Dubai-the 2nd time around

This post is long overdue but I thought I would share these tales with you anyway. I am sure you all heard about the glitch fare that occurred on Christmas 2014 with Etihad airlines... I’m sure the whole world did. Well that is how Chloe and I along with 11 other people ended up in Dubai May 2015. It was around 6am on Christmas day when my phone kept blowing up. I remember it vividly because hubby and I spent the night at one of our friends’ house and we had been drinking the night before and went to bed very late so I was very annoyed that someone was really trying to reach me that early. I thought it was my mom looking for us because we were supposed to spend Christmas with her and my sister so I finally woke up to answer the phone and saw that I had over 10 missed calls from Chloe. This was bizarre because she and I usually don’t talk on the phone. We communicate through text messages and she knows how much I dislike talking on the phone. I thought it was an emergency so I quickly called her back only to find out that she was calling about a $187 ticket from New York to Abu Dhabi and other destinations. Don’t get me wrong, this was worth all the efforts that she made trying to reach me but it was way too early. I think I was still half asleep while on the phone with her because I either didn’t believe her or I just wanted to hurry up and get back to sleep so I told her no. Chloe sounded so disappointed because she couldn’t believe I would say no to such a deal. I couldn’t go back to sleep after I hung up with her so I decided to look into these deals for myself and sure enough there they were. I thought I was dreaming so I woke hubby up and showed them to him. He couldn’t believe his eyes either so we woke up our friends to share this with them. They were so stocked! The 4 of us bought tickets to Abu Dhabi right then and there. I then tried calling Chloe back but there was no answer. I guess she took her disappointment back to sleep. I bought a ticket for her anyway and somehow convinced 8 of my friends to purchase a ticket to Abu Dhabi for the same dates in May 2015. Now the fun part began!!! Have you ever planned a group trip with 12 other people with different opinions and interests? Well, now I can say I have. Planning trips with Chloe and usually and some of my other friends are usually seamless because we have similar interests when it comes to traveling but this was nothing like that. We had to plan activities for the 5 nights. 5 months of planning activities and accommodation was more than stressful. Kudos to those who plan group trips for more than 12 people on a daily basis.

Fast forward to May 2015. Most of us flew from New York JFK and others flew in from Washington IAD. Chloe, myself, hubby and 2 of our friends were the first ones to leave. Everyone was flying on the same day however our flight was in the morning. So we were the unlucky ones and were put on Jetairfly…Why? Hmm I will tell you why. First of all, our flight itinerary was changed like 10 times before the trip even took place. At one point they changed our itinerary so that we would have a 24 layover in another (I forgot the country). I am sure because this glitch fare caused them a lot of money so they had to make changes that would benefit them. Chloe, myself and hubby’s flights were affected by this but we didn’t let them get away with it instead we harassed them day and night until they changed it to something suitable but we were still stuck with Jetairfly. They told us that due to the number of people that purchased the tickets, they didn’t have enough planes so they were leasing Jetairfly planes. They assured us that everything else was Etihad just the plane was Jetairfly. First of all, that was a lie! The service at check-in was horrible. The attendants were not friendly at all. They wouldn’t even change our seats for all of us to sit together. So I am sure you know by now that I have high expectations of international airlines. I’ve given up on American airlines lol. It was such a surprise to witness the stupidity of a service that we experienced on Jetairfly. The food was horrible, the stewardess were not friendly and it seemed like they caught an attitude each time you would ask for something and ooh they were stingy with the booze. I mean who does that? It’s not our fault that they had a glitch in their system. We were so irritated by them that we were determined to change our flight to get on Eithad on our return flight as soon as we got to Abu Dhabi.

We arrived in Abu Dhabi around 2pm their time. The plan was to take their complimentary shuttle to Dubai, spend 4 nights there and then spend our last night in Abu Dhabi since the only thing worth to see in Abu Dhabi is the grand mosque. Chloe had booked the shuttle for us for 5pm because that was the only time they allowed her to book for us even though our flight got in early. (Again foolishness). It was a very hot day and we didn’t want to spend 3 hours lounging around waiting to get on the shuttle so we went to the shuttle area to see if we could get on an earlier one. Oh my Chaos! It was chaotic over there to say the least. There were so many people in line and others not in line also trying to get on the bus. There was one man who was trying to keep everyone in order and only allow the ones with the right booking time on the bus but then I guess everyone had our idea and wanted to get on the bus even though they had a different booking time. The man seemed frustrated and annoyed by this and was even rude to other people. I kept pressuring Hubby to talk to him to let us on. After several attempts, he finally agreed to let us on the next bus. Whew! The bus was comfortable. It was a large coach bus…sort of the like the ones used for tours. It was air conditioned (Thank God) because that heat was no joke. They handed out 1 bottle of water for each passenger which helped cool us down. The trip was about an hour and half. We slept halfway through it. The shuttle took us the the Etihad travel mall located in the downtown area of Dubai. We attempted to change our return flight at the Etihad counter but these fools wanted to charge us extra for it. They said it was an upgrade to get on an Etihad plane. How Sway? When some of our friends were on that flight and didn’t pay extra for it. I was so annoyed. Of course we didn’t pay. They wanted $300 each…heck no!! That was our spending money lol

The travel mall was packed with tourists that had arrived on the shuttle from Abu Dhabi. Everyone was trying to find their way to their hotel. We were staying at a luxury 5 bedroom penthouse in the marina area we found on airbnb. We took two uber taxis to get to our penthouse. All the uber vehicles in Dubai are Lexus. It was more than comfortable. Our host or property manager was impatiently waiting for us when we arrived. When we opened the door…Oh my goodnesss! Stay tuned for our first impressions.

#dubai