Weekend in Dubai: Part 2

Finally it was the moment Archie had been looking forward to, a trip to the top of Burj Khalifa. As I'm sure you know Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, at 828m, with more than 160 floors. Like many super tall buildings there is a bit of cheating, in that the top part of the tower is unoccupied, and (dare I say it) just there to allow the record to be claimed. Still the tower also has the highest occupied floor in the world so I suppose it is fair enough.

We joined the queue just before our allotted time of 4pm, and followed the corridor towards the elevator. Along the way there were various informative displays about the inspiration behind the tower, and the process of designing and constructing it. These were really well presented, and there was a calmness to the whole queuing process, it certainly wasn't like queuing for a roller coaster in Florida!

Fairly quickly we got to the final door before the elevator. This was a rotating door with an attendant carefully managing the flow of people going through. Alongside him was a cleaner wearing a pair of white gloves who insisted on polishing the glass of the door every time somebody had passed through, which seemed a little over the top but there you go.

Finally we were allowed into the elevator, which of course is the elevator with the longest travel distance in the world. It was no surprise that it was a very smooth, and fast, ascent - the only evidence we were moving was the floor numbers on the display increasing rapidly and our ears popping at intervals.

Not many seconds later we were at the observation deck. Because numbers are managed carefully, whilst there were lots of people up there, it was by no means packed. This meant we were able to take our time walking round the whole 360 degrees! including the outside observation deck. Needless to say the views were stunning, although it was a little hazy so I'm sure they are even better on a clear day.

We took in the views for half an hour or so and then decided to head back down. Before we did Henry insisted on doing some filming for a video he is making. Jo offered to be the cameraman, but was rejected in favor of me. I did my best but my attempt was not up to scratch so Henry insisted on filming himself and drew some strange looks as he made a speech ending with "Welcome to Henry's random life". I'm not sure what the video is about - other than his random life - but hopefully all will be revealed soon.

The trip down was as smooth and quick as the trip up, and we were soon wandering round to the restaurant we had booked for dinner, from where we were able to watch the impressive Dubai Mall fountain show.

All in all we really enjoyed our "trip to the top", and I suspect this is going to be a "must do" for any visitors we have.

One thing I am glad about is that we weren't up there yesterday. Apparently they had a practice emergency drill and evacuated the tower, or at least parts of it. I wouldn't have wanted to have to walk down 100+ floors of the fire escape!

Thanks for reading as always.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Weekend in Dubai: Part 1

Another weekend gone in a flash, but we had a great time in Dubai.

We drove up on Friday morning and got to our hotel, the Marriott Dubai Harbour, without too much trouble. As expected our room wasn't ready for us, so we dumped our bags and asked the concierge the way to the nearest Metro station. He informed us that as it was Friday, the Metro doesn't start running until 1pm, which hadn't even occurred to us. But it wasn't a problem, as we just had to jump in a taxi instead.

The taxi dropped us off at the Dubai Mall, our centre of operations for the afternoon. The Mall is huge, even by UAE standards. Apparently it is the world's largest mall based on total floor area, and houses approximately 1,200 shops and restaurants. It is so big it even has its own taxi service, consisting of elongated golf buggies (apparently based on Rolls Royce designs), to cart people around.

We grabbed lunch in the Rainforest Cafe, and then headed off to the Burj Khalifa ticket office to exchange our vouchers for tickets for our allocated visit slot later in the afternoon. If you don't book ahead you can struggle to get in.

Rainforest Cafe

Our next task was to find some tickets for the Motor Show on Saturday. We found out that they were on sale at the Metro station next to the Mall so headed off in that direction. Foolishly we assumed the station would be very close to the Mall, however it turned out to be almost a kilometer away. Thankfully you can walk (or use moving walkways) all in the way in an air conditioned walkway which opened a few months ago (it really is true that if you want to, you can pretty much stay out of the sun all the time here!).

We got our tickets, which left us with an hour to kill before the Grand Car Parade, being held round the streets of Dubai to mark the Motor Show. We realized that the main road outside the Metro station would be a good vantage point, but to kill some time decided to walk back to the Mall to pick up a couple of things.

An hour later, having done the length of the walkway both ways, and getting pretty tired, we were sat next to the busiest road in Dubai waiting for the cars to arrive. The parade was to consist of 500 of the UAE's most expensive cars, estimated to have a combined value of around £100m.

Before too long the cars started passing, led by a number of the super cars which are part of the Dubai Police Force. Health and safety rules were completely absent as the crowds at the side of the road pushed forward to get a better view of cars passing them at at least 50mph. The road started out as five lanes wide but there were barely two passable by the end.

Anyway, we enjoyed seeing the cars, especially Archie who is going through a real car phase at the moment, but before too long it was time to hurry back along the walkway (again!) as our slot to go up the Burj Khalifa was fast approaching.

To be continued in "Weekend in Dubai: Part 2".

 

Posted with Blogsy