Dinner | |
| 17 | Keith, Genia and Drew at dinner at Italian Restaurant in Hotel. |
| 18 | Drew, Genia and Keith after dinner at one of the Italian Restaurant's mural walls. |
Mom's flight was a five-hour flight, so we all relaxed at the pool lounge for a while and then afterwards, Genia, Drew and I went to the Health Club. In the afternoon we went to the Museum of the Future.
When entering the Museum, there is an elevator ride that is a visual and audio simulation of a space rocket launch taking passengers to a space-station that is orbiting the Earth. The exhibits are dealing with space travel and Earth conservation.
After lunch, we went to one of the famous Dubai Mosques to visit, which a very common tourist destination with tours. There are many Mosques all over Dubai where some are very richly built with lots of grandeur, but they are not opened to the public.
Jumeirah Mosque is known for its hospitality, tour and tea lounge. It is interesting that most Mosques do not allow visitors, of non-Muslim beliefs, to enter the main prayer area, where as part of the tour we sat directly in the main prayer area. There was a requirement for all women to have their head covered with a Hijab, and all visitors to have their legs and arms clothed where the men were provided a Thobe to wear.
After returning to the hotel we went to the Dubai Mall again to have dinner and after dinner pastries at L'ETO's restaurant and bakery where we could watch the Barj Khalifa Lake Water show from the L'ETO's terrace.
We spent most of the time enjoying the pool area, then having an amazing lunch at probably one of the most visually appealing outside restaurants "Sal" that we have ever been in, where the food was absolutely amazingly delicious. After eating lunch, we then toured a little bit of the hotel.
Regarding the food at Sal, Drew ordered a fish dinner that was cooked by surrounding the fish with aluminum foil and salt. The size of the fish was probably 18 inches long and two inches thick that could feed four people. After Genia, mom and I finished our lunch, we all got portions of Drew's delicious fish (can't recall what type of fish it was) and all of us were unable to completely finish eating the fish.
The temperature was very hot but wearing the proper clothing and applying sun protection, it was actually comfortable. The camels were a little bit playful and the 1982 Mercedes all-terrain vehicles we rode after the camel excursion handled the sand dunes effortlessly. I was excited to briefly drive one of the Mercedes over several sand dunes. After our camel and vehicle tours, we enjoyed a Bedouin lunch, where the food was very good, served with very refreshing hot tea and of course water along with iced sodas if asked.
Dubai was host to the International Expo in 2021 / 2022. The Expo City had exhibit buildings representing every nation attending. The Expo City also included infrastructure of busing, motorized trams, restaurants, shopping, monorail service to and from Dubai, hotel lodging and parking that made the place a self-contained city.
In September 2022, the Expo was reopened with many primary attractions such as Terra - The Sustainability Pavilion, Alif - The Mobility Pavilion, Garden in the Sky, Women's Pavilion, Vision Pavilion and Carousel - Around the World to see along with many more. Since the Expo City was just reopened, it almost appeared like a "ghost town" initially to us with hardly any visitors when we arrived. Also, workers were hardly seen until you selected a place to enter.
As just stated, when we arrived at the Expo early in the morning via taxi service, we did not initially see anyone anywhere which was almost disconcerting. It wasn't until we walked for several minutes to enter one of main areas did we see anyone. Later in the day, the Expo City did have more and more visitors. We were very fortunate to visit the Expo so early after reopening as many attractions and tram services had no cost and no wait time to enter and use.
River Boat Dinner Cruise
After getting back to our hotel from the Expo City Tour, we took a short break at the hotel in preparation for being out very late on a River Boat Dinner Cruise. The River Boat Dinner Cruise was a very fun evening with a buffet, unlimited drinks, desserts, live music and multiple dancing shows.
The port for the River-Boat and other boats is adjacent to the Dubai Mall. Exiting the port went through downtown and then followed the shoreline to take us past the Ain Dubai Ferris Wheel, multiple amazing buildings and to the Palm Island. The shoreline buildings were all very well lighted up at night to give spectacular views. As stated earlier, unfortunately the Ain Dubai was closed for mechanical work so we were unable to ride it, but enjoyed the close-up view as we passed it on the River Boat.
Our flight left at 9:45am, which meant we had to get up and leave the hotel at 6am to arrive at least three hours before the flight left per requirements. Genia, Drew and myself were flying back to Houston, TX and mom back to Moscow, Russia where she then took a bus ride to Lipetsk, Russia. Our flight was a seventeen-hour flight and mom's a five hour flight.
Before departing we had a nice breakfast at the airport. The trip was a very wonderful and rememberable trip where it was hard to say goodbye to mom and we wished there was more days for all of us to be together.
| 129 | Breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe in Dubai's International Airport before mom flew back to Russia and us to USA |
