Hey everyone, I hope you are well? For today’s blog post I thought that I would share with you my trip to Dubai back in November 2021. As I mentioned in my last post we had decided to book a holiday abroad back in August 2021 as I knew that I would be leaving my previous job at the end of October. We chose Dubai as it was one of the only hot places at that time of year and it also wasn’t too far to travel by plane. Mum and I had been to Dubai before but that was about 12 years ago so a lot has changed since then. We weren’t sure right up until we got to the airport if we were able to go due to the testing requirements at the time. We had to take a PCR test at the airport up to 72 hours before our flight and then we had to wait for our results. We went to Heathrow the Friday before as we were flying out on the following Monday.
Luckily both of our tests came back negative on the Monday we traveled to the airport by tube as it’s only 45 minutes from where we live on the Piccadilly line. We then had to queue up and show all the various different documents such as our vaccine certification and our PCR results. We made sure to leave enough time for this as it definitely took a bit longer than the usual time it would take to check in. We could finally rest once we were through security as we knew that we were finally going on holiday then.
We paid to go into one of the lounges as we hadn’t been away in two years so this holiday was a big treat for us and we wanted to go all out. We were flying with Emirates which is one of the best airlines in my opinion. I have flown with them before to go to New Zealand and their service was amazing so I knew that our flights would be good. The flight to Dubai was about 6 hours long which meant that we had one meal on the flight. I managed to watch two of the Pirates Of The Caribbean films as well as Ratatouille and The Princess and The Frog. I usually can’t sleep on flights so I tend to stay awake and watch films for the duration instead.
We landed in Dubai about midnight and then had to go through passport control and everything before getting our transfer to our hotel. As we weren’t staying in Dubai our transfer took about an hour and 45 minutes which was tiring when all you wanted to do was go to sleep. However, we had a really lovely driver who got us there safely and as quickly as he could. Once we arrived we checked in to the hotel and then they took us to our room on a golf buggy as the hotel was so big. By this time it was about two in the morning so I jumped into the shower quickly as we had been traveling all day and I felt really gross so I wanted to feel all clean before getting into bed.
We stayed at the DoubleTree by Hilton Resort & Spa Marjan Island which was a massive hotel. Our room was about a five-minute walk from the pool and main hotel but it was a quiet area of the hotel which we liked. On our first day, we didn’t do much at all except sit around by the pool and get our bearings around the hotel. For lunch, I got a chicken shawarma wrap and my mum got a pepperoni pizza which were both really good. It was really nice just to sit by the pool and read a book after two years of not being able to travel abroad. The Dubai heat is definitely something else as we came inside around midday as it was so hot.
The hotel had nine different places to eat so for our first dinner we decided to try out Vespa which was an Italian restaurant. For starters, we got the antipasti which we ate with bread and some olive paste. For our mains, I got the seafood pasta and my Mum got the lasagne. Both were delicious and were a great choice for our first dinner of the holiday. After dinner, we went for a quick walk around the hotel before we headed back to our room to watch some TV before getting an early night as we were both still exhausted from the traveling the day before.
The next few days were pretty much the same as our first day we spent a lot of time by the pool as well as trying out the different restaurants. We started to get into a routine where we would get up and go for breakfast in the main restaurant. Then we would sit around the pool for a few hours before having lunch which was usually a salad as we tended to eat more at breakfast and dinner. After a bit more time by the pool, we then went back to the room for a few hours to get out of the sun but also so that we could get ready for the evening. The next restaurant that we tried was the Brasserie where I had surf and turf and my mum had a lamb shank. I also treated myself to a pudding which was a crème brûlée.
The food at the hotel was of a good quality and we never had any issues with it and the staff were so friendly as well and were always so attentive. As our hotel was about an hour and a half outside of Dubai we mostly stayed at the hotel. We did go into Dubai on two days which I will cover in part two but we mostly wanted to rest and relax by the pool or on the beach. As we hadn’t been away in so long you almost forget how to relax but it was so nice to not have to rush anywhere.
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