Gard's travel blog » Dubai http://gardkarlsen.com/blog Planes, hotels, food and travel photos Sat, 29 Apr 2017 15:53:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.2 Dubai metro fines http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=703 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=703#comments Sun, 02 May 2010 16:08:01 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=703 I had the pleasure of testing the new Dubai Metro recently and I took it from the airport to Dubai Mall and it was only like 4,5 AED (about 1 USD). The station at the airport was modern and clean and with guards walking around and a large photo of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum – the ruler of Dubai. But what I thought was quite funny was the little booklet that can be found on the station explaining all the different things that will result in a fine.  How about “Carrying of alcoholic drinks” that will result in a 200 AED fine. Does this mean that you can’t bring your duty free goods in your suitcase when taking the metro or do they mean that you are not allowed to drink on the metro? How about “Using the lifts or escalators in an inappropriate manner” – how do you use an escalator in an inappropriate manner? ;-) So naturally, when I took the metro I was a bit nervous – maybe I was breaking some of the rules. All of a sudden a woman in an Abaya (the traditional Islamic dress) walked over to me and I thought “Oh no, maybe I’m sitting on a seat designated for women”. So I jumped up and offered her my seat – she just looked at me and said “Your ticket please”. Turns out that she was a part of a team checking that the people on the metro had valid tickets. I was able to show my ticket and hence I avoided getting a fine ;-) You can find a list of all the fines on this page.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=703 2 At the top – Burj Khalifa http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=696 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=696#comments Wed, 28 Apr 2010 21:13:43 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=696 I just had the pleasure of visiting the world’s tallest building: Burj Khalifa in Dubai. I walked over to this amazing tower from the Dubai Mall metro station and it is impossible to not be impressed by the enormous 800 meter tall building. I had gotten a hold of a ticket to the observation deck “At the top” in advance and the ticket price was 100 Dirham (27 USD) but you can also pay to cut in line but then the price is 400 Dirham (110 USD!!!). The entrance to the At the top experience starts within Dubai Mall (which they claim is the biggest mall in the world) and after I passed through security I followed the path to get to the elevator. Along the path you get information about the building process, the design etc. and to start with there is also a couple of models of the building. The elevator itself was quite small but at least it is fast :-) I honestly didn’t feel the elevator starting but it didn’t take long before I felt the change in pressure in my ears and then I knew we were moving. The lift travels at 10 m/s so it only takes a minute to reach the observation deck – so when the doors opened I was looking out from 124th floor! The observation deck has both an indoor and an outdoor section and it gives you a 360  degree view of the Dubai area. I started by going outdoor and the view from about 450 meters above the ground is amazing. You know that you are high up when you can look down on the 60+ floors hotel The Address :-) The sun was blazing outside and even I was quite high up, there was no cooling effect in the breeze. The outdoor section gives you a view from The Address hotel and the musical fountain, the Dubai Mall, Sheikh Zayed road and towards the ocean where it was possible to see the islands of the World project. When going inside again I got a view of Jumeirah (including Burj Al Arab and the Palm in the distance) and all around back to the Address hotel. Even if this is the tallest building in the world, this observation deck is actually not the tallest in the world. That record belongs to Shanghai World Financial Centre ;-) You can read more about the “At the top” observation deck on the Burj Khalifa homepage. Nikki and I went to Dubai last year and you can check out my Dubai trip report on this page.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=696 3 Burj Khalifa viewing platform closed http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=661 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=661#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:00:36 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=661 It is not long ago since Burj Khalifa (also know as Burj Dubai) opened officially and the viewing platform called “At the top” opened up for the first guest on the 124th floor. But now there are news saying that the viewing platform has been closed indefinitely. The reason for this closing seems to be vague but things like “unexpected high traffic” and “electrical problems” has been mentioned. Nikki and I went to Dubai last year (as you can see in this Dubai trip report) and at the time the building was not open – but what an impressive building! But now it remains to be seen how long it will take before guests once again can enjoy the view from the 124th floor.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=661 1 British woman arrested in Dubai after being raped! http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=610 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=610#comments Sat, 09 Jan 2010 09:25:39 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=610 A British woman got arrested the other day in Dubai when she went to the police to report a rape. It turns out that she was there on vacation with her boyfriend to celebrate her engagement and when she admitted that she had had sex with her boyfriend, she was arrested for having “illegal sexual intercourse”. One should of course respect the rules and regulation to the country that you are visiting but this is no way to be treated if you have been raped. This case shows a bit of the problem that Dubai faces. They do want western tourists to come to the city and country but they still want to enforce their strict rules on them.  So keep this in mind if you are planning on going to Dubai! Here is the article concerning the British woman that got raped.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=610 1 Burj Dubai opens…and changes name http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=606 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=606#comments Fri, 08 Jan 2010 18:58:46 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=606 Maybe old news by now…but just for the record: on January 4th Burj Dubai was opened by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum. At the same time it was also renamed from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa (after United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan). The official height is now 828 meters (about 2700 ft) and the viewing platform on 124th floor is now open to the public :-) Here is an article about the opening containing a video. Visit the official homepage for more information.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=606 0 Photos and videos from Dubai http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=576 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=576#comments Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:06:01 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=576 I have uploaded some photos and videos from Dubai in connection with the upcoming Dubai trip report. You can see them all on http://gardkarlsen.com/Dubai_United_Arab_Emirates_photos.htm

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=576 1 Is it the end of The World? http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=427 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=427#comments Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:33:21 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=427 No, we are not talking about Armageddon here – we are talking about The World in Dubai. As some of you know, the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has started some of the most amazing building projects in the world….some examples are Burj Dubai, Ski Dubai, the Palm Jumeirah etc. They also started the contruction of The World a few years back; a man made archipelago of 300 islands located of the coast of Dubai. The project got it’s name as the islands together formed a world map and to start with the there were lots of rumors of celebrities buying varies islands.  According to the project homepage, The World was completed on October 1st 2008. But this week there are rumors that the whole project has been canceled – check this article in TimesOnline. I could see the islands when I was there in May but I don’t think that anything has been built on them yet – I guess the economic crises in the world put an end to the whole thing and maybe this shows that it was just too insane to complete. I’m always fascinated by building projects that are over the top but I didn’t quite see the big attraction in owning a small island of the coast of Dubai. From what I have heard the property prices in Dubai has dropped a lot but I was surprised to see that there were still a lot of construction activities when I was there in April and May. There has been some negative press about Dubai as a tourist destination in the last year and I guess that is not helping either. Anyway, I will write more about my feelings regarding Dubai in the upcoming trip report that I will post on gardkarlsen.com . You can read more about The World on Wikipedia.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=427 0 Flight to Dubai with Lufthansa http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=204 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=204#comments Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:04:06 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=204

This is a trip report from a trip to Dubai with Lufthansa. We bought these tickets when we came across a great Lufthansa offer a few months back and the price was just to good to turn down. We got the tickets for 2800 kroner (about 420 USD) per person for a round trip from Stavanger in Norway and that is almost half the price of what you normally see. We did go to Dubai in 2002 and you can read that trip report here. I’m also planning on making a new proper trip report…this trip report will focus on the flight to and from Dubai.

We started our trip on May 20th 2009 at the crack of dawn. We had LH3163 from  SVG to FRA at 06.35 amso we got to the airport about 1 hour before departure. But when we came into the terminal building we only found chaos. It turned out that the baggage belts were causing check in problems so the lines grew rapidly. We did check in at the self service machines but then we had to get in line for the baggage drop. The SAS lady could have pointed us to the business line at least as she saw that we both are Eurobonus gold card members but she didn’t. But we found the business line after waiting in line for a bit – not that it mattered that much as this line was not really moving at all. I didn’t think we got sufficient information and we only got to check in when our flight was starting to blink “Boarding”. It is really a miracle that the baggage made it on the flight. There should have been a system for checking in the passengers with the earliest flights but I guess it is easier said then done. We did make the plan and I hope that I’m forgiven by my fellow passengers as we had to cut the line at the security control.

Our flight from Stavanger to Frankfurt was with Eurowings in a Bae-146 and it took about 2 hours. The flying conditions were great and we got a great view to all the nice beaches outside Stavanger after take off.

The breakfast on board the flight was a small sandwich but as we were flying on economy and were seated all the way in the back we did not get the option between ham or cheese when the FA reached our row. But hey, a sandwich is better than nothing.

The weather was also great when we landed so once again we got a great view…this time to downtown Frankfurt a few minutes before landing.

As we had a few hours before our next flight, we decided to take a trip into Frankfurt to kill some time. Luckily it was easy to get out of the airport and we were out of the place in just a few minutes….we must have been lucky with our gate :-) We found a place where I could store my backpack and from there we took a train into downtown Frankfurt for about 4€ each. The town looked pretty nice and I would like to go back to spend a weekend there.

At about noon we went to back to the airport and we went for the Sentator loung in the B section of the airport. I’m not that impressed with the lounges at Frankfurt – the lounge that we went to was very crowded and it was hard for us to find a seat and to start with we had to sit on bar stools. We did get a table eventually but there were not many good seats available. And I also think it is pretty lame that they don’t offer free WiFi in a business class lounge. The selection of food was not that impressive either but at least they had some hot dogs on the menu and a selection of beer and wine.

Finally it was time for boarind and we walked over to our gate and went on board in our 747-400 where I had seat 38C.

This Lufthansa plane did not have a personal TV screen in each seat so we were stuck with the old CRT TV hanging in the ceiling. I’m not too impressed by this of course but on a short flight like this it was not a problem. I think I had a larger personal TV screen when flying Emirates business class compared to the ones hanging in the ceiling of this 747 . I went to a Lufthansa presentation a few weeks back and they said they are working on introducing personal TV screens on all their long haul planes so I guess it will come eventually.

I find it strange that they don’t show more stuff on the TV by the way – I think they only showed some news, then there was a broad and “exciting” summary of a couple of soccer games in the German bundesliga and then the movie Mall Cop. Nikki went for the chicken and rice when dinner was served and I went for the beef stew and that was very nice.  LHis good when it comes to refilling the glasses and I enjoyed red wine together with the food and coffee and Baileys for the dessert. It is amazing to see that they drag along Warsteiner beer on glass bottle on board the flight – you don’t mess with good beer in Germany :-)

The flight to Dubai (DXB) took only 6 hours and we landed in Dubai at about 11 PM. At the gate we were met by a lady in a bright yellow jacket holding a poster with Nikki’s name on it. This is a part of the Marhaba (http://www.marhabaservices.com/source/index.aspx) service and it is a meet & greet service to get the wife faster through some of the lines as she has to go through a bit extra due to her South African passport. We even got a small car to take us to passport control at the airport. The lady from the Marhaba service and the guy that took care of our baggage walked us all the way out to the taxis outside the airport. Great service :-)

If you want to see some photos from Dubai feel free to check out my blog on  http://gardmobile.blogspot.com/search/label/Dubai The Dubai trip report will be posted on http://gardkarlsen.com eventually :-)

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The trip back home started at the crack of dawn on May 25th. We were transported to the airport in the hotel limousin – a BMW 730i and it didn’t take us long as there was more or less no traffic this early in the morning. We checked in for LH639 and walked over to the StarAlliance lounge by gate 126 if I’m not mistaken. The lounge is more or less a joke as it is tiny, it has few seats and the only separation between First and Business is basically a wall. Nikki was joking that the only difference between First and Business class in the lounge was that First had access to cornflakes cereal ;-) But we did get some breakfast in the lounge as the had some tiny club sandwiches, some orange juice and a coffee machine.

Our flight was departing from gate 115 at o7.45 AM and this time it was an Airbus A340 – I was hoping that this would involve a personal TV screen but unfortunately not. We were seated on row 45 (second last row) and it was a 2-3-2 configuration. We were hoping to get two seats by ourselves on one of the sides of the plane but that seemed to be impossible – did we check in too late? Maybe I have two high hopes for what the Eurobonus gold card will fix for us ;-)

We got a small sandwich after takeoff and when they reached our row they were out of options and we got the vegetarian sandwich which was pretty horrible. Once again there were CRT screens in the ceiling and once again we got some news, more soccer news from the German bundesliga…and the great finale was the move Mall cop…I guess they felt it was so great that they had to show it both going there and back again. Well, I fell asleep during the movie both times so I still haven’t seen it :-)

As we didn’t get our choice for breakfast, we were informed that we would be able to choose dinner. I went for the chicken and rice which was good. But once again they ran out of options and the FA had to spend time and energy explaining to the passengers that pasta was the only option. They used a loooong times to serve drinks before dinner by the way. There was only one trolley in each aisle in economy class and I think they used about 40 minutes. I also got the impression that this was to order what we wanted to drink for dinner but that was not the case.  Because after dinner was served they started serving drinks once again and once again it took “forever”. They actually started running out of time and my tray was basically removed while I was in the middle of dessert.

We landed in at about 11 AM and we had to go through passport control to enter into the Schengen area. Due to this we had to go through check in and security control and for the first time in my life I had to bring out my cameras to show that they were indeed cameras.

We only had a short stop in Munchen and we just made a short stop to the Senator lounge to see what it looked like. It was nice to see that they have a Senator cafe where they have more focus on food.

At 13.45 we went with LH973 to Frankfurt. At the gate it was possible to help ourselves with coffee and tea before boarding the plane :-) We had an Airbus A320 and the flight to Frankfurt was only 50 minutes. Once again the weather was great and we got a nice view to the airport as we were airborne.

We did not have that much time in Frankfurt either but we waited in the Senator lounge in the A pier. This lounge actually looks better than the lounge in the B pier as it was bigger, better views, better choice of food etc I tried to take some pictures but I was informed by one of the staff that this was not allowed.

And finally it was time for the last leg – LH3096 took us back to Stavanger in Norway in a 737 in 1 hour and 45 minutes. We came in straight over downtown Stavanger and we got a great view to my city :-) .

That’s basically it for this time – this trip was a great deal as it was only 2800 Norwegian kroner per person. The experience with Lufthansa was good but I look forward to personal TV screens and more choice of entertainment.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=204 0 Review of Traders Hotel Dubai http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=183 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=183#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2009 16:45:14 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=183 I have stayed at Traders hotel in Dubai a numer of times and I have been very happy with the hotel. So when I went to Dubai in April I decided to stay at Traders Hotel to see if the hotel could be compared to the hotel in KL. I booked the room online on the the Traders hotel website and it was 540 AED (about 150 USD) excluding breakfast. I only stayed there 1 night in connection with a meeting in Dubai.

The transport to the hotel in taxi didn’t cost much and it only took about 10 minutes. We came there after midnight and were quite tired…luckily the check in was fast and I got room 351. I was actually so tired that I was not about to open my suitcase so I really appreciated that there was a toothbrush/tooth paste kit in the bathroom. The room it was with beige carpet and it was dominated by the big bed (which was pretty comfy as far as I can remember). The walls were in light colors and there was a dark wood furniture that contained a place for the suitcase, a wardrobe and also space for water boiler, water etc. In front of the bed there was a desk, a chair, a mini bar inside and a small CRT TV. The internet is now included for free in all Traders and Shangri-La hotels and at the hotel the access was via cable – excellent in my opinion.

The bathroom was small but pretty smart laid out. There was a shower corner with a glass door, a small sink area, some of the same amenities that I am used to from Traders in KL (but why place them on a shelf over the toilet?) and as it was tiled it was actually pretty nice. The breakfast was not included in the room rate (my mistake) and I had to pay another 75 AED if I’m not mistaken. I always find this a bit annoying as I don’t really eat that much for breakfast. But the breakfast seemed to include all the things that you would expect from a hotel breakfast.

Now over to some of the things that are not that positive. When I opened the curtain in the morning I was looking straight out on a construction site – and it was really just outside the window. When we checked in a pilot came back to the desk and asked for another room as he didn’t want a room facing this construction site so I can only assume that there is some noise from this site during the day. Talking about pilots and airport personnel: this hotel is so close to the airport and it seems to be used as a airport hotel both for people in transit and airline personnel. Not that that is bad but airport hotels normally has a different atmosphere than regular hotels. And as it is close to the airport you also get close encounters with planes taking off or landing which can be cool. If you are using Traders for vacation you should also note that the pool is tiny and it is indoor.

The hotel is located between the airport and the ocean on the Deira side of Dubai. It seems like the centre of Dubai has stretched out from Dubai creek towards Burj Dubai area and Jumeirah so the hotel location might not be the best.

Conclusion
I only stayed at Traders in Dubai for a night and I was planning on using it for vacation in May but I’m now having second thoughts. First of all the second thoughts are connected to the construction site outside the hotel, the location of the hotel and the tiny and indoor pool. The room itself was not bad but the hotel did have an airport hotel atmosphere. So for my vacation in May I will probably choose to stay at a different hotel.

]]> http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=183 2 The dark side of Dubai http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=76 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=76#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:28:38 +0000 http://gardkarlsen.com/blog/?p=76 I have been to Dubai a couple of times now and when we went there the first time (see trip report from 2002) I thought it was great. When I returned in 2009 the place had changed quite a lot as they have added some of the most amazing structures on the earth in the city (Burj Dubai, the palm projects, the World etc etc). But I also came across some articles that worries me. Check this article from The Independent . It seems like many of the construction workers face slave like contracts and conditions. Human Rights Watch has also made reports from Dubai like this one called Building Towers. Cheating Workers. So are we supporting “slavery” by visiting Dubai and spending money there?

From VBS.TV and a BBC report

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