Christmas on steroi_s 🧑‍🎄🎅🎄🦌🛷

[Pushka]

Incredibly busy just on the surface let alone all the things happening underground here. Dnata must be worth a motza.

 

[jukebox333]

Safe flight - and thx for the brilliant posts aross the holiday

 

[love_the_life]

Warm weather for MrP coming up - bet he will be pleased.

 

[Pushka]

Warm weather for MrP coming up - bet he will be pleased.

We are here in Dubai. Party time. It’s 10pm. 25c and we are sweating.





Flight details tomorrow.

 

[Pushka]

The flight from Heathrow departed around an hour late but arrived just 15 minutes late. Must be a lot of fat there. Encountered some stomach dropping turbulence over Mosul.

I’ve never seen so many kids in business class. How do they afford it. Irritating man with kids continued his pace by spending a lot of time in the bar with kids unchecked. We gave up on the bar and just watched movies.


Barbie. I started watching this on the way over and gave up. I tried again and quite enjoyed it for around an hour and then - gave up.

It was sunny a minute ago Bye Engerland

 

[Flyfrequently]

Simple to find EK lounge and it was very nice. Excellent breakfast buffet and everyone quietly enjoying themselves.
View attachment 361961

The EK buffet always looks "tidy" and presents well - is that a sparkling rose I see @Pushka ?

 

[Pushka]

Sparkling? Way better. Moet Blush. . It was after all after 8am.

The EK buffet always looks "tidy" and presents well - is that a sparkling rose I see @Pushka ?

I made a cup of tea for P, and the milk looked odd in the cup. I was looking at it then a server came along and removed it and made a fresh one with fresh milk.

A yuk story. In the airbnb we were unpacking and opening the drawers and found a very dried up and crusty towel. When we saw the colour we didn’t unwrap further. . We didn’t say anything at the time but did on check out as we didn’t want to be held responsible. Their comment ‘oh we checked those drawers’. I didn’t say anything but think my look said it all. Now Airbnb is pestering for a review. They seriously wouldn’t want it.

 

[Flyfrequently]

Sparkling? Way better. Moet Blush. . It was after all after 8am.

My humble apologies @Pushka - my head must've been in QP mode

 

[Seat0B]

Excited to see what you do in Dubai.

 

[Pushka]

Excited to see what you do in Dubai.

Probably not much although where we are staying we can see the Burj Khalifa for fireworks. A guy last night said we could trace The fireworks down to Al Arab but I'm not convinced having checked it out this morning. There's so much construction going on around the resort as it's a great beach. We knew about this after we'd booked but decided not to cancel. There's a few Russians around too. I wonder if Rove resorts are Russian owned. There was a Russian menu on our breakfast table which I removed immediately.

Today is a chill day by the pool although kids are noisy so might move down to the beach instead. Tomorrow I'm catching the shuttle into Dubai Mall. It's been about 6 years and I think last time was Ramadan? Maybe not. Weve booked into the NYE feast here at the resort as well. We leave late Tuesday. Our report here from a few years back was our major Dubai experience.

Lighting up Burj Khalifa on New Year's Eve

After a fortnight of immense sadness we are continuing with our long organised trip to Dubai over the New Year period. We started booking a year out, and anyone hoping to book with points will understand why. This trip was my first experimentation using aa.com with purchased points and if...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

 

[Seat0B]

Probably not much although where we are staying we can see the Burj Khalifa for fireworks. A guy last night said we could trace The fireworks down to Al Arab but I'm not convinced having checked it out this morning. There's so much construction going on around the resort as it's a great beach. We knew about this after we'd booked but decided not to cancel. There's a few Russians around too. I wonder if Rove resorts are Russian owned. There was a Russian menu on our breakfast table which I removed immediately.

Today is a chill day by the pool although kids are noisy so might move down to the beach instead. Tomorrow I'm catching the shuttle into Dubai Mall. It's been about 6 years and I think last time was Ramadan? Maybe not. Weve booked into the NYE feast here at the resort as well. We leave late Tuesday. Our report here from a few years back was our major Dubai experience.

Lighting up Burj Khalifa on New Year's Eve

After a fortnight of immense sadness we are continuing with our long organised trip to Dubai over the New Year period. We started booking a year out, and anyone hoping to book with points will understand why. This trip was my first experimentation using aa.com with purchased points and if...

www.australianfrequentflyer.com.au

UAE has long had a significant Russian Expat community - as Seat Son puts it, “gorgeous Russian dolls looking for a husband with an EU, UK or US passport”. And since the invasion of Ukraine, there have been many more. For example, his law firm relocated the entire staff of all its Russian offices to Dubai, and this is quieter common with multi-national companies. Plus the various oligarchs like to winter in Dubai (again he knows this from working for a few of these as clients of his law firm eg article below refers to one of his cases - he was for the wife in this example)

$616m superyacht returned to Russian tycoon amid costly divorce war

The MV Luna, which has at least nine decks, two helipads, a mini submarine and a swimming pool, had been impounded in Dubai amid one of the world's costliest divorce battles.

www.abc.net.au

As well as tourists - UAE is still open to Russian tourists….its quite a different place/values there when you scratch the surface.

 

[Pushka]

The flight. It was a daytime flight to Dubai on A380. We expected the bar to be busy. It was. This time we didn't bother as it was full of kids and adults who let their kids rip.

Emirates don't like doing breakfast much. Just a fruit yoghurt and pastry.




Love Pouilly Fume so pleased to see that on the drinks menu.





But first the Veuve. Have had my lifetime quantity of Veuve this trip after a drought of decades. Weird.



The meal, lunch. First the soup. Chestnut. I prefer soups to get extra liquid in. We'd tried hot chestnuts at one of the markets. Shudder. But this soup wasn't so bad.


And Lamb. Quite nice except for that mysterious green stuff. Three glasses of Poully served over a few hours and watching of Elf. I'm still in Christmas mode.

 

[Pushka]

Walked miles to immigration plus a train. Immigration was weird. Lots of talking going on between the officers, mine especially. MrP was through in seconds. I thanked them in Arabic. They looked a bit shocked. I'm hoping they thought I knew what they'd said. Of course I didn't but might tell them to cut the talk.

Got a taxi, a really nice one, really quickly. I was a little panicked at this stage. Remembering the Saudi currency was much more valued than the AUD, and a weird ATM at Heathrow for the exchange rate, I saw the ticker start at 25 AED and I thought that meant $100. It went up to 85 AED. Yikes. Couldn't wait to get to wifi to see how much that was. Very distracted at checkin to see the aed hotel bill. . But I'd got it the wrong way round. Phew.

 

[Flyfrequently]

... . But I'd got it the wrong way round. Phew.

Ah, at some stage, think we have all done the "Veuve" exchange rate @Pushka !

 

[Seat0B]

Ah, at some stage, think we have all done the "Veuve" exchange rate @Pushka !

I admit to it!

 

[Pushka]

So that view. Last night. Khalifa for fireworks.




I don’t think I mentioned that the resort is in the middle of two massive building sites. Now, we knew this from the various reviews done on the place but it’s a bit more substantial than we realised.


Two sides blocked off as well as a sea walk. Previous this area was a fun boulevard with cafes etc. Now it’s to become hotels. Because Dubai doesn’t have enough.

 

[Pushka]

Breakfast is included in our package and it was good but where is the bacon?

 

[Pushka]

I’ll post some pics of the hotel later. It’s got ‘the vibe’

 

[RooFlyer]

Lots of talking going on between the officers, mine especially.

I put that in the WCMO thread. Little more frustrating than to wait longer than necessary, because immigration officers are chatting and joking between themselves.

 

[TheRealTMA]

Breakfast is included in our package and it was good but where is the bacon?

LOL. just note that Emirates lounges and in air will serve veal bacon.