Week in Dubai - where, how, how much
The ticket was ordered back in October at the initial stage of price growth, but already at the beginning of the hype. If we had realized a little earlier, we could have chosen more interesting options and saved a little. Package tours to the Emirates, whatever one may say, are cheaper than buying tickets and booking a hotel yourself. The tour package for this period cost us $925 per person (flight, transfer, accommodation, meals - breakfast, visa processing). Given the very large (one might say incredibly huge) influx of tourists during the New Year holidays, which creates certain difficulties (huge queues everywhere, lack of free taxis), I would not recommend planning a trip for this time.
We flew through Kyiv. I fly infrequently and usually it is UIA (for the sake of economy) - every year I note with regret a slight but stable deterioration in their work and service. Even last year there was a vegetarian menu, now it's gone.
The staff is not yet rude, but not at all friendly. The flight was delayed for 2 hours because 1 passenger refused to fly and they were looking for his luggage, and all this time we were forced to sit on the plane (and spending 7 instead of 5 hours on the plane is extremely tiring). In addition, it is completely incomprehensible why some passengers drag very tiny children so far, for whom such a long flight is just torture (the poor things were crying as if they were being bullied - after all, the overload, the ears are laying). Nobody looks after older children at all and they almost run over the heads of other passengers, while their parents and relatives are consuming alcohol supplies from duty free with might and main. Therefore, I strongly recommend that in order to relax and facilitate the flight, be sure to follow their example (which we actually did, but, unfortunately, only on the way back).
The host was Travco.
We were worried that they would not wait for us because of the flight delay, and we spent probably 2 hours at the airport (we got into incredible queues for retinal scans and at passport control), but everything was fine with that - we waited. We never met our guide, but she left us her coordinates, suggestions for excursions, the day before departure she sent information on the transfer to the airport and on the flight.
The hotel was booked by Emirates Grand Hotel 4* (http://www. otpusk. com/hotels/27928-Emirates_Grand_Hotel. php). It is located near the Dubai Mall (about 10 dirhams by taxi), i. e. in a prestigious area of the city on Sheikh Zayed Street (also called skyscraper street). At first I wanted to book the Al Murooj Rotana 5 * hotel (http://www. otpusk. com/hotels/17930-Al_Murooj_Rotana. php) in the same area, but there were no vacancies.
Initially, I didn’t want to go to the Deira area, where our tourists mainly settle, there are not many beach hotels in Dubai and they are mostly expensive, which is why I chose the area near Downtown Burj Dubai (a large number of good hotels in terms of price-quality ratio ”, there is always where to take a walk). If I had traveled at another time, I would probably have booked the Amwaj Rotana Jumeirah Beach Residence 5 * hotel (I am a fan of beach holidays), but on New Year's Eve they are incredibly bent with prices.
They settled quickly, and we had a regular deluxe booked, but since they were all occupied, they gave us a premier suite without any additional payment. Upon check-in, a deposit of 500 dir is taken. per room (you can pay in $, but most likely they will return dirhams). The rate at the hotel is low (3.5), and we changed in banks at 3.62-3.65 (there is one bank next to the hotel, another a little further, but you need a passport to exchange). Therefore, upon check-in, we left our passport as a deposit (it was about one in the morning), and in the morning we changed money and made a deposit.
The room is simply chic and large - a kitchen (fully equipped: a washbasin, a refrigerator, a kettle, a stove, a microwave oven, a washing machine, dishes), a living room (a seating area with a coffee table, a work area with a desk, another table with chairs, which is completely nothing, because between the kitchen and the living room there is a beautiful dining table, a chest of drawers), a bedroom (a bed, a built-in wardrobe, a dressing table), 2 bathrooms (1 with a bath), with beautiful panoramic views of the Burj Khalifa and other skyscrapers, at 37 floor. In the living room and bedroom on the plasma, of the Russian channels, only RTR (if we turned it on, it was still only music). The only "but" is that there were 3 of us and there was 1 huge bed in the bedroom. However, since the three of us are quite slender young ladies and no one wanted to sleep on the sofa either, we calmly settled on it, not touching each other at all, especially since we really liked the number and didn’t want to change it.
The hotel has a spa - the girls went to massage (300 dir. ), I liked it. And I saved. There is a small pool on the roof, but it is too windy there. There is a gym for sports fans (I personally think that you should not strain yourself on vacation). Breakfast at the restaurant on the 43rd floor; There are other places to eat in the hotel, but we did not visit them.
Smoking is prohibited in the hotel (so either near the entrance or on the roof - much closer). ATTENTION: THE HOTEL IS NO ALCOHOL! ! ! Therefore, I recommend stocking up in a dutik, because in city restaurants they will not offer you anything stronger than tea. Of course, you can go to a restaurant / bar of another hotel, but it's expensive (for comparison - 38 dir. * 2.2 = 83.6 hryvnia for 0.5l of beer, i. e. with such prices you can’t go wild). So I repeat once again, if your budget is dear to you, regardless of whether or not the hotel sells alcohol, take care of it upon arrival at the duty free.
Do not forget that drinking alcohol in public places and appearing drunk is also prohibited! To avoid conflicts with the police, make yourself a cocktail in a soft drink bottle of the right color and calmly eat forbidden fruits, naturally without overdoing it.
Naturally, we had breakfast at the hotel - not very varied, but quite decent. They usually took fruit with them for a snack on the beach, bread and butter (for sandwiches with stored caviar), croissants, and no one was buzzing about it. We dined wherever we could (on the beach, in the mall), that is, in all sorts of eateries. There are a lot of cafes here, you definitely won’t stay hungry, but the more prestigious the area, the more expensive it will cost you (for us, snacks cost about 30 dir. per person, while in Deira it will cost 2 times cheaper). We dined mostly near the hotel in a Lebanese restaurant - it's just a song!
In general, Lebanese cuisine is very popular among tourists, and it’s clear why - you definitely won’t find so many all kinds of seafood delicacies for quite sane money here! Fresh fish, huge shrimps, crabs and (apogee of the apotheosis) LOBSTERS (and all this is very tasty cooked), a beautiful outdoor terrace with gushing jugs (it’s also cozy inside, but it’s still more pleasant to sit on the street on a warm evening), excellent service - all this for this restaurant puts me on the same level with the main attractions of Dubai! From the side dish, we liked the mix of ordinary rice with wild rice the most (servings are enough for 2-3 people).
), you don’t have to take a salad (pickles and a plate of vegetables are served with the main course), great fresh juices (an incomparable mix, strawberry, my favorite watermelon and very successful would be lemon and mint alcohol - I especially recommend them) and of course grilled lobster with cheese (and already conveniently cut in half, so you don’t have to bathe to cut it). On average, dinner for three cost us 300 dir.
We were very lucky with the weather - it was warm and sunny all the time. During the day +25, at night +20, i. e. , as we have in late May - early June. At sunset the breeze picks up. During the day, a T-shirt is just right, but it’s better to have a light blouse with you (it’s cool in the rooms because of the air conditioning), in the evening you need to wear a normal jacket or sweater. The water was 20 degrees. However, at this time, according to the stories of tourists, it can be quite cool, which again speaks in favor of the fact that you should not plan a trip for the New Year.
We really liked the beaches of the Persian Gulf - the water is clear and blue, the sand is soft and white. From the hotel there was a bus to the paid beach Jumeirah Beach Park (5 dir. per entrance) - a good beach, there is a beautiful well-groomed area in front of the beach, but there are too many people and umbrellas cannot be placed near the water. The bus left a little earlier than the scheduled time, and we did not get on it. This one was a pipets - they got there for 2 hours (for a long time and stubbornly they tried to catch a taxi, but with such an influx of tourists they were simply taken by storm, then they walked for more than an hour until they caught it). We were on the beach of the Habtoor Grand Hotel - there are curious little fish swimming right at the feet, but there are too many water activities (banana, bagel, scooters, windsurfing, boats, an airplane takes off every half an hour and throws out paratroopers), so the water smells like we have on Fontana 13 gasoline, a small area for swimming (you can walk to the limiters, i. e.
you can't swim there). Most of all we liked the public beach - there are fewer people, the buoys are far away, it is not a problem to get there (20 dir. by taxi). Rent of beach equipment is the same everywhere: sun lounger - 15dir. , umbrella - 5dir. small (large like 10), towel - 5dir. +20dir. deposit (refundable on receipt when towels are returned). In the water, the bottom is also sandy, no unusual marine life was noticed, but the sea throws out quite exotic shells. The sun at this time is soft, but we still managed to burn a little, so it is necessary to use a protective cream.
We didn’t go on excursions, although we initially planned to take a survey (it didn’t work out right away, and then we saw all these sights a lot while driving and walking) and go to the Moroccan bath in the Imar SPA salon (in the end we decided to save $ 125).
Aladdin and Arabian Night excursion companies operate in the Deira region, and in our area, which is not very popular among Russian tourists, we could only contact our operator, whose prices were about a quarter higher.
We climbed to the 124th floor of the Burj Khalifa (the entrance is located on the lower floor of the Dubai Mall). After our 37th floor (actually 39th, since the numbering started from the third), the landscape was not so impressive, and what really impressed me was the local high-speed elevator. Tickets must be taken in advance (100 dir. ), and if you want to go up immediately, then 4 times more expensive. In our peak season, in order to get there for sane money, I had to buy tickets on the Internet in Odessa (on December 26, I took tickets for January 4, and even not at the best time). At sunset, tickets were sold out well in advance. You can pay with a regular Visa card. The New Year itself was celebrated by the way near the tower - look at youtube, what a fireworks was there! Salute! ! !
Hopes for chic shopping did not come true - I can’t afford luxury brands (not to mention jewelry - it’s even scary to walk past the windows of Debirs, Cartier, Bulgari and others like them), I’m not interested in a fur coat (for this good, all the more, you don’t need to go to this mall go), democratic brands (such as Esprit, Beneton, Zara, etc. ) with the same hopelessly sad assortment as ours (and with absolutely the same disgusting quality). A separate big disappointment from the H&M store - I have some very decent things from them, I like a lot of things on their website, but it's dumb to order without trying on. The store itself is huge, two-level, even with its own escalator, and everything in it looks more like a second-hand dump. Moreover, New Year's discounts have just begun (the biggest ones are rumored to be expected from January 20).
As a result, I didn’t buy anything for myself, although I planned jeans (I liked some, but for $ 130, even taking into account the discount, I didn’t even have a desire to try them on) and sunglasses (the price, taking into account the discount from $ 150, it started, and there were no cool ones) . I bought only a cool shirt for my nephew in Zara and a T-shirt for my godson in Adidas (both about $50 a minute).
Separately, I want to clarify about souvenirs. In the Dubai Mall, only one souvenir shop (with the symbols of Dubai) was found (on the ground floor). Any garbage - key chains, magnets, figurines. So at the airport, all this is available at lower prices (you can safely buy it on departure). Also at the airport there is a large assortment of all kinds of oriental sweets and also at a normal price. While in the Dubai Mall there are super cool sweets shops with the corresponding prices (tiny, very tiny box 35 dir. ).
But I liked the souvenir shop like our "Cactus" - and the assortment is good, and the prices do not "bite". I bought a cool glass fish there for my brother as a gift and made friends with an elegant mirror on a stand.
We went to the water park of the Atlantis hotel (from us by taxi 50 with something dirhams). Ticket 250 dir. taking into account the rent of a box and a towel (and if it’s also with dinner, then 275 dir. , just an entrance 200 dir. , but it’s inconvenient to carry things around, and I wouldn’t want to throw cameras anywhere). I didn’t like the beach there (the sand is unpleasant, more like construction sand, the water is colder than on the shore), and the water park itself is superb, if it weren’t for the crazy queues for the slides (which is again connected with the tourist hype).
To go down in a few seconds on a slide, you have to stand in line for half an hour, so we weren’t enough for more than 3 (but the most superb of the 6 available): the famous descent through the tunnel in the pool with sharks and 2 of the highest (one of them - 4 seconds of free fall). A cool attraction is a mountain river that runs along the perimeter of the territory of the entire water park - you sit on a bagel and go with the flow, periodically falling into small waterfalls, and in one place there is a large artificial wave. Highly recommend visiting! Prices in the water park Mom Do not Cry - 13dir. a half-liter bottle of water (not even worth a dirham in a store), so it seems to me more profitable to pay another 25 dir. and get a ticket with a set lunch. The water park is open from 10 am until sunset.
On the way to the hotel, problems with getting there again began (an incredible line for a taxi), so we took a monorail - like a separate metro line (even the metro from Atlantis is expensive - 15 dir. one way, and it’s only along the Palm Jumeirah). Masha Efrosinina and her family rode with us on the monorail. Having left, we walked long and tediously with all the tourists along the slope (because there was no footpath along the highway) to the nearest traffic light, then a few more blocks on foot, and only then we managed to stop a taxi.
In general, there are a lot of taxis here, but on New Year's Eve and especially in places of congestion of tourists, there were serious interruptions with them. Taxis are mostly kamryukhi, 3dir. landing and further on the counter. We traveled decently on them and at the same time they never got into the fact that they tried to drive us in circles, which pleases. Once we were driving a snow-white handsome Lexus (we didn’t even immediately realize that it was a taxi, because
there are no identification marks), the landing there is more expensive (7.5dir. ), And the meter is the same. Taxi is the most popular and convenient mode of transport. We didn’t go by bus, but the stops themselves are just a feast for the eyes (cute and air-conditioned). We didn’t manage to ride the metro (it’s elevated here) - when we decided to go on it, it was Friday (they have days off Fri and Sat), and it only started working from 13.00. By the way, the metro station is very close to the hotel.
The city is really huge, and everything that seems close is actually not so close. So, it takes about 30 minutes to walk to Dubai Mall from our hotel, and even past the construction site (by taxi 10 dir. ). On the New Year itself, no one undertook to take us because of the incredible traffic jams in this area, and we ourselves would not really like to meet the holiday in a traffic jam - we went on foot like pretty ones. To the sea from the window of the restaurant it seems like a stone's throw, but in fact 7 km.
It should also be noted the unsuitability for pedestrian walks (sometimes the complete absence of sidewalks), frantic traffic interchanges and high-speed highways (sometimes even with dividers), from which it becomes clear that the city itself is not very well suited for walking, but still walking it takes a lot. Therefore, I advise you to take only mega-comfortable shoes.
I flew through Kyiv, because 2 other members of our company were from there. There by train 175 UAH. , from the South Station to Boryspil bus 25 UAH. , back by minibus directly from Boryspil 400 UAH. (there are taxi offices in terminal B that organize such transportation), because we arrived late, and I didn’t smile at all at the airport waiting for the first autoluxury to Odessa, although I booked a seat on it just in case. For the rest of the inhabitants of Odessa, I would recommend a flight, of course, from us.
As for knowledge of languages, the school curriculum is quite enough to get everything you need. All three of us, practically without knowledge of the language, did not experience any serious difficulties. The hotel has a Russian administrator girl, the concierge speaks pretty decently, and there is an Egyptian in the spa. Many stores met Russian and Russian-speaking sellers. As a last resort, for those who do not know English at all, there are a dime a dozen tourists from the former USSR around who will help translate. For those who are nostalgic, there is Russcon Radio - Dubai.
In general, everyone was satisfied with the rest, but unanimously decided that Dubai is still not the place where you want to return again and again. A week is enough to gasp and wonder at all these modern wonders of the world and get a little tan. The trip budget was 1.5 thousand rubles. $ including getting to Kyiv and small souvenirs.
At the same time, as can be seen from my story, not especially fattening, but not infringing on myself in anything. What could have made our trip more enjoyable is a change in timing - I don't think I would want to go somewhere again during the New Year's commotion. I would also like to go to some cool disco (although I very rarely do this here), but, unfortunately, the team did not support me.
I would be glad if my review will help someone navigate when choosing a trip to Dubai : )
