We’re taking you to the opulent city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates! As always we are giving some tips for navigating the city, what you can expect from norms and cultural differences, the low down on the bathroom situation, and the inside scoop and all the best things to do in Dubai on your trip!

In episode 32 we talk about all things Dubai travel including:

• Dubai travel tips
• Holw many days in Dubai are needed
• Transportation in Dubai
• What to wear in Dubai

Where to stay in Dubai:

• Atlantis the Palm
• Burj Al Arab – the only 7 star hotel in the world!

Top things to do in Dubai:

• Aquaventure Waterpark at Atlantis The Palm
• Lost Chamber Aquarium at Atlantis The Palm 
• Dubai Desert Camel Trek
• Walk the Dubai Marina
• See the Burj Khalifa – the tallest building in the world

Where to eat and drink in Dubai

• Osiano 9 course tasting experience
• Hakkasan Dubai!!! (We actually went this time!)
• The Dubai Mall food court for literally every type of cuisine
• The Coffee Club on the marina

Things to do in Dubai – Episode Transcript

3 (57s):
Welcome to this weeks episode of the Travel Squad podcast. Today, we’re taking you to the opulent middle Eastern metropolis of Dubai.

4 (1m 8s):
Dubai, Dubai reminded us of the United States, but for those surrounding countries, it’s a place that seems to reflect opportunity. It’s an Oasis in the middle of the desert for people to go and spend money. And most people that we found to be out there weren’t even from the United Arab Emirates themselves, they were all really more foreign workers.

1 (1m 31s):
Do you buy is such an extravagant place to be. I really didn’t know what to expect, but it’s hard to believe that there’s so much city in the middle of the desert,

2 (1m 39s):
Dubai. It’s really kind of like Vegas of the middle east. And they’re both in the desert. So look at that, but it’s without alcohol and gambling and you can’t walk anywhere. And I think Jamal said it best at one point when we were in a taxi, he said, yeah, I feel like I’m looking at a fake city in a movie. And that’s exactly what it looks like.

4 (1m 57s):
Yeah. You know, there’s so many tall buildings and it’s not even the fact that there’s buildings. They just really had weird designs. It almost looked like a comic book, but not, it was just really weird how to describe the way the buildings looked. It was awesome. But

3 (2m 13s):
Yes

4 (2m 13s):
You did. Yes, you did. That was one of my highlights of the Dubai trip. Kim was your city tour that you gave us when we were at the marina. Yes. Architectural city,

3 (2m 24s):
Some inspiration from when we were in Chicago. But before we get into the buildings, tell me Dubai travel tips, because I know people are dying to know.

1 (2m 33s):
So I think vena really led into it. Well, where she said, it looks like a fake city in a movie and the city is just super spread out and you can’t walk anywhere. And so you have to take a taxi or another rideshare program, but we actually learned that a taxi is cheaper than taking an Uber.

2 (2m 52s):
Uber cheaper. In fact,

4 (2m 54s):
Uber cheaper to take a taxi over the Uber. But no, what will Brittany was saying about it really spread out. I found it so interesting. It’s like, there’s a specific downtown area, but at the same time, there’s like three or four different downtowns. Like all the skyscrapers are clustered in three or four different sections. So you go from the real downtown to the second downtown and The Dubai marina area, which is almost like a downtown. So everything’s just really far spread out along a straight line, but there’s no way you’re walking it no way whatsoever.

3 (3m 26s):
And people say, it’s the Las Vegas of the middle east in Las Vegas. You can walk everywhere, but in the middle east, in Dubai, not so much.

1 (3m 36s):
Well, I think when we’re referring to it, looking like Vegas, we’re talking about how there’s extravagant buildings and everyone’s out there to impress. And it’s like a very showy place. And that’s what Dubai is doing with all of their wealth and their money with the buildings and the residences and their downtown areas. But I got to say it’s a little less fun than Vegas,

4 (3m 56s):
A little less fun, but it was still definitely fun, but like to what Brittany was saying too, and how I referenced earlier was almost like an America in the sense that yes, there is a lot of foreign workers, people from the area come there for the opportunity to work. But at the same time, like they’re really trying to turn that into the business hub of the mid east in terms of like banking, finance, other types of business ventures. So it’s a big metropolis that’s just meant to be seen and experienced. Another tip to keep in mind though, is everybody speaks English. So even though Arabic is the official language of the United Arab Emirates, which Dubai is a part of, like I said, everyone, there truly is a foreign worker.

4 (4m 37s):
So everyone at the same time, I guess the universal language is English. So if you’re in a resort, if you’re out in public and the malls or anywhere else, you’re all going to be speaking English, not even really Arabic,

2 (4m 50s):
But everything is going to be in Arabic and English for signs,

4 (4m 53s):
Of course. But in terms of just general speaking out in public, like you don’t really have to worry about brushing up on a few key phrases. I mean, I know we always say that it’s respectful, but I felt like we really didn’t encounter anybody truly who was a local cause everybody out and about doing stuff is a foreign worker of sorts.

1 (5m 10s):
And so although Dubai is a very modern metropolis, they are very reserved in their dress codes and their traditions and their cultures. And so it’s important that since you’re in another country to be respectful of their customs and their culture, so things that we learned was what to wear specifically for females. You can’t show cleavage, you can’t wear short dresses or it’s looked down upon if you do

3 (5m 35s):
Exactly the thing is you can, but you shouldn’t

4 (5m 39s):
Right. There were some people doing it that you saw out in public. Now it’s really interesting about Dubai. There’s like the resort areas of Dubai and the big opulent hotels. And then there’s out in the public, in the resorts areas, pretty much anything goes really, you know, in terms of when we were at the water park at Atlantis, which we’ll to later, they say out there you should really be wearing a one piece modest, but people are wearing bikinis and it’s not really a big deal, but when you’re out in public, they’ll have signs. Even when you’re at the mall, no men and women holding hands women shouldn’t be wearing spaghetti straps or tank tops. They should have their shoulders to an extent covered cleavage covered and not really showing dresses or skirts that are these to the knees. So you can wear those, but I wouldn’t advise doing it just to be respectful.

2 (6m 24s):
Well, I think the thing about this country is it is a Muslim country. And so they’re going by the Muslim principles. So that’s why you’re not finding alcohol out and about, but if you go to a resort, they do have alcohol there or dressing like at a hotel. Anything goes because again, you’re at a resort, whereas once you’re not at the resort, you are in an Islamic country.

1 (6m 45s):
I can’t believe we missed the alcohol in the show notes. You can’t buy alcohol anywhere in Dubai, like at supermarkets or grocery stores or anything like that. The only place you can get alcohol and Dubai is at the resorts or hotels.

2 (6m 60s):
So, okay, let’s talk about how did we get there?

1 (7m 2s):
So we actually went to Dubai from Lebanon. So this was the second half of our middle Eastern trip. So we left Lebanon at around four 15 in the afternoon, and it was about a three hour flight to get into Dubai. And once we landed in Dubai, Dubai was two hours ahead of the time in Lebanon,

3 (7m 22s):
Which means we got almost no sleep,

4 (7m 25s):
Almost no sleep. So we had finally landed in Dubai and we took a taxi from the airport to our hotel, which we were staying at, which was Atlantis at the Palm. Now, if you’re not familiar with what the Palm is, there are two of them in Dubai. And they’ve actually built out into the sea islands that are in the shape of Palm trees. And at the very end of one of those Palm trees, manmade islands is the Atlantis hotel resort.

3 (7m 52s):
My God, this shit was amazing. Was it not?

4 (7m 58s):
It was amazing, but we took the taxi from the airport. And as we mentioned earlier, I had done some research and I just want to throw this out there again, because it really is a good tip. And at one point, Kim even pulled up her Uber later on in the trip in Dubai to really kind of see, and

3 (8m 13s):
You

4 (8m 14s):
Always got to double check, but I read online and it is true. Uber’s are more expensive than taxis. So it’s not like a lot of other countries where taxis are more expensive than Uber’s in Dubai. Always, always, always use a taxi over an Uber. It’s cheap.

3 (8m 28s):
You know, what’s weird though, about taxis, every time we got in had a different number that was already set. So it was either five or eight.

4 (8m 37s):
Those were the, those were the normal ones. Yes. But when we left the airport, it was set at what, 15 or 20 in their local

3 (8m 45s):
Currency rhyme or reason to it.

4 (8m 47s):
But I think at the airport, even here in the United States, there’s always surcharges. When you leave the airport, even with lifts or Uber’s, they charge more when you leave the airport. So I think, yeah. So I think, I think with taxis, it was the same thing, but at the same time, just keep in mind, taxes are going to be cheaper.

1 (9m 4s):
That’s true. So we finally make it to Atlanta. And like we said, the city is so spread out. It took us like 30, 40 minutes to make it from the airport to Atlantis

3 (9m 14s):
A long ass

1 (9m 15s):
Ride. Yeah. It was just like was never ending. And what we did finally make it to Atlantis. And then by this point it’s like 11:00 PM. It is late. Cause we landed at like nine 30. We had to get our bags. We had to hail a taxi. Then we finally make it into Atlanta. It takes a while to check in, but Atlantis is amazing. It is a resort. So they have a pool, they have their private beach restaurants, a water park and aquarium. It is luxury at its finest.

3 (9m 49s):
So we went to the room, we were oohing and aahing at all the fucking amazing perks in our rooms. And

1 (9m 56s):
Then tell us about the room a little bit more. What did

3 (9m 59s):
You want to know about the room? Jacuzzi, tub, green shower, beautiful view slippers, robe

2 (10m 7s):
Coffee, a whole bunch of free coffee,

3 (10m 9s):
Water bottles,

2 (10m 10s):
Which I don’t think now I don’t think Nescafe in the United States is as good as overseas. So they had like an abundance of nest cafe, which is like instant coffee. And it’s a resort. So Kim didn’t bring her. Yeah, super good. Kim didn’t bring her adapter to plug in. So we called downstairs and they brought us two adapters that we can use there because the adopters here are like a ones in

3 (10m 34s):
London.

1 (10m 35s):
Yeah. And they actually told us that we couldn’t drink the water, which is something we should have mentioned in the tip section. We couldn’t drink the water resort,

3 (10m 42s):
Resorting that from Dubai.

1 (10m 44s):
Cause I actually looked it up and it said it was safe to drink. So they actually said no, but they provided us with all of the water we needed in our hotels.

3 (10m 52s):
Can you flush or not flush your toilet paper? I still don’t know. I’m still not sure the jury is out on this.

2 (10m 58s):
Oh, I flushed my toilet paper.

3 (11m 0s):
I did. But then there’s some places that said no.

1 (11m 2s):
Yeah, that’s true.

3 (11m 4s):
Oh, it wasn’t till, I don’t know. I don’t know the official rules.

4 (11m 7s):
And we say this about flushing, the toilet paper, just kind of true. You know, here in the United States, it’s commonplace for us to do stuff like that. But in all other countries that you pretty much visit and buy all, I’m going to equate it to 95% of the countries that I visited outside of the United States. You’re not supposed to flush. So Kim was saying she did it over there. They had signs saying not to, but I think it was okay

3 (11m 29s):
In some places. And in some places they didn’t. So I, I honestly don’t know

1 (11m 34s):
Hotel. They didn’t make it clear if you should flush it down the toilet or not. They also had a bad day in the bathroom too. That’s clutch.

2 (11m 42s):
I love the days

4 (11m 43s):
You just want to

3 (11m 44s):
Live for a day.

4 (11m 45s):
Yeah. The days are nice. I just want to throw out one thing. This resort was quite expensive to stay out. We did it for two reasons. Cause normally, well it was about 375, 3 80 at night if I remember correctly. So quite expensive, no doubt. But we did it for a couple of reasons. One, as we mentioned earlier, Dubai was part two of our trip to the middle east when we were in Lebanon first and since Dana and I are from Lebanon, we had family out there. We stayed, we had a free place to stay. And on top of that, as we mentioned, Dubai is a city of opulence. So we figured while we were there, we have to kind of do it. Right. We saved all the money by not having to get a hotel in Lebanon.

4 (12m 26s):
So we did this as a splurge, which is a very rare splurge for the squad. Usually when it comes to hotels, we’re either going cheap or like mid-grade cause we’re splitting rooms, et cetera. But this time we’re like, no, no, no, we’re in a resort. Let’s get separate rooms. So Zane and Kim were together, there wasn’t

1 (12m 42s):
Even an option for

4 (12m 43s):
Brittany and I were together. Yeah.

1 (12m 44s):
Room for four people. But Jamal and I wanted our own room alone anyways. And what was also awesome about this trip in particular and this room was Jamal. And I have mentioned that we have a travel credit card and we were able to book this room solely on our points. So we paid nothing out of pocket except for the city tax.

4 (13m 4s):
But as nice as the resort was, we could only enjoy it for just a little bit that night. Cause we had to wake up super early for a specific activity. Now we all wanted to do this, but before we left, this was in particular Kim’s pet project on something she said, I definitely want to do. And what did we do again,

3 (13m 21s):
Said, I’m not going to the middle east. So that writing a camel, that’s a non-negotiable for me,

4 (13m 26s):
It sounds so stereotypical. But it’s the truth. I mean, you got to do it. I

3 (13m 30s):
Did not so much fun

4 (13m 31s):
Zayna before we continue on to the story of the camel riding out in Dubai Zayna and I have written camels before, when we were in Lebanon and ball back when we were visiting as a family before, so I’ve already written a cabin, you know, I was younger. I remember it. I don’t remember as much of it. You always appreciate things a lot more when you’re older. So I definitely appreciated this, but the experience was different because we were out in the desert, it was for sunrise and I’ll let one of you ladies discuss it,

3 (13m 59s):
Great name, make this sound that camels do when you sit on them and they try to stand up

4 (14m 8s):
I don’t even know what that was. That didn’t sound like a camel

3 (14m 10s):
Throwing up in their mouth and also like get the fuck off of me.

2 (14m 14s):
They do have like something over their mouth. So they don’t spit. So you are taken care of in that sense. They are

3 (14m 20s):
Made of steel though.

2 (14m 21s):
Yeah. And we didn’t get our own camel. So Kim and I sat on a camel and Brittany and Jamal sat on their own camel,

1 (14m 28s):
But they had two

2 (14m 28s):
Humps. They did. And both camels were tied together. So we had one leader who was taking both camels and all four of us there. And the only reason I sat by Kim was because Brittany wanted to sit by me and I was like, no, man, I’m going to sit by my roommate,

4 (14m 44s):
Her

3 (14m 44s):
Life.

4 (14m 45s):
But before we get too far into it, why don’t you ladies tell us about where we purchased the tickets, how we got picked up. So

1 (14m 51s):
We, this excursion through Vader fighter is a site that you can book excursions on around the world. And all we did was type in Dubai and camels. And so then it brought up a whole list of different excursions that we found one that was about $60. It included transportation, the camel tracking and a traditional breakfast as well.

7 (15m 13s):
And a camel that goes .

4 (15m 19s):
I was going to say, Zane evade, the wave better camel sound than Brittany tried to what he was doing. It was like a guttural like grunt of like, oh, I’m not happy. I mean, I don’t know how to describe it.

7 (15m 31s):
Yeah. Get off me.

1 (15m 36s):
So they picked us up at 5:30 AM and like I said,

3 (15m 40s):
What kind of car?

4 (15m 41s):
It was a really nice Toyota land cruiser. We got picked up on a nice private vehicle pickup from our hotel. He picked us up before sunrise. He took us out there. It’s amazing. You just leave the city. And it takes a long time to finally get to the desert where there’s nothingness out there. Just sand and road. Yeah. And at one point he had to get off of the highway and we pulled off on some sand. He adjusted the gear settings on the vehicle.

3 (16m 8s):
And that point I’ll be honest. Like I didn’t know what was going on. And I had a little panic moment and I was like, well, are we out here? And this guy has pulled over

7 (16m 15s):
This.

4 (16m 16s):
Well, cause we had to go gamble trekking out. So he changed the settings in the vehicle. We did some off-road like vehicle safari and out in the sand dunes of Dubai. And It was actually really fun. And then we got two hours,

3 (16m 34s):
My nap, we got

4 (16m 36s):
Got to the camels.

1 (16m 38s):
Yeah. And it took us like an hour to get from Atlantis to the location we were going to get on the camel that, so it was quite a long drive. And I just want to add that this tour is about a four hour experience. So an hour to get there and then expect to be on the camels for about an hour as well. By the time you get loaded up. Can we talk about that? Getting loaded up

3 (16m 59s):
The loading up experience.

1 (17m 2s):
Yeah. Let’s

4 (17m 3s):
Talk about Kim.

3 (17m 4s):
So camels are kneel down on the ground pretty low. And you have to swoop your leg around. Which for me being a little five, two and a half women, boom. Try to shoot my leg over to the other side. It’s hard. It’s

1 (17m 17s):
Very hard. It’s like mounting, a horse

3 (17m 20s):
Guys are tall, so you probably have easier job, but he’s not.

7 (17m 24s):
I just feel like I’m good at mounting.

1 (17m 31s):
Yeah, it doesn’t surprise me since you’re an Arab that you can mountain camel really well

7 (17m 34s):
I wish you could see Jamal’s piece right now.

3 (17m 45s):
So legs, swift sober, then you’re finally on and it takes a bit to get the leg over. Cause it’s not an easy task. Do you get it over? Boom. Then you hop up on finger and then the camels starts making its noises and you’re like, am I killing it? I don’t know. And then he’s like, okay, lean back. Because the Campbell’s like gonna do this like down and push back thing. And it’s pretty scary. And we have,

1 (18m 9s):
We only get up with like their hind lead first, then their front legs. I think

3 (18m 15s):
It is scary.

4 (18m 15s):
That’s what I was going to say. And Brittany touched on it best their hind legs are what they used to get up first. So when they stand up, you really pushed forward. Not like leaning back.

3 (18m 25s):
He says, hold on, hold on, hold on. Like holding on for dear life because that is how hard you have to hold on. Or you will fall off.

2 (18m 31s):
You’re probably like on an 80% angle leaning forward.

3 (18m 35s):
Camel ride is a pretty good AB workout because the whole time you’re like trying to stabilize it is our

1 (18m 41s):
Yes. So first I got on the camel and I could barely swing my leg over then Jamal got on and then everyone mounts up. Then the guy asks the camels to get up altogether and he’s like, hold on, hold on, hold on, lean back, lean back, lean back. And you’re finally up and you pretty much have to hold off the whole time because if you don’t, your ass just like gets hit every time the camel takes a step. And if you’re not holding on, you can fall

3 (19m 8s):
On it or be written.

4 (19m 10s):
So I just want to say this was a super, super fun experience. By the time we got up and took off, it was still dark right at the cusp of sunrise out in the desert, just such a beautiful experience. But I do want to say one thing. I’ve written a horse once in my life, we’ve talked about on the podcast. It truly wasn’t a horse. It was like a mule. And it was when we were at rainbow mountain in Peru and I’ve written Campbell’s before. And let me just say something, I would do this experience again, but riding animals is not very fun. And you know, people that are equestrians and ride horses and do all that stuff. I’m just like,

3 (19m 43s):
I get a question,

4 (19m 45s):
Like how do you sit on it? Like after 10, 15 minutes, I’m ready to get off because my butt’s sore. I’ve

2 (19m 50s):
Written a

4 (19m 51s):
Donkey. Yeah. I mean, it’s impressive, but I will say this, even though I’m saying that definitely worth the experience, but how people do it as a leisure activity for pleasure. I don’t understand.

1 (20m 2s):
Yeah. So we got to watch the sun rise while we’re writing these camels

4 (20m 6s):
In the desert. Beautiful.

1 (20m 8s):
And then after we are tracking along for a while, he gets to a point where we’re just like surrounded by sand dunes and whatnot, where he asks, if we want our picture taken and the guy that’s leading, the camels takes our phones and he starts doing TAFE photo shoots for

3 (20m 24s):
Us.

1 (20m 25s):
He photo shoots Kim and Zayna and then he photo-shoots Jamal. And I, then he photo shoots the squad together and we’re like, okay, this is cool. This is cool. And this is all the camels are standing. Then we track a little bit further and he tells the camels to get down. And then he gives us another photo shoot in the middle of the desert where he’s like telling us to jump on the sand dunes up in the air. The camels are sitting down so we can take selfies with the camels. He’s hooking it up right now with a fricking photo shoot.

4 (20m 56s):
Hm. Super, super fun out there. But I will say this minus the experience of being out in the Arabian desert for sunrise, which is actually so, so incredible. My other favorite part of this experience was the traditional Bedouin style breakfast that we had out there

3 (21m 14s):
The whole time on the camel. I could not stop singing Aladdin. Oh Raby and

4 (21m 25s):
I

3 (21m 25s):
Couldn’t stop. It was stuck in my head

1 (21m 27s):
Before we get to breakfast. I just want to give two tips. One, when you go that early in the morning for sunrise, bring a light jacket. It’s a little chilly in the morning. And two, you want to wear something cute because you’re gonna take really cute

3 (21m 39s):
Photos a hundred percent,

1 (21m 41s):
But don’t wear a dress it’s not appropriate to Mount a camel and wear a dress

3 (21m 46s):
Mounting. Things in a dress is very hard.

1 (21m 48s):
So I wouldn’t recommend that

2 (21m 50s):
We’re out in the desert, but these are some of the nicest bathrooms that I saw. Like there’s super nice out there.

3 (21m 55s):
Actually we took a video of it. We will post it.

2 (21m 58s):
Yeah. Like it was really nice. I mean the sinks had lights in them and it was marble. So the light was shining through the marble. So I went to the bathroom and then I’m hearing from Kim and Brittany that we’re going to have breakfast. And I’m like, what the fuck is.

1 (22m 16s):
Yeah. And what I read was that it was just going to be like traditional fruits and juices, but it was a full on spread.

3 (22m 23s):
The Chile. Was that not bomb?

4 (22m 25s):
Well, technically wasn’t chilly, but I guess you could equate it to middle Eastern style chili because Well, in the mid east they use a lot of chickpeas, garbanzo beans, other type of beans, fava beans. So I think it was some sort of bean dish with a lot of like middle Eastern seasonings, but it’s not like a true American chili, but I guess that is the best way to describe kind of what it is. But beyond that, we had some delicious fried eggs, tomatoes, cucumbers, bread, lovely, which is a type of like traditional yogurt that they have out there. We had Arabic coffee, some juices. It was absolutely amazing.

4 (23m 5s):
And even if you told them that you were done, they kept bringing more food for you out the back. Oh,

3 (23m 10s):
We love the Chile. And we said, oh no, no, we don’t need any more chili. Boom. Another thing agiley showed up. Same thing with the lead. No where like, oh, we don’t need any more than that now. Bam. Another bullet.

4 (23m 25s):
So I absolutely love the breakfast experience. It honestly did it for me. We were sitting out at a low table sitting at they’re clearly not bean bags, but they’re little, like little fluffy Ottomans. It created the whole ambiance of the experience

2 (23m 41s):
Just in case you’re wondering like some of the foods that we’re mentioning and you’re like, huh, what is that? We are going to do an episode specifically about food of the middle east. So stay tuned for that. And we’ll go into more detail.

1 (23m 51s):
And the table that we were at was under like a cover tent and we really enjoyed our experience. We chose to do the sunrise experience, but our driver that drove us out to the desert, we were asking him if there are other tours. And he said, yeah, there’s actually a really popular sunset tour. And it includes dinner and a show. So where are those tents are set up? Where we had breakfast, that’s where they typically have dinner and it’s set up in like a semi-circle and in the middle, they have like an area where they have performers at night. So if you guys are interested in that in sunrise, doesn’t work for you. Check that out. We hear it’s a really good show too.

2 (24m 27s):
So after that we went back to the hotel and then we took a nap and then we woke up and went to the waterpark.

4 (24m 34s):
Yeah. So Atlantis does have a waterpark Aquaventure Waterpark. And I really, really wanted to do this. This is half the reason why I wanted to stay at Atlantis one. It is on the Palm. And again, the Palm is super famous in Dubai, but on top of that one time before Brittany and I had gone on a Caribbean cruise and we stopped in The Bahamas and The Bahamas in Nassau has an Atlantis just as well, same owners, same everything as this one out here in Dubai. And they have a water park. And when we were on the cruise, we wanted to go there and do the water park. But we saw that the water park costs like a hundred dollars for the day. If you weren’t a guest of the hotel. So we ended up not doing it.

4 (25m 16s):
So when you stay at Atlantis, the Aquaventure Waterpark part of the hotel is included as part of your stay. And it was absolutely amazing. So we took a little bit of a nap. We woke up and then we hit the water park. But I do want to say if you’re not a hotel guest and want to go, it’s about 289 AED, which is Arab Emirates, Durham, and that’s equivalent to about 79 us dollars.

2 (25m 41s):
I wouldn’t necessarily pay $79 for it. I liked it a lot, but I wouldn’t necessarily pay

1 (25m 45s):
Neither would I, I was really glad that it was included in our hotel stay.

2 (25m 49s):
Yeah.

4 (25m 49s):
Even though we wouldn’t pay the 79 $80 for it, tell me how much fucking fund that place was.

2 (25m 55s):
It was amazing. It was a lot of fun. The saving grace was the fact that they have towels all over the park and it’s unlimited. So you just pick up a towel, they might ask you what room you’re in. That’s fine. Whatever. They’re not doing anything with that. But yeah, so it was a cloudy and a little bit of a cold day. Cause this January when we’re there, it is their winter, even though it’s kind of warm, but it’s still kind of cold. And we were able to use the towel as we went from water slide to Waterslide and the thing that’s really nice is that every single water slide, you have cubbies to put your towel in. So you have your towel, put it in the cubby, walk up the stairs to do the slide, come down and then you can pick up your towel and then walk to the next one.

1 (26m 34s):
So let’s talk about what you should and shouldn’t wear at the waterpark.

2 (26m 37s):
We saw people wearing absolutely everything that you can imagine. People were, were wearing bikinis. People were wearing one pieces. People were wearing burkinis. People were wearing pants and shirts. I mean,

1 (26m 51s):
, I mean, it’s a resource. Anything really goes

4 (26m 57s):
Uncomfortable with my Speedos. I’m just kidding. I wasn’t wearing any Speedos. I’m kidding around. But like we said, truly at the resorts, you can wear the bikinis and more revealing bathing suits. However, the girls all here decided to wear one pieces, to be more respectful of the fact of where we are in an Islamic country, but at the same time, you know, truly if you’re there, you can wear really whatever you want and it’s going to be okay. But I want to say my favorite part about the day was the first slide we did. And we wrote it numerous times, but there are lots of slides where they’re either body slides, meaning you don’t have like a little inner tube BRAF and you just slide down on the slide yourself.

4 (27m 39s):
Or there are slides that require inner tubes and you could ride them solo or with two people. But there are two slides that are four to 6% inner tubes. And we’re like, we have to start off. Right. We have to write a four-person one to start us off with.

2 (27m 53s):
So we started with the Zoomerang ago and I really didn’t know what this was. So we climb up and we get in, by the way, there was two people there. So since you need three or more, they were waiting for people to come. So the two people joined us in that raft and wow.

1 (28m 10s):
Wow.

3 (28m 12s):
That’s all I can say about that

2 (28m 14s):
One. You go down, which is fun. And then the raft kind of turns a little bit and then it goes down a really steep fall. And so if your back is facing the fall, you’re fine. But when you’re the one looking forward at

3 (28m 30s):
The farming at the top of my lungs, yeah.

2 (28m 32s):
You kind of fly a little bit, so you need to hold on and then it drops you. And then it goes to, it’s kind of like a little bit of a boomerang. So now you go up from the fall and then you go down and end the slide.

4 (28m 45s):
Yeah. It’s almost like a normal, Waterslide how it starts. It’s not very long. You have a couple turns as you’re going down. Yes. It tricks you. But at one point there is the big drop and it drops from the couple turns of the slide into a big U shaped funnel area. And so that’s the big drop we’re talking about. And then it has a big U shape that you kind of climb up. And then from there you fall down and then continue on with the slide. But that fall is amazing, regardless, truly of where you’re sitting, because we wrote it multiple times. If you’re facing forward, if you’re facing the back and don’t even see the fall or your to the side, you definitely do feel that little air jump as it goes over. So, so fun.

4 (29m 26s):
And what a great way to start off our day at Aquaventure Atlanta’s

2 (29m 30s):
We did try testing it out by weight, like, you know, Jamal and I are the biggest ones. So we tried it where Jamal and I are sitting across. So the weight is distributed. And then Brittany and Kim who are smaller, were sitting across from other didn’t do anything in comparison to if Jamal and I sat by each other, which took the weight to a certain portion of the raft. And then Brittany and Kim were sitting next to each other, regardless, you’re still going to spin it. It’s not

3 (29m 53s):
It’s random. I went down sideways. I went down backwards. I went down front words and it was scary all the time.

1 (30m 1s):
All three ways do the first time he went down, it was backwards. And I, even though I didn’t see the fall straight on, I turned my head and I was like, oh shit, we’re going to go down that. And we were all screaming, all laughing, having a great time. We ended up writing it three times

2 (30m 18s):
That one’s the best

4 (30m 19s):
It is. I, I thoroughly enjoyed it. So I just want to say this inner tube that you’re sitting in, it’s a big round one. So you’re all sitting in it facing each other. So no, not everyone’s facing in the same direction. You’re all sitting in a circle, looking at each other. So that’s what Brittany sane has when she couldn’t see it communist because she’s not looking forward. Her back was to it. But before we get into discussing a little bit more of the slides, I do want to go over two pieces of information. As a tip one, I brought my GoPro with me and I wanted to fill in going on the slides, film and document the adventures. And as I was doing that, they told me, oh no, you can’t have it on a selfie stick. You have to take it off. So I took it off and then I was just holding it by hand and filming and a couple people, let me go doing that.

4 (31m 2s):
And then finally, some other people told me, oh no, no, no, no. You can’t even just be holding it, put it in your pocket, turn it off. The only way you could have a camera is if it’s on a necklace, strap on you of some sorts, like it’s around your neck. And then it straps to

1 (31m 17s):
Harness

4 (31m 18s):
The harness somehow. So I saw several people doing that. So if you want to film it, just keep that in mind. And the other one is about the lockers Zaina was saying at each of the slide areas. They do have cubbies where you can put your towels, but truly at the same time, even though I feel like it’s relatively safe, you still always got to err on the side of caution, you want to put things in lockers and they do have locker room areas. And how much was it to rent the lockers ladies?

1 (31m 41s):
It was 50 a D that came to about like 13, 14 American dollars. So Kim was like, no, I don’t want my phone stolen. I don’t want to risk it. So she was like, let’s

3 (31m 50s):
Go in price to pay for security.

1 (31m 53s):
Yeah. So we all threw our phones in and we all chipped in on the lockers and that’s what we did.

4 (31m 60s):
So other than that four person one, they had another one that was a four person Waterslide, which was really fun. And as I mentioned, they had the body slide ones. They had a couple that you could write as single inner tubes. They had a lazy river, which was really cool. Cause they had it set up to where at certain points in it, it was set up like river rapids, like you’re at an amusement park, although they weren’t necessarily the best, but still really creative. I’ve really never been on a lazy river. That was river rapids. But several notable slides to really mention is they have one where you drop into a dark tube and all of a sudden you come out under the aquarium. So you’re in a clear glass tube and all around you as you’re cruising slowly, you’re in an aquarium, seen sharks, other fish, Monterey sting rays.

4 (32m 47s):
And this is on a water slide. It’s fucking crazy, man. Like you’re coming out there and you’re literally in the middle of the aquarium, the aquarium is surrounding you 360 degrees around. I love that. Yeah.

1 (32m 58s):
Kind of tricky at first because you go down this dark hole and we could hear people screaming and we’re like, is this one going to be scary? And the guy’s like, no, this is the most gentle one. There is. So after that initial drop, once it drops you into the clear portion where it isn’t aquarium and what’s really cool is from the outside of the slide. When you’re viewing the aquarium from the outside, you can see the people on the inner tube, in the middle, just gently going through. And every time a wave comes, they go a little bit farther down the line. And you’re in there for a good amount of time. Like I felt like it took three to four good waves before we’ve got pushed out and it was pretty slow, but awesome to see because you had to see the sharks, the manta rays, all of the sea life. It was great.

4 (33m 38s):
Another slide that I really, really enjoyed also took you through the aquarium. This one was called the leap of faith and Kim and Zaina didn’t want to do it. Didn’t really have the courage to do it, I guess. But Brittany and I ended up doing this and this one’s just a normal body slide. It’s at a high elevation and you just slide down. I don’t want to say it takes you straight down, but it’s pretty much, it’s pretty much.

3 (34m 0s):
It’s so funny. Cause when we were standing on the balcony filming you guys, when Brittany came down first, her hair was like flying back in the back of her and it looked so funny as you flew down your hair, it was just like, Ooh, it was hilarious.

4 (34m 15s):
You know, at the time of this recording, cause I know you had the GoPro and filmed us both going down. I still have not plugged in the GoPro to watch any of our videos yet. So clearly we’re going to do that before this episode airs and then we’re going to include some of those videos ideally on the Instagram. So be on the lookout for that. But that was really cool because it’s a big steep drop. And then that body slides you into the aquarium as well. However, you’re going so fast and water’s flying in your face truly. You can’t enjoy going through the aquarium. Like you can on that slower slide that we were talking about earlier. Yeah.

1 (34m 50s):
I wouldn’t have even known that. I went through an aquarium if I didn’t read the description

2 (34m 54s):
So fast,

4 (34m 55s):
It was so fast. So Brittany and I did that. And then there was another slide that Kim didn’t want to ride. We pretty much wrote all the rides except for the fact, like I said, Zen and Kim didn’t do leap of faith. And then there was another body slide where the

2 (35m 8s):
Record, I take leaps of faith every day in life. I just didn’t feel the need to do it on a water slide.

4 (35m 15s):
That’s fine. And then there was another one called Poseidon’s revenge. And this one, if you remember back to our cruising episode,

2 (35m 25s):
Episode six,

4 (35m 26s):
We talk and give shit to Zayna about the water slide that they had, where they literally dropped the floor from below you. And then it’s launched that way. Literally the floor falls below you and then you start the slide. So it’s not a straight downfall. It’s clearly at an angle, but pretty close, pretty close to being vertical and

3 (35m 44s):
Terrific.

4 (35m 45s):
Brittany and I wrote that first and then Zayna we were giving her shit. We’re like, you’ve done this on the Waterslide on the cruise. Just go ahead and do this.

2 (35m 52s):
They have another one. What was it? Slither Lutheran. That’s a body slide. And I went on the slither in and I was like, okay, I’ve gotten my current,

4 (36m 2s):
The rain not slid the Rin. She’s thinking Harry Potter over here. Cause she was reading Harry Potter and Spanish on this trip. One of the rooms.

2 (36m 10s):
Right? So anyways, it’s at the same level as besides revenge. And I did that, which was a really big thing for me. So I’m feeling like, oh, I got the courage. I got the guts. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it. And she was like, really? And I’m like, I’m going to do it.

4 (36m 23s):
Yeah. So Brittany and I had wrote it earlier again, the floor draws from below you. So finally we’re like, all right, we’re done with the water park for today. Let’s ride one of the four person slides again, just to end it. And before we did that and I was like, no, no, no, no, I can do Poseidon’s revenge. I got this, I got this. So I was like, all right, Cena, like, we’re going to go ride it. Let’s do it. You’ve done this on the cruise. It’s nothing to be afraid of. And we go, we climb up. I pulled the Kim. I told somebody I’m really, really proud of them. And I was like, I’m proud of you, Zen, are you going to do this? It’s going to be fine.

3 (36m 54s):
And down below, Brittany’s like, do you think CNN’s going to do it? I’m like, yeah. I think she

4 (36m 57s):
Is really

2 (36m 58s):
Do

4 (36m 59s):
Always has your back.

2 (37m 0s):
And what did you say Brit? I said,

6 (37m 1s):
No, I don’t think she’ll do

2 (37m 2s):
So guys, do you think I did it? Let us know? Did I do it?

4 (37m 7s):
Well, I’m going to spoil that answers. Anna did not do it. We got to the very top and Zaina gets in the two because they put you like in a little tube casing. And again, the floor drops out from under you and before they could close the tubes and is getting in and like her knees are shaking. She’s like, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I’m like, I was like, Xena, you’ve already done this before. It’s like, I

3 (37m 26s):
Can’t do

4 (37m 27s):
It. And then, so the worker tells her, why don’t you just ride the other body slide slithery. And so Zayna takes that down.

2 (37m 34s):
But first I want you to be

4 (37m 35s):
The man that I am. I was like, all right, Santa, if you’re not going to ride this, I’m already at the top. I’m going to do it. So I had to rewrite it, which was fun of course, but a Zayna what an epic fail

2 (37m 45s):
Jamal got into it. And they closed the capsule. Jamal looked at me and kind of scoffed his face and shrugged it like

3 (37m 51s):
The same scoff he gave us when we forgot our passports in China.

2 (37m 56s):
Exactly. Just looking at me, shaking his head, scoffing, how disappointed Then I watch him drop. And as soon as they drop the floor from beneath him and he falls, his eyes get so big. His eyebrows look like, you just see the on his school.

4 (38m 14s):
Well, how can you not have that reaction? It’s like riding a rollercoaster, not having a reaction on the fall. Even if you love it, you have them. I mean, it’s just a natural instinct, but nonetheless, super, super fun time at Aquaventure Atlantis.

2 (38m 27s):
One that I really quickly want to touch on. Cause they only have two that has three to six people that can write it. And that was Aqua Conda. So right after we did the first ride of Zuma Ringo, then we did Ocho Conda. Now zoom, Ringo was much better and the drop was much bigger, but when we were on Aqua Conda, I think Jamal has us on the GoPro to my back is towards the next drop. So I don’t even know that there’s a drop cause I don’t know this slide yet. All I see is Jamal’s face and like, oh my God

3 (38m 55s):
Drop. It’s a big drop. It’s a big drop. It’s a fake one. It’s a big,

2 (38m 58s):
Yeah, that’s what it is. And his eyes are huge. He’s screaming. It’s a big one I’m holding on for dear life. I know what the drop felt like on Zoomerang go. And my back is turned. I have no idea what’s about to happen. And I think Jamal made me peel. I didn’t really, but like I could have peed a little bit more because I was like, what are we about to go into? And it was, it was fine. Zoomerang those much more intense.

1 (39m 23s):
Yeah. We had a really good time at the water park. It was a little chilly that day, but we made it through the saving. Grace was all of the towel stations around the park and being able to pick up a fresh towel after like pretty much every

2 (39m 37s):
And one more thing to mention is that we really had a craving for soft serve ice cream. So we got that and it’s definitely something you can pass on.

4 (39m 46s):
Hard pass.

1 (39m 47s):
We also try to preserve lounge chairs near like the lazy river area. And we put our stuff down. You know, we took off our shirt and whatnot. We really didn’t need to. The park is so spread out. We were never actually in the area and we never used it. So we just use the little cubbies that they had pretty much. So

2 (40m 5s):
Moving on from that, we went back to our room and showered and got ready for the evening because you know where we went next

1 (40m 13s):
Huck a song.

4 (40m 18s):
I just want to say, as you guys are familiar, I’m sure you’ve all heard our inside jokes of always going to Hawk us on doing this, doing that when we go to Vegas. Well, this is actually the first time the entire squad made it to Hawk Hassan. Anina where they have a haka sawn right at Atlanta’s didn’t have to go very far.

3 (40m 36s):
We did go to hawkers on is no joke. We were there. We were there.

1 (40m 43s):
Yes we were.

4 (40m 44s):
I will say this though. So Harkess on in Vegas is a nightclub in Dubai. It’s not a nightclub, it’s a restaurant and bar granted, they have some good music going just like it. It’s at the nightclub, but no dance floor, nothing crazy restaurant and bar. And let me tell you something, you always hear the stereotype that Dubai is expensive. And I know we talked about taxis being actually relatively cheap. The hotels are expensive, but in terms of food prices, other stuff, you know, and I would say it’s California in New York prices, which isn’t cheap, but not very expensive. But these drinks at Hawk Hassan $20 a cocktail, I just got myself an old fashioned and it was 20 bucks.

1 (41m 20s):
Yep. I got a cocktail and it was good, but $20 is kind of expensive. So I don’t remember exactly what cocktail I got. I feel like I got a Bazell honey something and it was good, but was it worth $20? I don’t know.

4 (41m 34s):
It was probably worth $20 in comparison to the $35 a wine that we had later, what we’re going to discuss in just a minute, but probably a lot better at an prices.

3 (41m 44s):
It was absolutely worth the $20. It’s like comparable Vegas Hakkasan prices

2 (41m 50s):
Really you’re paying for the experience. So I thought it was worth it.

4 (41m 53s):
So just for all the stuff that we save out, Hawk Hassan and the squad, it was worth it to me to just go there. But again, you’re in Dubai and it is what it is, you know, you could expect to spend that type of money in Dubai. So if you expect it, it’s not going to be anything too crazy.

1 (42m 8s):
We definitely got a picture in front of the Hawkins on sign. Cause we were like this squad and we got a picture of us enjoying our drinks together. And this was before our dinner because we had a late dinner that was scheduled for eight, 8:30 PM. And so we had gotten ready early and were like made a point to go to Hakkasan to get a drink

4 (42m 29s):
Before our

1 (42m 30s):
Dinner.

4 (42m 31s):
Well, this dinner was at Osiano, which again is at Atlanta. So I just want to say this to, you know, Atlantis is a great place to stay. Number one, too, if you’re staying in a resort area in Dubai, you’re probably going to spend a lot of time at the resort if you want me to be honest. Cause we’re going to give a little bit more tips later on our just overall impression of Dubai. But again, like I said, it’s to be seen and experienced in terms of the lot to do. There’s really not unless you’re at a resort because it’s just a big metropolis of businesses truly that are out there. But as the camel ride was Kim’s little pet project of something she wanted to do dinner at Osiano at Atlantis was Brittany’s pet project on something that she wanted to do

1 (43m 12s):
Because when you’re watching TV and you see commercials for Atlantis, you see how awesome it is. And they have an aquarium and at this restaurant Osiano, the aquarium is attached to it. And so one of the walls, the very front wall of the restaurant is all glass and you get aquarium views. So I was like, I want to go and have dinner there. Like I don’t care. I want to do the tasting menu. I enjoy tasting menus. I’ve done them in the past. I really wanted to go. So Kim was like, dude, I want to fucking do it for the experience. And Zaina was like, eh, I don’t know if I really want to go.

2 (43m 50s):
I’m not a foodie

3 (43m 51s):
Or are you now

2 (43m 54s):
I think it was a fun experience to be able to do with you guys, but am I a foodie? No. What I want to do something like that again, I would never voluntarily do it. It’s just not my thing. I’m just not a foodie.

1 (44m 7s):
Fair enough. So there’s a few things I want to add on about this dinner specifically. So Kim is a non seafood eater. She does not like sea food at all. So we had gone to the concierge earlier in the day and asked, could they accommodate her? And they said, absolutely, they will do their best to accommodate her.

3 (44m 24s):
Then he ducks baby.

4 (44m 26s):
’cause real quick. It’s an aquarium restaurant. You can imagine what type of cuisine it is. It’s seafood restaurant, not to say that they don’t have beef and meat and other stuff other than seafood, but it’s a seafood restaurant.

1 (44m 37s):
Yeah. And so it’s also a tasting menu. So they have a nine course menu and 11 course menu and a 13 course menu. So we decided to do the nine course menu and they actually recommend that all parties do the same number of tastings because if one person gets a nine course and someone else gets a 13 course that your food is going to come out on different schedules. So it’s better if everyone does the same number of courses for their meals. And then lastly, we were trying to figure out what they might serve because Lovis

3 (45m 8s):
Our milk.

4 (45m 8s):
The whole meal was called metamorphosis. And what was really funny is they didn’t even have a listing of what was going to be served. It was a description, but not even of the food. For example, the whole meal was called metamorphosis, but maybe course number four was called a taste of nostalgia. And so they just had a few words to tease on potentially what it could be. But you go into this restaurant, whether it be the nine, 11 or 13 course meals, not knowing what you’re going to get, because each day they changed the menu itself. The chef changes the menu each day.

3 (45m 45s):
That sounds like so much work.

1 (45m 47s):
I know, right?

3 (45m 48s):
Oh my God. What were some of your favorite meals of the courses?

4 (45m 51s):
Well, this one wasn’t necessarily my favorite, but I’ll tell you why I enjoyed it. The first course comes out Zaina was a little bit reserved on this. Understandably. So like she said, she’s not a foodie. And this meal was about like 250 a person. So definitely expensive. So obviously someone who’s not into food like that can be hesitant. The first meal comes out, which was an oyster with seaweed and deal foam with caviar on top and Zaina takes a bite and you can just see her face, like, fuck, I really enjoyed that. And I was like, all right, all right, Zane is stepping off to the right step. First chorus got her going good that

1 (46m 29s):
Way. And it was called farewell kiss from the sea

4 (46m 33s):
Description, of course, one on the metamorphosis menu. So I mean, you can guess what you’re going to get, but it doesn’t even tell you, you don’t know until it comes out what it truly is.

1 (46m 41s):
But what I really liked about the food there was not only was it food, but it was art. It was in a display course. Number four, that was on the path of nostalgia. That course was served on a clock that ticked backwards. So when the course came out, we were getting a whole backstory. And so it served on just these beautiful plates with the story of why he chose to serve the dish. And it was definitely an experience, not just dinner, but an experience.

4 (47m 9s):
I will say that course that got served on the clock that tick backwards on the path of nostalgia was probably all of our favorites. Interestingly enough, that one wasn’t a seafood dish. So Kim got to experience it, any one of the ones that were seafood, they kind of slightly altered for Kim. So they were able to do that. But that one was really good. Unfortunately for Kim sake, though, all of our clocks were ticking backwards, but hers was a broken clock that they got. I think they gave that one to you on purpose because you were anti seafood.

3 (47m 38s):
It is what it is.

1 (47m 40s):
And that course was a truffle veal, ham and buck loved brioche dish.

3 (47m 47s):
It was so good. It

1 (47m 48s):
Was so

4 (47m 49s):
It was super good. All of the dishes were really, really good. And if none of them, you guys have ever done a tasty mini before, it’s definitely a splurge item, but definitely fun. And again, at the same time we figured it’s Dubai. It’s the city of opulence. Let’s be opulent.

1 (48m 3s):
You know what made that dinner? Even better that pianist,

4 (48m 7s):
I love the pianist

3 (48m 8s):
And this could play any song you gave her literally anything.

2 (48m 12s):
So our waiter told us right off the bat that, you know, he, the pianist and we were sitting right next to her too. So he’s like, you know, she’s going to be right there if you have any requests, beautiful lawyer. Yeah. I don’t think she gets too many requests though, but we definitely had fun with it. So each of us kept picking a song and telling the waiter, but we wouldn’t let everyone else know because we would want like to surprise the other three and see if they can guess it. So we did less stuff like truly madly deeply. My heart will go on heaven as a place on earth and break my heart. Just

1 (48m 41s):
Even to dance monkey.

2 (48m 43s):
Crazy.

4 (48m 43s):
She did that one on her own though. So she even would have an eclectic mix of stuff that you wouldn’t think is more formal piano, style music and a formal restaurant like that, but she would take him, make them her own. So then we started to pick some sort of songs. Some of them ballad some of them not, but she could transform them into like a formal dining atmosphere song, which was absolutely amazing. So we had fun with that with the pianist

2 (49m 9s):
And it was fun to see the waiter, tell her the song because you just see her face laugh because she’s like, okay, I’ll try. I’ll try. She’s like, well,

4 (49m 19s):
We’re going to make this happen.

2 (49m 20s):
Well, she came up to us at the end too. Cause we were thanking her and we tipped her and she was saying that most people don’t really make requests. So we made it really fun for her. And her shift went like really quickly and she hasn’t played about 70% of the songs that we requested. So just like, wow, what a shout out? She never said, no, she looked it up on the internet. She figured it out. And she made it her own. And we would’ve never known if she didn’t tell us that.

1 (49m 46s):
Yeah, she did a really, really good job. Like we mentioned earlier, we each, except for Jamal, got a glass of wine. And this is where we paid $35 for just a normal glass of

4 (49m 57s):
It makes the haka sawn. $20 cocktail seemed like a bargain.

2 (50m 0s):
My drink at Hakkasan was really good and we all voted and decided that I really did get the best drink off of the menu. So that was nice. Not because I got the best, but because like, I really did enjoy it. And then you go to the restaurant, you pay $35 for wine. And this is probably like something that you can get at grocery outlet for $5.

8 (50m 18s):
Whoa,

2 (50m 20s):
Just being honest.

1 (50m 21s):
I mean this restaurant too, they charge you for the water. That’s how crazy this restaurant is.

4 (50m 26s):
Yeah. But it definitely fun experience. So that wrapped up our only full day in Dubai started with the morning camel track, the water park. We had the dinner at Osiano haka sawn, and now we’re on to our last day there, which was Dubai city exploring,

2 (50m 43s):
You know, we woke up and we went to the aquarium there at the hotel. And you do get in for free if you are, I guess.

4 (50m 50s):
Yeah. So we did that. The aquarium that is included with your hotel stay, you can see in some of the other public areas going through the shops, but they do have a few more areas of certain species of fish, like jellyfish and other things that, and eels that they really don’t show in the big, big aquarium that you could see on the outside. So it was fun as a hotel guest, but I will say this, if you’re not a hotel guest, the amount of money that they charged to go in there, I wouldn’t do it. I will just say that. But we figured we had the free tickets, so let’s do it. But after we did that, then we finally decided to leave the hotel and truly explore the Dubai area.

2 (51m 32s):
So we took a taxi to Burj, a lot of, and that we were told that you can go in and see, but truly you actually can’t, it’s the only seven star hotel in the world. Not available to the public, but you can reserve to go in.

4 (51m 47s):
Yeah, you could reserve to go in. If you’re not a hotel guest, if you do their afternoon tea. Now I was told by some people that you can go into the lobby, but not really explore anywhere else. I don’t know if that was the case in the past, but that’s what was told to me by people in Dubai. And we got in our taxi, we tried to go there. And then as soon as we got there, before we made the turn to get in there, our taxi driver was like, oh, you have reservations to get. And we’re like, oh no, we just want to go see the lobbies. Like you can’t get in. If you don’t have reservations is look at this. This is all the security keeping people outside. They’re going to call, make sure you have a reservation, whether it be a hotel guest or the afternoon tea. So I wanted to see it because the hotel itself is built out on its own little island.

4 (52m 32s):
It looks like a big, giant sale. That’s what it’s made to look like. And again, it has the prestige of being noted and listed as the only seven star hotel in the world. I mean, if you stay there, you get a free rolls Royce show for your entire stay. I mean, that’s how opulent this place is. So we wanted to see it. We saw it from the outside, but unfortunately you can’t go in. So at that point we said, you know what? Dubai is famous for their malls, their opulence take us to The Dubai Mall

2 (52m 58s):
Real quickly, just to jump on the afternoon tea from our understanding. You can’t just make a reservation for afternoon tea and then go in and not show up. Like you have to pay a hundred percent upfront. So

4 (53m 9s):
Yeah. So if you want to see the hotel and think I’m going to make reservation for tea, just to get in there, taking your credit card as a deposit. So you’re paying to get in the hotel.

1 (53m 17s):
So we get to the mall and our goal at the mall was to really get lunch. We were hungry by this point we hadn’t eaten breakfast and we heard small was really nice. What I did like was when we first walked in, there was one area that was set up to look like the old souks, which are like the old shopping districts. And so when you walk in and see that it’s really cute to see, but there’s just really normal shops and it’s not any different than any other mall that we’ve gone to before

2 (53m 46s):
Kim said it best to me. At one point she looked at me and she said, well, the San Francisco Macy’s is four floors. Yeah,

1 (53m 53s):
That’s

2 (53m 53s):
True. You got nice smells here too. Yeah.

4 (53m 55s):
You know, it’s interesting because there’s multiple malls and Dubai. Some of them have the indoor skiing that they have. And this one that we went to had an ice skating rink. So they have all that other stuff. But at the end of the day, it’s famous for the malls, but a mall is a mall. Yeah.

1 (54m 12s):
What was really cool though, is there was a way to get out of this mall and See the Burj Khalifa, which is the tallest building in the world. And so we didn’t have to take a taxi from the mall to the Burj Khalifa. We just went outside of the mall and they had a great viewing area where we could see that.

4 (54m 31s):
Yeah, like I said, there’s multiple malls in Dubai that are famous. We went to The Dubai Mall, which is right by the Burj Khalifa. There’s a mall of the Emirates, which is in that second downtown area completely far away. But that’s the one that has the indoor scheme that you can do. So Dubai mall, right by the Burj Khalifa, we walk outside. And if you’ve ever been to Las Vegas or seen photos of the Bellagio in Las Vegas, it was like being right there because they have a big man-made lake with the water fountains that go and create shows. Unfortunately, when we were there at the time, they didn’t have the show going. They only have it at certain times, so we didn’t get to see it.

4 (55m 11s):
But it’s just a crazy facade. You go outside into the desert and big, beautiful mall. There’s a big man-made lake. And you’re just looking up. The world’s tallest building. It’s crazy.

3 (55m 22s):
The building looked insane when you cock your head up to look at it, it was like, whoa, it didn’t look real. What was crazy?

4 (55m 30s):
What question did you ask me, Kim? When we were looking at it,

3 (55m 35s):
We were looking at it. And there’s a point where it gets to the tip of it where it’s just almost like an antenna sort of

4 (55m 40s):
Like an antenna tower. And

3 (55m 41s):
I said, does the tip?

4 (55m 43s):
No. You said like, it’s the height of the tip included in the height. And I looked at Kim was like, Kim, the tip always counts. I don’t know why I thought that was funny, but we’re talking about it being the world’s tallest building. Just so you’re aware it’s 2,722 feet high or 830 meters high. How ridiculous? 2,722. That’s more than half a mile.

2 (56m 10s):
So squad tip for you on the second floor is the apple store and they do have a balcony. So you can go out and See the Burj Khalifa from the balcony there on the second floor, or you can go downstairs and they’re going to have, you know, the actual ground. You can look up at

1 (56m 24s):
It. I have another squad tip,

2 (56m 26s):
Give it to us.

1 (56m 27s):
And you take your picture, have the person take it in panel mode and go up. So you can include the entire building, including the

3 (56m 35s):
Tip, because that’s the only way you’re going to get it all in there

4 (56m 38s):
Counts.

2 (56m 38s):
I was just going to say that too.

4 (56m 39s):
TIFF counts. Oh, just real quick too. They don’t have a full blown top, top observation deck. I think they let you go up to level like 141 and they charge you $41 just to go up there. They have other things that you can do, different activities that cost a lot more. If you were to go up into the tower. So you can look into that, see what you can find on Viator, but we opted not to do it. It was more just to see instead of going up, but after the Burj Khalifa, we decided we were going to go to The Dubai marina district, Zane and I actually have two cousins that live and work in Dubai. So we met up with one of my cousins in The Dubai marina area.

2 (57m 21s):
So we just went to Stefanos and we’d drink some tea, had some hookah prior to that, we had coffee there on the marina. So again, you know, keeping with the theme, no matter where you go, there’s always something to drink, but you’re not going to find alcohol. And while we were there waiting for our cousin to show up, they did have a sign at the marina of things to do and not to do.

1 (57m 41s):
Yeah. And on one of the signs, it said dress respectfully. And it had a picture of a dress and it was in a circle crossed out, like do not wear a dress

4 (57m 50s):
Or like a tank top or anything like that. So they definitely do have those sides. And again, that’s when you’re more out in public versus, you know, in the resort areas. But when we were at The Dubai marina, just such crazy buildings that you see one all over the city, but even in the marina area. And this is where Kim gave us her Chicago inspired architecture tour, but Dubai architecture tour.

3 (58m 13s):
Yeah. I’ll have to save this for Instagram promo, but there are some very creative buildings out there. And I was feeling very inspired when I gave this architecture tour. There was the marker, the first case, the stand storm. And I’ll explain all of those. If you tune in for Instagram at Travel Squad,

4 (58m 29s):
First case was my favorite. Not going to lie. I love the way you tease

3 (58m 32s):
That.

4 (58m 33s):
Yes. I love the way you teased it for them to check it out on Instagram, but it just made me laugh. Kim, I’ve always known you to be witty, but then when you were really going over all this stuff, I was like, man, like, I couldn’t even think of this. If I had several hours to come up with something as within here, Kim has just spitball on it. So impressive.

3 (58m 50s):
Yeah. I could be in architecture.

1 (58m 54s):
You did a really good job, Kim. Really, really.

2 (58m 59s):
So later that night, well, technically this is Saturday. So our flight was Sunday morning. I think I like a two in the morning. So that was pretty much our last day there in Dubai. And we just went directly to the hotel and then to the airport and then we flew home. But notable worth mentioning is that at the time of our flight, there was a lot of the conflict with Iran. So British airways did redirect itself. So instead of flying over Iran, we would fly south and then turn west to go over Saudi Arabia in order to bypass Iran,

3 (59m 30s):
Things happened. Ooh, number one, no alcohol.

4 (59m 34s):
Yeah. They were saying as long as we’re flying over Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia is a dry country, no alcohol can be served

2 (59m 42s):
Also in Islamic countries,

4 (59m 44s):
Also in Islamic country, they couldn’t serve it when we were over their airspace. It didn’t really matter because at that point, I don’t think we were going to get any service on this portion of the flight flying over Saudi Arabia because maybe 20 minutes after takeoff, as we were flying over Saudi Arabia, making that loop, that Zaina was just describing. We sat through an hour and 15 minutes of straight turbulence,

1 (1h 0m 8s):
Crazy

4 (1h 0m 9s):
Tight on a scale of one to 10, no exaggeration. It was an 8.5 to a nine hour and 15 minutes straight. I think

2 (1h 0m 18s):
Someone did get sick on it.

4 (1h 0m 19s):
Someone did get sick on it.

1 (1h 0m 21s):
Yeah. I usually don’t get motion sick on a flight. And I think about halfway through the turbulence, I was like, all right, I’m going to pop a Dramamine because I could get

3 (1h 0m 30s):
Sick. Like, where’s your hazmat bag? I need it.

2 (1h 0m 33s):
My critique was, I don’t like that. The pilot didn’t come on and address it. You know, I always say that when a country is in crisis, the president addresses the nation. A city is in crisis. A mayor addresses the city and I felt like our airplane was in crisis and no one addressed the airplane. And I’m like, what the fuck is this? We were shaking up and down and side to side all at the same time.

4 (1h 0m 57s):
Okay. It was really violent turbulence for an hour and 15 minutes straight. I can’t describe it. Like I’ve been in rough turbulence. That’s lasted for maybe about 10, 15 minutes, but never at this rough of scale and for as long and continuous an hour and 15 minutes crazy.

1 (1h 1m 11s):
And this was a start to a 29 hour Trek home.

3 (1h 1m 16s):
Well, Jamal was also sitting in what might have been here.

4 (1h 1m 19s):
I was sitting, I was sitting, I was sitting next to that, Kevin. I was sitting next to it. So we were in the second to last middle row of four altogether. And then we saw a row right behind us that was open. And we’re like, fuck, let’s spread out before other people get to this and claim it that way we can kind of send my sleep. And so Kim takes one side, I take the other side of that. And I noticed like one of the seats is like really, really wet. And I was like, oh fuck, I’m not sitting on this. And then, so I’m sitting on the second CN, Kim sitting on the edge seat. That way we kind of have a little bit of space and you know, space to stretch out. And then some other lady tries to come back and sit and take that seat in the store to sort of just telling her like, oh, I wouldn’t sit there.

4 (1h 2m 3s):
We know this is wet, but I don’t know if this is spilled drinks or if it’s bodily fluids. And then the lady was like, oh, okay. Yeah. I don’t think it was anything. I don’t think it was bodily fluids, but nonetheless, I’m glad the story has said that, but that was our Dubai experience. But before we get into questions of the week, does anybody have anything they want to say about Dubai?

2 (1h 2m 29s):
It’s a city to be seen, but there’s not much to do. I probably wouldn’t go back. I know I’m Lebanese and maybe I’m biased, but just Lebanon is just so fun.

1 (1h 2m 38s):
Favorite part was a camel track and the Atlantis resort.

4 (1h 2m 42s):
Yeah. The camel Trek was really fun. Really good experience. But I will say this, you know, if you’re going to go to Dubai, I really wouldn’t spend more than three days there it’s made to be seen as Zaina said and experienced, but there really isn’t a lot to do

1 (1h 2m 56s):
Unless you’re staying at the Burj Allah, Rob, then you might want to spend three full

4 (1h 2m 60s):
Days there maybe, or at Atlanta.

3 (1h 3m 2s):
My biggest regret from Dubai is not driving. Ferrari’s

4 (1h 3m 6s):
Driving. Ferrari’s would’ve been really cool. Or the high tea at Bershal. We need it. We need to go to that. All right, Kim, I think it’s your time. Give me an intro. A little bit more passionate. Let me hear it more.

9 (1h 3m 23s):
the way,

1 (1h 3m 29s):
Oh, I love it. That was full of passion.

4 (1h 3m 35s):
What is our first question?

1 (1h 3m 36s):
Our first question is, is TSA pre or global entry worth it, or is one better than the other

3 (1h 3m 44s):
Apps have fucking lately?

1 (1h 3m 47s):
So the best way to describe it is if you have global entry, you get TSA pre so you might as well just get global entry and get TSA pre included for five years. It’s about a hundred dollars for TSA pre I think it’s about $80 for five.

4 (1h 4m 3s):
It is $80 for TSA pre so for the $20 more, you should do the global entry. And just so you are aware on what they are global entry as an American, when you leave the United States and come back in, if you have global entry, it gives you expedited passage through customs. So they ask you less questions. You have a separate line. So there’s not as many people there with you. So you get through a lot quicker and don’t have to deal truly with the hassle and questions that most people get when they come back. Like, what are you bringing with you? Or did you go not to say that they don’t ask it, but definitely they’re more laxed with you. Whereas TSA pre-check again, included with global entry or you could buy it separately, but this is when you’re about to be going on your flights.

4 (1h 4m 45s):
You have a specific line for security. They don’t make you take off your shoes, belts, jacket, take out your liquids, et cetera, makes it really, really easy and nice. So definitely worth it. A hundred dollars for five years. You can’t go wrong

1 (1h 5m 2s):
For global entry. That’s one, that’s worth it. Three

3 (1h 5m 4s):
Out of the four of us have it. And it’s absolutely amazing.

1 (1h 5m 7s):
Absolutely.

2 (1h 5m 8s):
Moving on to the next question. How much does Dubai cost is everything really expensive?

1 (1h 5m 13s):
I would say it’s equivalent to like San Diego, New York prices, big city prices. It’s not super expensive unless you’re staying at a really, really nice hotel. I would say the hotels are probably the most expensive part, but transportation and food was reasonable. How did you guys feel?

4 (1h 5m 30s):
Yeah, I would say the same food. Wasn’t cheap, but it definitely wasn’t as expensive. And I’m not talking about our experience at Osiano. I’m talking about like regular food. It seemed to me to be like California prices, New York prices, which again are on the more expensive side, but not like completely outrageous. The hotels, like Brittany said would probably be the most expensive things. But as we were looking, even though we truly know we wanted to stay at Atlantis, I did see some hotels that were about like 1 20, 1 30 and night. There were nice ones, but not like big resorts. So you definitely can find more reasonable prices. It’s just really those resort areas and other things that are going to be more expensive.

4 (1h 6m 10s):
Or if you want to buy like high-end retail at the malls.

3 (1h 6m 13s):
All right, guys, that sums up Dubai. Thank you so much for tuning into this week’s episode to keep the adventures going. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Travel Squad Podcast and tag us in your adventures and send us in your questions of late. Cause you know, I love that.

2 (1h 6m 30s):
And if you found the information in this episode to be useful, or if you thought we were just playing a funny, please share it with a friend that would enjoy it too.

4 (1h 6m 37s):
Please subscribe, rate, and review our podcast and tune in every travel Tuesday for new episodes.

1 (1h 6m 42s):
Make sure to pack your bags and your hiking gear. Because next week we are taking you with us on another us hiking trip to Bryce canyon, national park,

4 (1h 6m 52s):
Bryce canyon, national.