Dubai…. I loved it!!

Dubai is a little like marmite you either love it or hate it!!  Me – I loved it…. Why?

It’s not pretty, it’s very flat, and the buildings are mostly high rise, but what struck me was the height and the design of these buildings, some are really quite amazing. It’s extremely clean, the locals are very friendly and I have to say I felt really safe there.  I wished I had more time to explore Dubai but I think we used our time wisely and saw a great deal of what this city has to offer.

Our first port of call was going up the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the World standing at 828m tall (in fact to the tip it is 830m). If we put this into perspective the Eiffel tower stands at 300 m.   Our tickets were booked for 11.30 so after having breakfast on the ship we caught a taxi to the shopping mall that is next to the Burj Khalifa – oh my the shopping mall was amazing will tell you more about that in a bit…

There was a slight queue  but by 11.45 we were in the lift that took us straight to level 124 within 60 seconds!!  What an amazing view – the weather was kind so we did see for miles, we spent a good couple of hours up there, we never felt that we were rushed to go back down.  The children really were lost for words..The high powered multi-media telescopes provided so much information and were a real pick hit for us!

There was so much information about the structure of this building while you are walking around, did you know that it took 5 years to build at a cost of USD $1.5bn.  There are over 24,000 windows, the elevator that takes you up to level 124 travels at a speed of 10 meters per second.  The maximum number of people working on this construction at any one time was 12,000.  There are 2,909 steps to the top – good job the lifts were working!  Oh I could carry on and on…..

We then decided to spend a while at the Dubai shopping mall, we thought the children  would  probably only allow a couple of hours before they got bored, how wrong was we, 6 hours later all hungry and tired we headed back to the ship.  There was just so much to see from the waterfalls to the ice rink, from the shops to the amazing aquarium and underwater zoo.  We also took a walk outside for a short coffee break sitting outside in the sunshine watching the fountains dance to the music.  Something very magical.

The aquarium and the under water zoo was utterly amazing, just the thought that all of this stands in the middle of the mall.  The large fishtank hosts thousands of fish and other underwater wildlife.  You walk through the tunnel which takes you through the tank where you can get close to the sharks and stingrays, lots and lots of fish and when we were there we saw the divers carrying out checks and feeding the fish.  We also took a small boat ride where the children could feed the fish.  You can even dive with the sharks!!

Children enjoying looking at the cars outside the shopping mall.

I really would love to go back and spend a few more days maybe stay in Jumeriah Beach and take in the sites of the of the spectacular hotels.