The subtitle for this weekend was, “if only I had more time . . .” I would have taken more pictures of the amazing detail of the hotel decor, taken another shower in the bathroom that had the best rain/waterfall shower head, taken a bath in the soaking tub, enjoyed a cup of coffee on our balcony that overlooked the beach and the pool, gone to another meal at the extravagant buffet that I still haven’t talked about, and I would have taken pictures of it all. I guess I was having too much fun to whip out my camera for most of it. And I didn’t want to look any more out of place than we already were, so I’ll just have to describe it the best I can.
So that HUGE blown glass sculpture that looks like Medusa’s hair snakes met up with Marge Simpson’s stylist was situated under a beautiful stone dome in the middle of the lobby. In the picture on the left you can see the scale — the people are tiny standing under the huge arches.
We were killing time in the lobby while Josh was checking in. I was warning everyone not to touch anything and to pretend that they had actually been in a nice hotel before instead of acting like they’d been trapped in a car for the past 5 hours. Which was a lot to ask considering that’s exactly what they had been doing. And, since we were driving a rental car it had a lovely “safety feature” built in: any time we drove over 120k/hour it would ding, “bing-bong! bing-bong!” Repeatedly. Of course the speed limit was 120k/hour so it would be like having the car set off an alarm any time you drove 65 mph. I thought I was going to lose my mind.
And then the baby screamed for the first hour and a 1/2 and ended up having a poop that got all over her clothes and the car seat (again) and between that and the dinging and the many roundabouts that are collisions waiting to happen, I was very thankful to finally arrive in paradise.
Of course my kids thought the huge lobby was a perfect place to start wrestling. You know, with those huge padded wrestling mats they had lying around.
They stopped wrestling long enough to pose for a picture, but that’s about all I got out of them.
Who cares about underwater themed rooms when you can actually be in the water?
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 . . .
