Trip To Dubai!


Thread Starter #1

allhyundaicars

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I think this travelogue will really help you all since this is one of the best places for your first international trip with your friends or your family.
We were 5 friends and decided to go to Dubai for 4 nights and 5 days.

Points to Remember.
  1. One dihram is around 17.7 rupees. We got it for 18.1 rs from a friend.
  2. Use government taxi and not Uber if you want to save travelling cost by up to 50%. The only difference between the two is that you get only Innova and Camry from government and from Uber you get a variety of cars.
  3. Avoid going to amusement parks on Friday and Saturday (weekly off) or any other place where you think local people might turn up. You will have to wait in queues. Best option is Sunday being the first working day.
  4. Avoid yelling and Don't argue with anyone there. Even if he's wrong , say sorry and move on. The rules are really strict and you can't just hit anyone.
  5. Avoid going there from may - July. The temperatures can go above 45*C and above 50*C in the desert.
  6. Reach Ferrari world early in the morning around 10:30 am. It opens at 11 Am and you can easily ride the roller coaster without waiting in line.
  7. Most people talk in Hindi so communication won't be a problem there.
  8. Bargain hard at meena bazaar. Counter offer the shop guy around 1/3rd the quoted price.
  9. Avoid getting branded items like clothes , belts , watches etc from Dubai. The things there are expensive than delhi's prices. A watch costing 14k in Delhi costs around 22k I'm Dubai.
  10. You can get Mobile phones at cheaper rates however i didn't find a big price difference in apple phones. Samsung s8 for example was around 10k cheaper.
  11. Stags are not allowed at public beaches. We were asked to leave when we sat in a group. It's better to divide into smaller groups and you won't have a problem.
  12. you can't get liquor from any shop , you have to go to clubs or restaurant so buy something from the aiport duty free and drink at the hotel.
 
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Thread Starter #2

allhyundaicars

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1. Air tickets
Travel date - 8th March - 12th March 2018.
We booked the air tickets first , a month before our trip from Jet Airways.
The experience was really mediocre since they used a Boeing 737 airplane , the same that they use in their domestic flights. We were expecting the plane to be a Dreamliner a.ka Boeing 787 for the trip.
The food as always was bad. But I guess you get what you pay for.

Tickets costed 14,000 RS per person.

comparison of the two planes
american-boeing-737-823-n827nn-and-american-boeing-787-823-n801ac-phoenix-sky-harbor-march-10-20.jpg

2. Stay
There are many options available for stay in dubai.
There are your usual hotels (3star, 4star etc)
You can also rent the whole apartment for yourself or on sharing basis.
You can also stay in dorm rooms if you are really low on the budget or of you want that experience.

We decided to book a 4 star hotel and booked HILTON GARDEN INN AL MINA.
The hotel is far off from the city centre but still we got a good deal and we booked the hotel via Makemytrip.com. atleast this is what we thought.

The room wasn't that big and the view is not that great. There are construction sites all around the hotel. The hotel has a pool which seemed really big in the picture but it wasn't the case. Good photography.
So again the hotel experience was mediocre.
We were also looking at RAMADA Diera since it was in our budget. It's close to the metro station too.

Room costed us 70,000rs for 5 people ( 1 twin sharing and other tripple sharing) for 4 nights with free breakfast.
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Daily brekafast included many things like ,poha , chana masala , rajma , hash browns , cereal , waffles , fruits , chicken and beef sausages , scrambled eggs , boiled , poached eggs , roasted potatoes , dates and other dried fruits etc.

I searched on TripAdvisor of what all things to do when in Dubai. While doing that came across Ocean Air travels.

Rated number one on the site and after few days of customizing the package and some bargain we ended up paying 15000 per person for airport pick up and drop , tickets to Burj khalifa (124th floor ) , desert Safari with sand boarding and special buffet service and grand mosque and Ferrari world tickets , everything with private transfers.

Day 1 8th march 2018
Came out of the airport and the parking and roads were full of exotic cars. Yup the first thing I noticed were the cars.
Some pics.


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Dubai Frame

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Thread Starter #3

allhyundaicars

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Day 1 : Continued
After freshening up at the hotel it was time to eat some food. Searched on zomato and we found KHANA Khazana(Ibis style hotel) around 2kms from our hotel. Ordered the Uber and that's when we got to know how expensive it is. We were charged the base fare of around 30 AED. Yup 540 rs for 2 kms. Just for comparison , base fare of government taxis are 8 AED and 12 Aed for non-peak and peak hours respectively.
Had a wonderful lunch there , didn't expect the taste to be that good.
Attaching the bill here and some pics of the restaurant.
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after that we stopped at a supermarket to get some refreshments. the prices are of 6 cans of soda and coca-cola each plus 6, 1 liter water bottles. no the water is not expensive than cold drinks.
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Later in the evening we went to Burj khalifa. You have multiple ticket options of prime and non prime hours and skip the lines ticket.
Even though the immediate entry ticket is expensive but it will be worth it.

It took us 45 minutes to get to the top , we spent just 20-25 minutes there and around 70 minutes to get down the building. The queues were huge.
We all 5 agreed that the building looks spectacular to look at from the ground. Same can't be said when we went to the 124th floor. After 5 minutes it didn't feel wow.
The elevators are just superb. It takes just 60 seconds to climb 124 floors. Amazing.

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Thread Starter #4

allhyundaicars

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Day 2 : 10th March 2018

Today was the day we decided to do the Desert Safari. The hotel pickup was scheduled at 2:30 pm so after having a wonderful breakfast buffet from the hotel we headed towards Le Mar beach.
The entry to the beach was really good. Everything properly maintained. Lots of cafe's to eat from. Some pics of the beach

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Notice the Innova And Camry Government Cabs plus the Ferrari too.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUSLIIsa_Ms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEnFs5fC9Lc

The food here was expensive. 2 snacks plus 4 shakes costed 250 AED (4500 rs) at Bare Burger.
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Thread Starter #5

allhyundaicars

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Location
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Day 2 : Continued

At 2:30Pm a Land cruiser picked us up from our hotel.
It takes around 40-45 minutes to get to the dunes. The safari Takes place on the Red Dunes. You can see the Desert sand Color changing in the pictures.
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There's a meeting point where you can do quad biking for 180 AED for 20 minutes. It was really fun but you have to be very careful , it can turn turtle if you are not cautious enough.

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Being a Friday (weekly Off in UAE) many private car owners brought there own vehicles for the safari.
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Every tour company does the Safari in a convoy. We were 11 cars and our car was at the last as the backup car. In case someone gets stuck or get into some other problem our car would have stopped and helped the other car.

The Safari is around 25-30 minutes and that was spectacular. Car drifting in the loose sands , going up and down the dunes at fast speeds was exhilarating.
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They have another meeting point where we can do sand boarding , it's nothing great but should be tried at least once. Not easy too. I fell after 2-3 seconds.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lm-NTOISKA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NRSSNHFSY8

After this they stop near the highway to inflate the tyres and you can spend some more time in the desert.
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Then we head towards the BBQ dinner buffet which is another 15 minutes. You get welcome drinks and a sweet.
Since we booked the dinner with special service , a waiter was assigned to our table for food serving.
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Dinner Items.
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My friend stood up to get a cold drink and then a person came and requested very politely to sit down and the waiter will come at your table. Felt good that they think so much of the customers. In a minute the cold drink was at the table.

After the dinner was served there were two performances.
This guy was spinning for around 15 minutes non stop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN2oeUemt2Y

After this performance was the belly dancing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9DuythtsY0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m9Ys2MKN8g

After this performance we headed towards our hotel.​
 
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Thread Starter #6

allhyundaicars

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Day 3 10th March
Today nothing was pre-booked and we had the whole day to ourselves.
Friend wanted to buy gold so we headed towards meena bazaar and gold souk.
Some pictures. You can get shawls , clothes electronics at meena bazaar. You can buy dry fruits , chocolates and dates at these market. You can also buy cheap souvenir from here.
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To get to gold souk, you need to cross a creek. You can get a wooden boat for 1 AED to get to the gold souk. The gold souk has 100s of gold shops having extraordinary ornaments and other things.
We saw a dress made of gold coins , a huge gold crown (size of a medium luggage bag) , a huge necklace.
You can also buy oudh , perfumes from here. The famous is the ajmal brand and we all bought oudh from here.
I also saw a speed boat tour of the palm jumeria Burj Al Arab and the altlantis hotel.


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if you travel by car you have to cross this tunnel.
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Friend got stubborn that we should book the tour in advance fearing that we won't get tickets when we reach there. I intervened saying we should first go there and we can do some bargaining with not just this tour but from other tour company as well.

He didn't listen and we paid 1000 AED for 5 people for this speed boat tour of 90 minutes.

The tour starts from the Dubai marina , you can rent apartments here and you can see lots of private boats parked here.

After 5 minutes , an Indian came and asked if we wanted to rent a boat , I asked him the price and I was shocked that a small personal boat can be rented for 400 AED. I got furious at my friend and told the Indian guy we already paid 1000AED for the tour.
He said for 1000 AED you can get the full yacht.

When we tried to cancel the speed boat tour , they said they can postpone the tour but won't refund.

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We started the tour and it was fun indeed. Crusing at 40 knots it was exhilarating , the guy was doing donuts and intentionally going near stones and then taking a sharp turn just for fun.
Yacht would have been better but this was not that bad. The guy clicked photos of every group at the main locations and told us brief facts of the locations. We also saw David becham's bunglow at Palm jumeria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gBAS4k17Cg

Day 3 : Continued.
We couldn't see the Dubai fountain on the first day since we all were tired. So decide to go to the Dubai mall once again for the fountain show.
Hundreds of people were present there , the fountains lasts for 3.5 minutes and before the show the Burj khalifa lights up. This was out of the world experience. Truly amazing.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaX2W6qoVDM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN1HJWgGi1A

After this we headed back to our hotel.​
 
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Thread Starter #7

allhyundaicars

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Day 4 , 12th March 2018.

Ferrari World and Grand Mosque
This was a 8-9 hour trip so the your started at 9:30 am. Both the things are located in Abu Dhabi which is around 120 kms from our hotel. Took us around 70 minutes to reach. The entry to the rides starts at 11 Am. Before the entry they do a dance show and some stunts.

My stomach doesn't allow me to ride these roller coasters so besides me everyone enjoyed the rides.
There are 5 roller coasters and some other 4-5 different 4D experiences. RC controlled cars and ships , you can easily spend 4 hours (without queues) here.
Some pics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzzZL1F6fVA

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Thread Starter #8

allhyundaicars

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Day 4 : Continued

After this we headed towards the Sheikh Zayed Mosque.
The mosque is breath taking. The Craftsmanship and the level of details , the window glasses, the pillars , the carpet everything was perfect.
You should not miss this.
Took us around 2 hours to get back to Dubai because of traffic jams.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGdMgo_NNbY

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Thread Starter #9

allhyundaicars

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Day 5 11th March.
This was our last day and our flight was at 11:00 pm. We had to kill some time so we headed towards The Mall of Emirates after leaving the luggage at the hotel.

The thing to keep in mind is that everything in Dubai is expensive like clothes , watches , belts , shoes etc.
A Michael kors watch costing 14k in Delhi is priced at 22k in Dubai. A gucci belt priced 35k in Delhi is around 45k in Dubai.

We missed the underwater zoo at the Dubai mall , nobody wanted to go the mall again so decided to visit the Dubai zoo. After getting out of the taxi we got to know that it's shifting to somewhere else and was closed.
It was close to le mar beach so we decided to kill some time there.
At 7 pm we reached the airport and after shopping at the duty free we boarded the plane and bid adieu to Dubai.

Some random Pictures.
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Excellent pics buddy. And many thanks for the virtual tour of the city with those pics.

My visit to Dubai is limited to the airport for transit [lol]. How did you like the Ferrari world?
 
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Thanks for the info guys, i'm planning for a trip with my family to Dubai for 5 days.This year end!!!!

How was the tourist visa process done through the agent or you approached directly with e Visa.... like Singapore???
 
Thread Starter #14

allhyundaicars

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Friend's aunt is an agent so she did the Visa process. Don't know about e-visa. If someone already has a passport with US Visa then you have to pay 1800rs on arrival.
 

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