I promised I'd do a little trip report from our recent trip to Dubai and the Seychelles so here goes.
First stop was Ras al-Khaimah which is an Emirate about an hour from Dubai.
In both Ras al-Khaimah and Dubai we stayed at the Waldorf. Here's a video of the room in RAK which was a free upgrade I think.
This is a really fantastic hotel and it was a great start in terms of settling into the relaxation mode of a holiday. I think we were only there for two nights, which was probably enough as I don't think there's a whole pile to do in Ras al-Khaimah itself. The hotel had a good few options in terms of food and drink alright.
There are too pool areas, the one we spent most of our time in was an adults only area which is a nice touch, the other pool was roasting hot presumably from kids pissing in it. Had to suffer it on one occasion as they foolishly had the in-pool bar thing at the kiddies pool.
The adult pool area had these cabana things which are essentially double beds covered over to keep the sun off you. The staff would come along every so often to give you bottles of water and bits of fruit, which again was a nice touch.
Here's a pic I took of sunset from one of those cabanas one evening. Apologies for the leg.
For some reason I don't seem to have gotten any pics of the room in the Waldorf in Dubai itself. Here's one I took from outside it one night, which I thought looked kind of cool.
Again, a very nice hotel. Very opulent and luxurious. The location is on the Palm so you're close to things like the Aquaventure water park and the Atlantis where they do this crazy 'brunch' piss up thing.
We partook in both activities. The water park was good fun but you'd want to be careful not to get fucking scalded as you don't feel the heat as much when you're floating around in a rubber ring jobby.
The brunch is chaos. You pay like €130 a head to go into this massive room which has all you eat foods of all sorts, and then all you can drink to go along with it. We got absolutely shitfaced. I kind of felt it ended up being the low point of the trip which is a sign of rapidly encroaching decrepitude I suppose.
Possibly the best thing about the hotel in Dubai was the amazing view our room had. I took this picture at sunrise the morning we packed up to head to the Seychelles, which I think gives a good idea of it.
I spent a lot of time just sitting on the balcony staring at the Burj Khalifa with a weird feeling that was like awe mixed with a sort of Lovecraftian horror at the sheer scale of the fucker. It's an unbelievably striking sight, at least it is to me.
Because I was so taken with the building, I insisted we go in to have a look at it. We originally planned to go up it which the internet told me we could do for around thirty quid, but when we got there some guy in a suit tried to shake us down for over a hundred quid a head and you don't even get to go right to the top. GTFO obviously. TBH I think it was a good decision in retrospect as I think you'd get more out looking up at it from outside than you would standing on top of it looking out at a desert. IDK.
I took a video which I felt was somewhat humorous:
That evening we did this trip called the 'Heritage Desert Safari'. This involved being driven out into the middle of the desert onto a nature reserve on the land of some Sheikh or other. For some reason I wasn't really expecting the desert to be so 'deserty' but you had to hand it to the place, it fills its brief well:
You can just see the back of one of the jeeps they drive you around in - they stick you all in the back of these 1950’s Land Rovers, which sounds like a laugh but realistically it's hot as fuck and you get a serious amount of sand in your eyes.
When you get out there they have various things set up to edify and delight. The first was a falconry display which tbf was a bit shite. Then they bring you to this recreated traditional Bedouin camp where they have hookah pipes, camel riding, a traditional dinner and stuff like that. They threw us up on the back of a camel for a few minutes as well which was good craic. It was a bit disconcerting that very shortly later they dished us up plates of grub that included camel meat, but you get over it. Camel is surprisingly delicious by the by.
The undoubted highlight of this excursion was at about 10.30pm, when it had gotten properly dark. At this point they took us out of the camp a ways and gave us a fabulous little astronomy talk, pointing out various constellations, giving their history etc. At the end they had a big telescope set up and brought us up one by one. In you peek and there's might Saturn looking back at you, rings and all - a marvellous experience.
The subtext to this entire day was that it happened to be the Sunday of the All Ireland semi-final. I had been worried that I might not even be able to get text messages out in the desert but the reception held up pretty well and my old man kept me up to speed. I broke off from the tour at several points to take calls and I must have looked a state because the tour guide asked Niamh was someone belonging to me after dying or something.
If you want evidence of this I present the following two exhibits.
Exhibit A - one hour before the start of the minor match:
Exhibit B - injury time:
Fuck it anyway.
Overall, I must say I enjoyed our time in the UAE far more than I expected to. The hotel in RAK was a perfect start, and Dubai is a very cool place, albeit expensive as mortal sin.
First stop was Ras al-Khaimah which is an Emirate about an hour from Dubai.
In both Ras al-Khaimah and Dubai we stayed at the Waldorf. Here's a video of the room in RAK which was a free upgrade I think.
This is a really fantastic hotel and it was a great start in terms of settling into the relaxation mode of a holiday. I think we were only there for two nights, which was probably enough as I don't think there's a whole pile to do in Ras al-Khaimah itself. The hotel had a good few options in terms of food and drink alright.
There are too pool areas, the one we spent most of our time in was an adults only area which is a nice touch, the other pool was roasting hot presumably from kids pissing in it. Had to suffer it on one occasion as they foolishly had the in-pool bar thing at the kiddies pool.
The adult pool area had these cabana things which are essentially double beds covered over to keep the sun off you. The staff would come along every so often to give you bottles of water and bits of fruit, which again was a nice touch.
Here's a pic I took of sunset from one of those cabanas one evening. Apologies for the leg.
SPOILER
For some reason I don't seem to have gotten any pics of the room in the Waldorf in Dubai itself. Here's one I took from outside it one night, which I thought looked kind of cool.
SPOILER
Again, a very nice hotel. Very opulent and luxurious. The location is on the Palm so you're close to things like the Aquaventure water park and the Atlantis where they do this crazy 'brunch' piss up thing.
We partook in both activities. The water park was good fun but you'd want to be careful not to get fucking scalded as you don't feel the heat as much when you're floating around in a rubber ring jobby.
The brunch is chaos. You pay like €130 a head to go into this massive room which has all you eat foods of all sorts, and then all you can drink to go along with it. We got absolutely shitfaced. I kind of felt it ended up being the low point of the trip which is a sign of rapidly encroaching decrepitude I suppose.
Possibly the best thing about the hotel in Dubai was the amazing view our room had. I took this picture at sunrise the morning we packed up to head to the Seychelles, which I think gives a good idea of it.
SPOILER
I spent a lot of time just sitting on the balcony staring at the Burj Khalifa with a weird feeling that was like awe mixed with a sort of Lovecraftian horror at the sheer scale of the fucker. It's an unbelievably striking sight, at least it is to me.
Because I was so taken with the building, I insisted we go in to have a look at it. We originally planned to go up it which the internet told me we could do for around thirty quid, but when we got there some guy in a suit tried to shake us down for over a hundred quid a head and you don't even get to go right to the top. GTFO obviously. TBH I think it was a good decision in retrospect as I think you'd get more out looking up at it from outside than you would standing on top of it looking out at a desert. IDK.
I took a video which I felt was somewhat humorous:
That evening we did this trip called the 'Heritage Desert Safari'. This involved being driven out into the middle of the desert onto a nature reserve on the land of some Sheikh or other. For some reason I wasn't really expecting the desert to be so 'deserty' but you had to hand it to the place, it fills its brief well:
SPOILER
You can just see the back of one of the jeeps they drive you around in - they stick you all in the back of these 1950’s Land Rovers, which sounds like a laugh but realistically it's hot as fuck and you get a serious amount of sand in your eyes.
When you get out there they have various things set up to edify and delight. The first was a falconry display which tbf was a bit shite. Then they bring you to this recreated traditional Bedouin camp where they have hookah pipes, camel riding, a traditional dinner and stuff like that. They threw us up on the back of a camel for a few minutes as well which was good craic. It was a bit disconcerting that very shortly later they dished us up plates of grub that included camel meat, but you get over it. Camel is surprisingly delicious by the by.
The undoubted highlight of this excursion was at about 10.30pm, when it had gotten properly dark. At this point they took us out of the camp a ways and gave us a fabulous little astronomy talk, pointing out various constellations, giving their history etc. At the end they had a big telescope set up and brought us up one by one. In you peek and there's might Saturn looking back at you, rings and all - a marvellous experience.
The subtext to this entire day was that it happened to be the Sunday of the All Ireland semi-final. I had been worried that I might not even be able to get text messages out in the desert but the reception held up pretty well and my old man kept me up to speed. I broke off from the tour at several points to take calls and I must have looked a state because the tour guide asked Niamh was someone belonging to me after dying or something.
If you want evidence of this I present the following two exhibits.
Exhibit A - one hour before the start of the minor match:
SPOILER
Exhibit B - injury time:
SPOILER
Fuck it anyway.
Overall, I must say I enjoyed our time in the UAE far more than I expected to. The hotel in RAK was a perfect start, and Dubai is a very cool place, albeit expensive as mortal sin.
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