The last part of the blog about the trip to Dubai can be found here. The first part can be found here, while the second part can be found here.
Day
8 – Dubai Marina / The Palm Jumeirah
The
heat is pretty exhausting so we didn’t do much this morning again,
we just chilled at the pool. When we were finished chilling we went
to Dubai Marina, a part of new Dubai. A nice spot with a lot of high
buildings, water, big boats, sun, a boulevard with palm trees,
expensive cars and a beach, it has a Miami feel about it. After
some walking around we visited the Marina Mall to hide from the
sweltering heat and at 17:00 we hopped on a ferry that shows you a
bit of Dubai Marina and The Palm Jumeirah, one of the artificial Palm
islands Dubai has. Due to a sandstorm the sea was pretty rough this
day so the crew decided the ferry could not go around the Palm island
and sadly we had to go back halfway instead. Nevertheless, the tour
was nice, with great views and puking kids.
 |
| Dubai Marina. |
 |
| Dubai Marina. |
 |
| Dubai Marina. |
 |
| The Palm Atlantis |
After
the roundtrip with the ferry we took the metro back to the hotel,
quickly freshened up, changed clothes and took a cab to the Atlantis
Hotel on the Palm, where we had a 8 o’clock diner reservation at
Nobu, a world-renowned Japanese restaurant. When we arrived at the
Atlantis Hotel there were a lot of doorkeepers at the entrance, the
cab doors were opened for us, we were greeted like celebrities and
the place was filled with people that looked pretty wealthy. It was a
really weird experience, the hotel was extremely luxurious and we
were treated as if we had a lot of money to spend. And we had to
spend some money since the dinner at Nobu was more expensive than the
food on all the other days together. The food was nice, but nothing
really special. After dinner we stayed at the Atlantis hotel for a
while since there is quite a lot to see although you have to be a
hotel guest for most parts. We decided to take the monorail to get
off the Palm but unfortunately it had just left when we got there so
we went back to the Atlantis hotel and got a cab to the Mall of the
Emirates where we walked around a bit.
 |
| The Palm Atlantis. |
 |
| The Palm Atlantis. |
 |
| Dinner at Nobu. |
 |
| In case you're short of gold, use this machine. |
Day
9 – Burj Al Arab / Dubai Mall / Burj Khalifa
Since
we had to check out at 11:00 and our flight would leave at 0:50 in
the night we took it quite easy in the morning in order not to make
it a super long day. After leaving our stuff over at the hotel we
took a taxi to Burj Al Arab to see world's first 7-star hotel. We
walked from the entrance of Burj Al Arab (where you are not allowed
to get in without some sort of reservation), around Wild Wadi to the
beach where we walked a little and took the standard pics with Burj
Al Arab. Afterwards we hailed a cab back to Mall of the Emirates
where we grabbed some food and took the metro to the Dubai Mall.
Quite a walk from the metrostation to the mall actually, but it
wouldn't be Dubai if they're quite busy constructing something. And
besides that, we missed the fact there are busses going to the mall
:') But thanks to the sandstorm it cooled down a little so the
weather is nothing to complain about and the views of the Burj
Khalifa and other buildings are stunning, so walking isn't exactly a
punishment. Entering Dubai Mall really showed why this is the biggest
mall in the world, 1200 shops, all kinds of entertainment you can
probably wish, a olympic-size icehockeyrink and so on. I think you
could easily spend 2 days in here, but we only had about ½. We had
booked a visit to At The Top (Burj Khalifa's observationdeck) at
17:30 in order to see the city by daylight and night (sunset was at
about 18:30ish). Due to the sandstorm we couldn't enjoy the best
views however and it was quite boring up there so we couldn't be
bothered for the sun to set. So we went back down and grabbed some
food at the gigantic supermarket at the mall and had a sort of dinner
outside while watching the Dubai Fountain. After checking out the
souk next to the Mall we headed back to get our suitcases at the
hotel and took the Dubai Metro for the last time, for our 45 mins
trip directly to the airport. After some taxfree shopping and a last
beer we were ready for boarding and the flight back to Amsterdam!
Day
10 – Flying back
A
pretty decent flight with some sleep brought us back home to Schiphol
before schedule. After waiting 50 minutes for a train, while having
breakfast we could get back to Utrecht, get into a (by Dubai
standards) very expensive taxi, and into bed for some more sleep, the
holiday was over :(