Tag Archives: Dubai

Ferrari World – Day 40

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Today as with every day we slept in until 0930. We quickly got organised and went downstairs for breakfast. The same boring breakfast. Looking forward to my Sultana Bran again when I get home. After breakfast we came back to the room and collected our stuff for Ferrari World. We waited down stairs for our driver to pick us up.

The driver arrived on time and we got into the van. The drive to Ferrari World was about an hours drive. I passed the time publishing blog posts and looking up a new camera online. Didn’t get far. We arrived at Ferrari World at 12pm. We agreed to meet the driver again at the entrance at 5pm. That gave us five hours to explore. I figured this would be long enough.

We entered the gates and started exploring. The first ride we went on was the slow kiddies roller coaster. It only goes up to 96kph. It is actually two roller coasters that race each other around. Rhian spent the entire two minutes of the ride with her eyes shut telling me she hates me. So not really any different to any other day of the trip. There are a number of rides which you basically sit in a car that travells along a track. It takes you through different rooms and projected on screens are short videos of Ferrari history and Formula 1 winnings. We went on a large number of these. Both Rhian and I did the Scuderua Challenge. This is your normal Xbox video game but you drive a Ferrari against eight other people and your in a small simulator. The simulator is on a small platform the moves around. The game lasts for maybe five minutes.

I paid an extra $100 dirham for a go on the Formula 1 siumulator. I had to wait an hour and a half to go on the simulator. This gave us time for some of the other rides and activities. The simulator is a mock of a F1 cockpit. It is on a platform that raises into the air and is probably 80% that of a real Formula 1 simulator. What I didn’t like is that the charastics of the simulator were more like an arcade version of a video game. It didn’t quite feel like a simulator. However what did feel real was the brutality of the braking, gear changes and acceleration. The movements of the simulator when your driving were brutal. Never been in a simulator that gives you that sense of realism. I’m sure a real F1 car is much more harsh. You can’t simulate the G Force that you would experience though. However the experience only lasts fiuve minutes and I only got one lap of the Yas Marina circut completed. 2:11.064

One of the activities was an interactive game show. The gist is that you have fours rounds. Each round you watch a short video then answer a multiple choice question about the video. You have three coloured buttons on your seats arm rest. Each button relates to one of the question answers. After each round the person who answers the question correctly the fastest gets to go down on the stage to compete in a play off. The whole thing seemed to be a bit rigged as one of the winners appeared to be a seat that had no one in it.

5pm came around and Rhian bought one of the photos of me in the simulator and I bought a Ferrari World magnet. We meet our driver and were driven back to our hotel. Once arriving back at the hotel we tried to call home and wish dad a happy birthday but skype didn’t want to play. We gave up on Skype and sent an SMS. We didn’t eat all day at Ferrari World and I was hungry.

We walked across the road to the massive mall and had dinner in the food court. I got indian and it was yum. Rhian got burger and chips. The chocolate shake was good though. After dinner we walked around the store and I bought some new shorts. We checked out the Virgin Megastore but it wasn’t very mega. It was expensive and had nothing different to anywhere else.

We then checked out Ski Dubai which is the snow field in the store. Our plan is to visit it tomorrow. It was getting late now so we came back to the hotel to go to bed. Neither of us could sleep and we watched some weird nonsense movie called Children Of The Corn. All I could make of it was the children are some cult that just killed all adults they came into contact with. After the movie we watched a comedy act we had on the tablet. By now it was 0130 and figured we should try and sleep. Day two in Dubai done.
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Dubai – Day 39

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Today is our first day in Dubai. As with most days since the tour we slept in. Well Rhian does and because I can do nothing else I end up sleeping in too. We managed to get downstairs just before 10am when the breakfast is cut off. The food was nothing fancy and we are both sick of the english breakfast you get everywhere.

After breakfast we crossed the road to the Mall of the Emirates. This is a massive shopping center. It is the one that has the Ski Slope inside. Rhian quickly found the H&M store. She has been able to sniff this place out no matter where we go. Anyway after more than an hour and trying on the entire stores clothes she walked out with only three white tops and two pairs of shorts. We then walked upstairs and had a walk through a few eletrical stores. Again everything here is what you can get at home and the prices are about the same or more. Before leaving we got a quick snack of a buger and a milkshake. Milkshake was ok.

We were booked on a City of Merchants tour at 1430. We walked back across the road to the hotel and dropped Rhians shopping in the room. After double checking the paper work turns out we were not getting picked up until 1445. We waited downstairs in the lobby for the driver to come collect us. Once the driver arrived we took a short ride to a car park in the middle of no where. A number of other cars and busses rocked up. Once everyone arrived we were moved onto a coach which would drive us around the city.

The first half of the tour was a drive around the city telling us about some of the buildings we were passing by. Our first photo stop was at Jumeirah Mosque. I am not sure of the importance of this one but when we arrived a session was about to start so lots of men were filing in through the doors. After the photo stop we got back on the bus and drove for a bit longer passing places like the next leader of the Emrites house. His only 29 years old and has a palace the size of Pepermint Grove. All the signs tell you not to enter or turn around and go back. The second bus stop was at the oldest part of Dubai. It was the first settlement or town of Dubai. We can’t remember the name but the buildings were only 40 years old. After 20 minutes we got back on the bus and drove to our third stop which was the Dubai Museum. This was not a huge musuem but it was interesting.

After the museum we took a short bus ride to the river where we caught a small boat across the river. The boat was like one of the put put boats you get in Hong Kong or Thialand. After the crossing we were at the Spice Markets and Gold Markets. We had around 15 minutes at each market. I got harassed by every Indian for a suit, bags, glasses, watches. Only so many times you can tell someone No Thank You before you just want to punch them in the face. As with all Indians they never wear their own product. It was like being in Bali but people wearing better clothes and speaking good english.

After the markets the group was split into different cars and busses to take us back to our hotel. We were taken in a Holden Statesman rebadged as a Chev. This car had done 117,000 kms but had been kept as though it had just come out of the showroom. For a place which is in the dessert it is amazing how clean 95% of the cars are. Might have something to do with the car cleaners at the shopping mall car park.

After arriving back at the hotel we went for Pizza across the road from the hotel. It is strange over here you can not get a beer anywhere but the hotel bar. Sucks!. With all the foriegn residents (being 70% of them) I don’t understand why it is not more available. After stuffing a whole pizza into my pie hole we came back to the hotel and went to bed.

Day one down.

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London to Dubai – Day 38

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Today is going to be a bording post because we spent it on the plane. Her it goes. Our alarm went off at 0315. This sucked because we only went to be at midnight. Rhian hates being woken up period. Neverlone after just a few hours. Always makes for a plesant start to the day. We showered and got ourselves organised. After checking three times we had everything we locked the suitcases. We prebooked a transfer to the airport from the hotel. Rhian was sick of carrying her suitcase up and down stairs at the train station so we paid $80 AUD for the transfer.

Once we arrived at the airport we checked inn our bags at the baggage drop then proceeded upstairs to security. Again my carry on bag got pulled aside at security. This time it was because I left the nazel spray in the bag and not in the clear plastic bags. It was only 30ml and so was under the limit. Either way I got my bag emptied and everything swiped for drugs. Came back clean.

After getting my carry on bag repacked we headed through the terminal. Nothing special here is just the same old duty free stores . Rhian had a wonder through Harrods but didn’t buy anything. We found a small cafe for breakfast. A Mocha and crumpet. After breakfast we wondered around a bit more waiting for the terminal screen to tell us what gate our flight would be at. Three minutes after it was meant to it updated and told us our gate was open at gate 9. This was good mean we didn’t have too far to walk.

We had good seats on this flight. Only a few rows from the front door of the plane on the bottom deck. I got the window seat and because of the curve at the front of the plane I had extra room on the left next to the window. After take off my ears played up and the whole words started spinning again. It lasted for about 10 – 15 minutes. I think it is because I got a little bit of a cold back over the last couple of days. Either way things settled down. After breakfast was served. Which sucked. I ended up eating some of it but soon as I was done I fell asleep for a couple hours. The rest of the flight I was still a little bit dopey. Wasn’t until the last couple of hours of the flight I watched anything on the TV.

We landed twenty minutes early. After landing we had to get a lift downstairs then a train to another terminal or building. It took at least half an hour or more for our bags to come out to the baggage claim. Ours were some of the last. We walked through the terminal and went through immergration. Was painless experience. We also walked through customs no issues there either. I found the desk from who I wanted to get the SIM card for the tablet from. However they said it would take an hour or more to reboot the computer so I left it. We got some local currency out of an ATM and then found our desk where they would arrange our hotel tranfer. However right next to it was another local mobile company and I asked them about a local sim. For only $40 AUD I got the simcard and 1GB of data. Should be enough for the week. After switching the sim card over they setup the tablet to work on the network. Mobile data before we even left the airport. I was happy.

By now our hotel transfer was ready. They lead us through the terminal and to a waiting car. All the cars over here are nice. You do not see a shitbox on the road over here. Ii was about half an hour to get to our hotel. We had a nice driver who seemed Indian but spoke english. He told us all the buildings and places we were passing on the way. We arrived at our hotel and this time it was booked under my name. Actually had on the hotel paperwork Mr Rzepecki and party :P. we got checked in and a porter brought our bags to the room. This is only a three star hotel. I knew less meant more in Dubai

After settling into the room we went downstairs to the bar and grill. I had a few Heineken and Rhian finally had a few drinks too. She was actually drinking cocktails. It has taken six weeks but she finally had a drink. We also had dinner at the grill. After 9pm a band came on stage. They were ok so we stayed for a couple other drinks. After enough drinks and food to explode we came back to the room and passed out after a long day.

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