TRAVEL BLOG December 4th, 2021 - DUBAI

12/4/21- There’s so much to do in Dubai that a few days is not enough. It’s a massive city with several business epicenters and a lot of little things to do. I would say for anyone planning to do the whole shebang, spend at least a week. It also feels very safe, although my tour guide yesterday did try to pawn off his hundred dollar US bills to me for half price. I stayed clear of that scam.

Had plenty of sleep and feel refreshed for a full day of the city. We leave around 11am and take the metro five stops before calling an UBER the rest of the way to canal. Here we cross the twisted bridge which looks amazing, and stroll on the boardwalk. The heat was smacking us a bit but the wind cooled us off, especially in the shade. After about an hour we realize we are nowhere near any cars and have to walk back a bit to call another UBER to take us to the city center.

We get dropped off at the Burj Khalifa (which we call the big tall one) and are amazed at how much taller it is compared to the surrounding buildings. Standing at over 2,716 feet high, it's the tallest building in the world at more than double the height of the Empire State Building. This place is ridiculously high. We already have our pre-paid tickets for later, so we spend the few hours remaining roaming the area, getting food and enjoying the indoor aquarium at the mall. Also went looking for a new lens cap for my Canon camera as I lost mine on day one in the seaplane, but none of the stores carried the size I needed.

When 4pm rolls around, we're able to skip the line with our VIP tickets (we decided to splurge since when are we coming back to Dubai) and head straight into the lounge. From there we take an express elevator to the 125^th floor, get on another elevator to the 148^th floor (VIPs only) and are greeted with coffee and snacks as soon as we come in. The views are absolutely amazing and dwarf all of the surrounding buildings by far.

We are only supposed to be on that deck for thirty minutes before mingling in with the common folks on the 125^th floor that purchased a regular ticket, but we stay there for about two hours waiting for the sun to set and it was worth it. After getting some night shots, we take the elevator back to the bottom and head outside to catch the fountain show. If you’ve ever been to Vegas then most likely you caught something similar at the Bellagio. Well, this one is much more elaborate.

Our feet are now exhausted as this is the most walking we’ve done on our trip so far. We use what AED cash we had left to buy food for tonight and tomorrow morning and head back to the hotel. Our flight leaves extremely early and most likely won’t be able to get much sleep. Stay tuned!

Our hotel reception prints off our PCR results so we have a handheld copy to show the airline. This PCR test was a bit worrisome earlier as they said the results would be given to us within 24 hours, well on the 25^th hour we were up in the “big tall one” and had to call for them to email. I was slightly concerned that somehow we had tested positive and were delaying the results to make sure, especially since I felt a slight headache coming on, but it turns it out it was all in my head- Ba Dum Ching!