A party in my bedroom while I was gone

There was a weather advisory, so at first we just camped out in the hotel room.

I wasn’t about to get wet or blown away.

But then late afternoon, the weather started looking better so Pokin decided we should walk to the Dubai Mall.

The night before, PoOn asked Pokin about the Waldorf stuffed animals.

“What Waldorf stuffed animals?” Pokin asked.

“Just ask front desk,” PoOn said.

So anyway she went up to front desk and told them her sister wanted to know about the Waldorf stuffed animals.

The hotel staff had basically no idea what she was talking about.

“I don’t know,” Pokin said “at the other hotels like Conrad in HK they had these stuffed animal bears.”

“We sometimes have welcome gifts, is that what you want?”

“I have no idea,” Pokin repeated again. “Whatever you find sounds great.”

“We’ll see what they can do,” front desk answers.

Anyway we go to the Dubai mall, walk around, see some sharks, walk around some more, see the Dubai Fountain show, and then head back. I deliberately left Peep behind.

Peep” he says.

I should have known that Peep always gets himself into trouble. I come back and there’s a party going on in the room.

“What is wrong with you Peep?” I glare.

Peep, says Peep.

And there on the chair is a party full of stuffed animals, none of which are Waldorf stuffies.

Our doorbell rings. It’s Prashant, our housekeeping attendant with a note. “I hope you like the animals,” he said.

Turns out they sent someone out from the hotel to fetch these, because we were asking for them.

I ended up sleeping on the couch while Peep continued to hang out with those pink monsters. Ulgh.

Well PoOn is getting a bounty!

Dubai in a day

Got up bright and early for some breakfast at the Waldorf. Pretty good spread.

Then it was time for our blitz tour. We weren’t sure what to see so Nicholas booked a 1 day driving tour.

Here’s everything we hit –

Dubai Marina
Souk Madinat
Palm Jumeirah
Atlantis
Burj Al Arab
Jumeirah Beach
Jumeriah Road
Carpet store upsell stop (*not advertised)
Jumeriah Mosque
Dubai Mall
Dubai Aquarium
Dubai Skating Rink
Burj Khalia
Old Dubai Spice Souk
Fragrance store upsell (*not advertised)
Spice and tea store upsell (*not advertised)
Gold Souq

Even though we booked a private tour, there were a lot of forced upsell stops where our guide just disappeared for a smoke. After the first carpet stop, which we insisted on leaving early, we asked the guide to not take us to any more forced sales stops. Yet he did it two more times at a perfume and spice place. Disappointing for the price point of $700 for two people + bear, but we got a taste of Dubai.

Visibility wasn’t super great because of the high winds, but it’s supposed to rain the next day so good to get out today. After a day driving around, we ended up at the Dubai Mall/ Burj Khalifa, where I got to see sharks up and close. Closer than we did swimming in the Maldives! I would have been scared if they got this close. No sharks in this photo, but we saw a giant grouper which was cool.

We ended at the Burj Khalifa, which is the highest building in the world. We only got tickets up to the 148th floor, which is already higher than normal. You can get up to the lounge at 152 but that requires a $250 minimum spend. Since we were with a guide that felt too rushed. Another time!


Onwards to Dubai

It’s our last day in the Maldives and of course today the weather was perfect. Calm waters, clear skies.

Luckily, our flight out wasn’t until the end of the day, and we were allowed to stay in our room until 3:00pm and our flight out was at 4pm.

Pokin was feeling FOMO so she decided to snorkel again. It really is convenient being able to hop off the deck and get straight into reefs full of fish.

Again she headed straight for the reef cliff edge. This time she was alone so she didn’t stay long. She tried to look for the sharks again but there were none. She saw some tuna though.

As she’s getting ready to take a last shower before the flight out, I comb through the villa to make sure nothing is left behind.

And I find our problematic bunny in the coffee. Of course he’s there making a mess.

Peep, says Peep.

My mood is lifted a bit when I go into the room and see that we have a towel animal farewell. This is a whale I can ride!

Then it was 3pm and Meera was here with a golf cart to pick us up to wait in the lounge. Not a bad view. I can see our seaplane in the distance.

Given we are on island time, the flight doesn’t actually leave on time. And it turns out to be a full plane, but eventually we make it on.

The transfer was pretty uneventful, other than flying through some active storms. 40 minutes or so later, we were back at the Male terminal, where we transferred over to the main airport for our flight to Dubai.

Onwards!

Since it wasn’t an redeye, we didn’t get an amenity kit or PJs, but we did still get a meal. We tried not to nap since we were going to arrive at night, and about 4 hours later we were back in Dubai.

Our friends were headed home, so we said our farewells and made our way out.

The thing about booking business class flights with Emirates is that it sure comes with benefits! One of them being you get a chauffeur ride. All you had to do when you got off was to head to the chauffeur counter where they gave you a ticket, you went out the door, and a driver picked you up to head to your hotel.

This is something I can get used to.

“Don’t,” said Pokin. This isn’t how we’re always travelling. This was a splurge!

Well we should!

In Dubai, we are staying at the Waldorf Astoria DIFC. We weren’t originally going to stay here, but our friends who were travelling with us normally come here so we decided to book near them. They had to change their plans, so we were splurging on our own.

Luckily again, Pokin got a suite upgrade. I took my usual spot in bed.

Time for bed. Early day tomorrow!

Bear on Emirates

Hot off my trip back from Mexico City I’m outward bound again. To Dubai!

We are taking Emirates for the first time via SFO, so we are checking out the lounge.

Starting our journey with a delayed flight so let’s see how this all goes. My bud’s loving this already.

Emirates lounge was super spacious. Which felt all the more awkward given we were one of the only people in the lounge. Lounge is nice. They had a good spread of middle eastern food.

Even nicer is you board directly from the lounge into the plane. Didn’t have to worry about going back outside. I could get used to this! They called for boarding and we got on.

As a splurge, Pokin booked us business class flights using her Chase points. From there, there was an option to upgrade to first class (the way to go versus paying full fare), but we figured this was enough of an indulgence!

Emirates business class is pretty nice. Not only do they have lie flat seats, they also give you pyjamas. Really soft ones. As always they didn’t have anything in my size but I was able to appreciate it on my bud’s behalf. There they are with their matching PJs.

There’s also this lounge in the back where you can help yourself to snacks and order additional drinks, which made the flight go pretty smooth.

Some 14+ hours later, we landed to Dubai, pretty well rested given we were on a flight.

Because our friends were flying first class, we had an escort help us get through security on god mode. Passed all the lines and were escorted over to the lounge.

The Emirates lounge in Dubai is the biggest lounge I’ve ever seen. I feel like it practically stretched the whole airport terminal. Again when we arrived it was pretty empty (we got in around 8pm), but I guess most of the flights are red eyes because by the time we left at 2:00 AM it was really really full.

We passed our 7 hours there doing calls. And then it was onwards to the Maldives!