Final days in Dubai!!
- Tara Larkai
- Dec 6, 2015
- 4 min read
We dedicated our next day to the desert safari. We bought our tickets from Groupon which was cheaper than the usual. We should have known there was a catch to such a cheap ticket. The meeting place was in the city across from one of the Dubai malls. We had to share a bus with another large group to get to the desert area. The drive was about an hour and a half long then right before getting on the dunes, we were all transferred and split up into 4 x 4 trucks for the sand bashing experience to the camp area. The sand bashing was not that impressive compared to my past experience and it was very short. The camp area was not that deep into the desert like we were used to plus you could even see cars driving on the street at the top of the dunes. The camp area was big and had activities such as camel rides, pictures with a falcon, ATV rides, the usual henna, hookah, posing in their tradition wear etc. The food was okay. I have had better. The "arabian night show" did not impress either. Let's just say the belly dancer need not to be belly dancing. lol I really wish I could remember the name of the company so that you stay away from them. The moral of the story is don't get your tickets on Groupon. lol
Luckily, we were able to convince the driver to take us back to our apartment instead of the meeting place and the other group that we shared the van with lived right across from our apartment so it was a win-win for everyone. We were all tired and ready to relax (or so I thought). My hubby had a birthday party planned for me at N'dulge night club at Atlantis. We all got dolled up and left for Atlantis.
Atlantis is as beautiful as I imagined and huge. The club was a bit empty (actuall very empty). There were only a few people there and it was very noticeable because it was a big space. The layout of the space is very exquisite with a huge bar area, dance floor, plenty of lounge chairs and terrace area for everyone not just VIP and sexy blue uplighting. The place looked sexy so I didnt understand why it was so empty but we didnt allow that to stop us from having fun. We took over the dance floor after a few drinks and the DJ must have known we were Africans because he only played African music. Some of the few guests at the club even joined us on the dancefloor. We had soo much fun! I didn't even want to leave after closing. lol
Hangover was the theme the next morning but we could not sleep in because we had a yacht reserved for the late morning. We bought this on Groupon too but it was good deal or maybe we were too tired to tell.
We had the yacht for 3 hours and we were able to grill meat, drink, eat and relax on it. They actually had fishing gear for us to fish and grill our catch but we were too tired for all of that. Some of our friends jumped into the water and swam around but I was operating on "E" and moving so slowly the entire trip. I am sure we would have enjoyed it more if we weren't hungover. lol
My girls surprised me with a fit pole dancing class as a bachelorette. Again, I was so tired I didn't get to enjoy it as much as I wanted to. The part I enjoyed was the Balinese massage right after the pole dancing class. It was probably the best massage I have ever had in my life and believe me I have had a lot of massages. It was Divine!!
So this was supposed to be our last night and we were supposed to spend it in Abu Dhabi but we were all enjoying Dubai so much that we all decided to stay in Dubai. We spent the night at the Dubai mall watching the water show while eating lebanese food. The food could not compare to Chandelier though.
We checked out from the apartment the next morning and this is where we all split up. Some of us had our return flight to USA at 2am and others were around 10am the next morning, so some headed straight to Abu Dhabi and others into the city. Since my group planned to leave Dubai at night straight to Abu Dhabi airport for our 2am flight, we decided to book a room at the JW Marriot Marqui (Chloe and I's favorite) in Dubai downtown area to store our lugage. We headed to the souks to shop for Abayas, kaftans and sourvenirs where we spent majority of the day then headed to Burj Khalifa at the top experience. We got the tickets on groupon and if you ask me it was not worth it. It didn't take us all the way to the top. We stopped at the 124th floor and it was alot more money if you wanted to go all the way to the 148th floor. The view from the 124th floor was amazing though. We were educated on the history and process of buidling the Burj Khalifa. It was intriguing but make sure you arrive early because the lines are ridiculously long. The only perk we got with our tickets was that we were able to skip the lines so the Groupon deal wasn't that bad afterall.
We hired a driver from the JW marriot to take us to Abu Dhabi airport. We made it just in time for check-in and boading only to find out that we had to go through USA immigration at Abu Dhabi airport before boarding so that we would arrive as a domestic flight in JFK. The lines were ridiculously long. We literally stood in line for over 2 hours. The flight was over 3 hours delayed because of this. Everyone was annoyed by this and the place was hot as ever. I am not sure if this is something new for them but it was poorly organized. It was a horrible end to our trip.
Overall, I really enjoyed Dubai this time around and we got to do a lot more than we did last time but there is still so much we didn't get to do. We shall be returning in the future.
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