After recharging our batteries, we found ourselves on our way to a brief two day stopover in Dubai. It was one of those “since we are going to be in the area, we should stop in” kind of trips. There are limited options to get from India to Africa where we were rejoining the ship so we had to pass through Dubai and elected to at least check it out.
Our first stop in Dubai was the Burj Khalifa. It’s only the tallest building in the world….and not by a little. It stretches 2,700 feet up into the sky, and seen from a distance, it looks spectacularly out of place with all the “small” 50-story buildings around it. We rode up to the observation deck at about 1,500 ft, which is tclosing in on the height of the next tallest building in the world – the CN Tower (including its radio tower). The Burj Khalifa is actually 50% taller than the number 2 building a huge leap in height. From the observation deck you could see many miles around. And we learned that sunset from the observation deck occurs something like 7 minutes after sunset on the ground due to it’s extreme height.
Surrounding the building is one of the world’s largest and busiest shopping malls. Within the mall there were no fewer than 3 Starbucks and somewhere around a dozen international coffee shop chain stores in the Mall. In addition to all of the other restaurants, clothing stores, book stores there was also a skating rink and an aquarium. The Mall allegedly attracts more visitors (65 million) than any other site in the world, surpassing NYC (52 million) in 2012. It is also home to a spectacular water show that runs several times a day.
After our trip up the tower and the next morning, we did the requisite shopping, dining and sightseeing around the area. In the afternoon we set off to check out the Old Dubai, visiting the Old Souk (market), a couple of museums and the Gold Souk. Our trip happened to coincide with the heaviest rainfall in Dubai that anyone could remember, resulting in flooding in parts of the city. After fighting our way through the aggressive sellers in the Old Souk, we caught a water taxi across Dubai Creek to the Gold Souk. If you ever wondered where most of the world’s gold is, it’s not in Fort Knox anymore – it’s in the gold market in Dubai. Apparently there is a tradition in the Middle east concerning regularly buying gold, and that it needs to be new gold. We never did get much information on this or whether repurposed gold was OK, but we certainly saw incredible amounts of gold in the shops in Dubai. Unbelievable amounts. Like “Willy Wonka chocolate factory” amounts of gold. We ended our day at the Emirates Mall, which is best known for its indoor ski hill – yes, real snow, real skiers.
We spent our second night in Dubai at Atlantis, about as fantastic a hotel as you could want to stay in. Packed to the gills with people, shops, restaurants and even a giant aquarium full of everything from sharks to stingrays to school of fish. However the highlight of Atlantis is the attached waterpark, built in the same style as its sister park in the Bahamas. That was the highlight of our last day in Dubai. We spent most of our day exploring the rides in the water park including a very steep “gravity” fall that Christy and Ryan did. Christy also braved a ride where a trap door opened beneath her and she fell directly down into the water slide tube. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough momentum (ie weight) to carry her through the loop de loop and she got stuck partway down the ride!Dubai is certainly an interesting place. We saw the full range of Islamic life from women without headscarves to the man who had four wives (fully veiled) and his children following behind him. And we saw more shopping and gold than we had ever seen in our lives before. In our opinion, the two full days we had there were plenty to see the main things we wanted to see. If you add a day in the desert, maybe you could extend to three days but, unless you love to shop, two days was plenty of time to get a feel for Dubai.