Month: May 2011

is what the sign in the elevator said as we entered the Dubai Mall. And they weren’t kidding. The Dubai Mall is the largest mall in the world and houses the second largest aquarium in the world. We visited twice and hiked all over the place and I never even caught a glimpse of the aquarium. I did see the full sized ice skating rink and the entrance to the tallest building in the world (the Burj Khalifa Tower), but we could have spent days there and not seen everything.

The boys in front of the model of the Burj Khalifa. You can buy tickets to go up to the top, but the tours sell out so you have to get them several days in advance.I’m not so sure that’s a trip I want to take (even though they did show it in an episode of The Amazing Race as it was under construction).

 See these other buildings in the skyline? They are regular huge skyscrapers. This thing dwarfs them. It is monstrous.

Also monstrous? This mall. We met some Marines from California that had been at the mall for three days. Osama could have been hiding out here for the past 10 years and no one would ever know. We tried to come up with a landmark to serve as a meeting place in case we got separated, but I didn’t have much confidence that I would be able to find the meeting place again so we just held hands a lot.

At the “food court” we found Baja Fresh and Fatburger — both Carter and Caleb ordered double cheeseburgers and ate the entire thing. I guess all the swimming and running around the waterpark gave them even bigger appetites than usual.

Of course, Josh and I chose Baja Fresh. In a country where you can’t find black beans I’m going to choose Mexican or Tex Mex any chance I get. (And to solve my black bean problem, I ordered a bunch from Amazon. Yes, I did.)

So back to the mall and shopping. I didn’t have nearly enough time to explore it the way I wanted to, but I did get a new swimsuit and spent a ridiculous amount of money on a hat that I love, so it was a great trip. I just figure the hat is a gift to my 80 year old self, who will be thankful to have less wrinkles staring back at her when she looks in the mirror each day. Or maybe 2054 me will have access to all the latest skin resurfacing technology and won’t appreciate that I bought an fabulous hat just for her. Whatever. My expensive hat is awesome anyway.

ETA: photos of the hat. Yes, Mom, I should have posted some to begin with, but I didn’t have any since I bought it on the way home. These quick snaps will have to do.

  

Back to the awesomeness that is the Dubai Mall. If I had tons of money and tons of time, I would love to spend a week there — but the waterpark was calling our names so we only spent a few hours taking it all in. Not nearly enough time to experience Everything.

Cause there are sharks down below!

 No tears from this kid — he hopped right on and went for it. Just like one of the Globetrotters. I love this sequence of pictures because it looks like a flip-book of his ride when you scroll through them quickly.

cause I’m out of most of my words tonight. We got home last night and spent today getting readjusted to non-resort life. Here’s a taste of our weekend.

Caleb riding with the luggage. Every time we went around a turn the suitcases would fall over on him and he’d have to call for help to right them again. Hey, at least he has a seatbelt.

Almost there. Atlantis is on a man made island shaped like a palm tree. There are beautiful villas/resorts that occupy the fronds that are lettered so you can tell them apart and say things like, “I live on frond M.”

To get to Atlantis, you drive up the trunk of the palm tree and at the very tip-top there is a tunnel that goes under the water and comes up in the center of that outer circle of islands.

 

Inside the Atlantis resort is a waterpark called Aquaventure. This is the wave pool that connects a bunch of different innertube rides/lazy rivers. They are taking their innertubes and heading toward that tunnel on the right. We spent almost our entire weekend in the waterpark, aside from a short detour to the Dubai mall.

Waiting at the base of The Leap of Faith — the tallest waterslide in the park. You drop straight down into a tube that runs through a tank filled with sharks, rays and other fish. It’s similar to Splash Mountain’s drop at Disneyland. Everyone did this ride multiple times except Carter and me. I was considering it (because it’s such a short ride), but there never seemed to be a good time to actually do it. :cough: scaredy-cat :cough:

The vertical drop turns into the tube once you hit the mist — it runs under the bridge that I’m standing on and you drop out into a pool on the other side.

Baby loves fries. And chicken. And hamburgers. And salsa. And cheesesteaks. Pretty much anything edible.
More to come . . .

bags packed: check
car rented: check
reservations made: check
snacks and water for the road: check
exchange of currency: not yet

Where are we going? To another foreign country . . . this time UAE, specifically Dubai. More specifically, here.

you don’t have to watch the entire thing, but the opening is pretty amazing. Since we went for the cheap rooms no aquariums in our bathroom or anything crazy like that.

It turns out that Dubai is only 5 hours away and the Atlantis is doing a summer promotion so the rooms are about half price. Of course now that we are a family of 6 we have to get two rooms, so not as much of a bargain, but still doable. And no, I can’t just cram everyone into one room like we used to do on those Hicks family vacations since you only get 4 waterpark admissions per room. It sure is tempting though, all those sleeping bags covering the floor, bodies and suitcases crammed in every corner . . . maybe I should stick a microwave in the trunk of the rental car to use in the hotel. That wouldn’t be embarrassing to carry in through the lobby or anything. Just kidding mom and dad. If the boys have even a fraction of the memories that I have from our family vacations, then I’ll consider us to have been successful.

So that dumb 4-to-a-room policy really turns into a win for me. Baby and I can come back to our own room when it’s super-hot outside . . . hmm, it’s super hot all the time. OK, when it’s peak sunburning time and she can “nap” and I will watch tv and eat snacks. I can’t wait.

There are several other families going up this weekend so all the kids will be able to play together at the waterpark onsite. And when else in our lives will we be able to hop over to Dubai for the weekend? We’re making this one year count and trying to pack in as much as we can without doing so much that none of it is fun.

See you when we get back!

Just like when we lived in 29 Palms, there’s not much that we can do outside during the day because of the extreme heat. But this place? Keeps us plenty cool.

We recently got a membership to the Intercontinental Hotel’s Palm Beach Club. That means we can go use the hotel pool, fitness center, tennis courts and whatever else they have that I haven’t discovered yet.

Like everywhere else here, the water is WARM. They have a lap pool that is “chilled” because the main pool gets so warm from daily temps over 100 and night temps in the 90s. I don’t intend to go anywhere near the lap pool.

The main pool is huge. It has two islands that you can swim around. Kind of like the lazy river pool at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, but without the current.

Even the smallest member of our family loves the water, even if she doesn’t love the hat she has to wear while in the water.

Carter thinks if he reads the poolside menu then we might buy him something to eat. We will, eventually, but we gotta save up. Especially since I think the cheapest thing on the menu was $15 for a salad.