Day 3 – Dubai

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Sunday in Dubai is a normal working day, so we are expecting everywhere to be a lot quieter today.

We had planned that our first visit today was a tour around the only mosque in Dubai that we are allowed into. Unfortunately, we have slightly misunderstood where we were to go.

Before our visit to Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding yesterday, we knew exactly where we had to go. Unfortunately, whilst we were there yesterday they gave us a map with a mosque on it. However, there are many many mosques here. We assumed that this was in fact the mosque that did visits as it was the centre that organised them.

We arrived at Al Fahidi metro station about 9am, and thinking that we only had a ten minute walk for our 10 am visit to the mosque we thought we would try one of their local cafeterias. When we walked in, it was as if they had never had a tourist inside before. But once in, they would not let us leave. They offered us sweet white coffee and cleared us seats to sit down. There were only 3 tables in the café.

Whilst we waited for the coffee to arrive we decided that we would bite the bullet and try some local breakfast, but could not understand what was on offer. We asked the waiter when he returned with the coffee, and he said he would bring us their traditional breakfast. We explained that we would have just one between us as we were sure it would be spicy.

Breakfast turned up on a metal plate which contained freshly cooked thin bread. It also had a bowl with a spicy mixture inside. It tasted to contain potatoes, onion, chilli and probably a lot more as well. This was very tasty and we managed to eat it all. It even made the coffee taste nicer as we thought it was very strong when it arrived.

We were really surprised at the price of just 5 AED (About £1) for the two coffees and one very tasty breakfast. We will definitely try to eat a local breakfast again before we leave United Arab Emirates (UAE)

We then walked up to the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding to register for the mosque tour, only to find out that our change of assumption yesterday was incorrect. The mosque on the map is not the one that will allow us in. We will maybe schedule this in for another day whilst in Dubai. Nevertheless as we have another mosque planned whilst in Abu Dhabi in a few days’ time.

We walked back to the metro station and decided to spend the morning in the Dubai Mall. We found the waterfall with the statuette men swimming down the large vertical wall. We also found the valet entrance where they park the expensive cars and we also got a good uncrowded view of the vast Burj Khalifa. It is currently the tallest building in the world. We have a booking for Friday 18^th September to go to the top of this.

One of the vouchers that had taken our fancy in the Entertainer book was for the Chill Out. This is basically a bar type room where everything is made of ice.

Not realising how far it was from the metro station we endured a half hour walk in the hot midday sun to get there, but it was well worth it. The temperature was in the region of 40 degrees with no shade at all on the way on offer.

They provide you with padded Eskimo coats and boots as well as woollen gloves. They even gave George an extra coat for his legs, as he only had cropped trousers on and was worried his bare legs would get cold. The temperature was -6 degrees.

Once inside we were offered either a complimentary hot chocolate or hot sweet tea.

At one point we were the only people in there, so the assistant came over and took lots of photos of us. She then sat talking with us for a few minutes until other guests started coming in.

A couple who we think were in their late thirties came in as we were about to leave. We had to sit down to watch them as they were having so much fun. The lady was dressed in a full black abaya. They were just in front of where we were sitting near an ice horse and carriage sculpture. The lady decided she wanted to sit on the horse. She lifted up her abaya and the gentleman that was with her proceeded to lift her to straddle over the horse. Both of them were laughing as they tried several times before this was eventually achieved.

We have certainly learnt a lot about what the people are wearing in what we can only call national dress. Underneath it all they really are just like all of us. This was literally a very refreshing experience.

After spending about half an hour in the ice room, we took off the warm clothing and headed out into the sun again. This was a perfect way to catch a cold really. This time we got a taxi to the metro station. It only cost us 12 AED. Better than getting burnt in the sun.

Back to the hotel again for some further R and R.

Getting a bit fed up with our hotel now. It is a lovely looking hotel inside and out and the location is great for us. Unfortunately, we have not had the room cleaned or any clean towels delivered since we arrived here on Thursday. We keep putting out the sign to remind them but it does not seem to make any difference at all. Also the supposed free Wi-Fi is effectively non-existent. We get one bar most of the time which will allow nothing. Sometimes it manages two bars, but only for a couple of seconds then drops back to one. Also the laundry that should have been back by 1pm today is still not back by 6pm. We are going to have a quiet word in the manager’s ear on the way out tonight. We are due to be staying here for another 3 days after Abu Dhabi but think we may change that now.

As we left the hotel, we spoke to the gentleman at reception who apologised that our room had not been cleaned, (for three days now) and explained this was because we had our do not disturb sign up. We found this strange as it was only up for a couple of hours in the afternoon. He said he would get someone to clean it for us before our return after dinner.

The gentleman also explained that if we let them know when we got back he would arrange for our laundry to be sent to us.

We then went to the airport to collect our hire car ready for our journey tomorrow to Abu Dhabi.

Once we had parked the car at back at the hotel, we headed out again and found a really nice Iranian restaurant for our dinner. We had a mixed kebab plate between us and again there was way too much food for the two of us.

On return to the hotel at about 8.30pm, we advised reception that we were back now and could they please arrange for our laundry to be sent up to us as soon as possible as we were now packing for our departure in the morning. We were pleasantly surprised to find that our room had actually been cleaned now and we had some fresh towels and now toilet rolls.

At about 10.00pm our laundry had still not turned up so Theresa went back down to reception. Again they said to go back to the room and they would arrange for it to be delivered. She advised that no, she would stay in reception for them to bring it to her there. That took about 20 minutes.

We have already decided that we need to stay in a better hotel in a different area next time, so will be definitely cancelling our next booking.

This will be our next customer / consumer complaint for bad shoddy service on Trip Advisor etc.

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