Kids’ paradise is called Dubai

I think that the only other place in the world that could compete with Emirates for the kids’ paradise award is Orlando. But the latter would fail on the sea and dunes criteria. There are so many attractions for kids in Dubai and beyond (Abu Dhabi and other Emirates are doing a great job too) that one could be visiting them for a month without going to the same place twice (but needs sheikh’s budget for that). Therefore it was a tough choice to decide what places we will be visiting and even more tough to resist not visiting the rest.

Already before the trip we have agreed with the kids that we will visit two amusement parks, one being Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, and one water park. After comparing the prices, the height restrictions and the reviews we chose to go to Legoland water park. With the online ticket we got to visit two parks of ‘Dubai Parks and Resorts’ in a day. So we went to a Lego water park for the morning heat and to Motiongate for the afternoon. These parks are very new and are located quite outside Dubai, plus we went on Monday, so they were almost empty. There were no queues at all! Thus doing two parks in a day was perfectly manageable.

Lego water park is excellent for the kids like Tilius and Elin as the maximum height limit for the rides was 107cm so Elin could join us on all the rides and they were neither too childish nor too thrilling. Just perfect!

Then it was time for Motiongate. It is an amusement park with the same concept as Disneyland just based on different cartoon characters – Smurfs, Hotel Transylvania, Kung-fu panda, Madagascar, Shrek, just to name few. The park is great with one problem – it is only partly open because its construction has not finished yet. We knew of this before going from various reviews so it was not a surprise, but still rather upsetting, because even some finished rides were not open. The good side is that there were almost no people so we did not have to queue for any of the rides (that were open) and could go round and round. The shows were also nice and we met some characters. So overall it was an exciting day and the number of rides open still made it worth the visit.

We did not plan to go to any other water park but looking to buy tickets to Ferrari world I’ve noticed that the price difference for going just to Ferrari and to go to it together with its sister waterpark is only 5 euros so of course we bought a combined ticket for both. The number of people we met in Yas Waterworld is incomparable to Lego park. There were long queues for every slide, but the slides, admittedly, were much more fun. Well, it is a big water park for the whole family with older kids. Elin was upset as she was not allowed to go on most of the slides.

What can be said about Ferrari world? It is a park for the Ferrari and for thrill lovers. While our boys (especially the big one) were very excited to go there, Tilius finally concluded that he needs to come back after few years, once he will reach the required height limit (which is either 130cm or 150cm). But there were still some rides that our explorers could join, mostly 3D or 5D motion rides, and overall they loved the place.

Besides these amusement parks we also spent a very nice morning in Sharjah (city neighbouring Dubai) Discovery centre. It is a big educational playground divided in several thematic areas, such as construction site with cranes and soft bricks, human body with optical and sound experiments, sport zone to play football or try wheelchair basketball, driving school, etc. It was a great fun for our little explorers! And unlike other parks, it was really very cheap. Plus it was quite empty – there were no more than other three more families besides us.

The list of the places that we did not go but would have loved to is much longer than the text above. So we do not exclude visiting UAE again, even if we try to go every time to a different country because there so many new places to discover. But there are still many places to discover in Dubai too.

Fitting the world in a suitcase

Before the pleasure of every trip I have to suffer the torture of packing. I believe that every mother knows how difficult it is to fit half of the house in a suitcase so that the inner ‘what if?’ is calm and the overweight charges are avoided.  On the other hand, I guess everyone would like to travel ‘light’, avoid endless packing and unpacking when changing hotels or being obliged to hire a bigger car as the economy one has too little trunk for all the stuff.

I wonder what your packing ‘habits’ are? As for me, over the time I have learned to pack into two suitcases, one small and one medium, all the family and it is regardless of how far and for how long we go (keeping in mind that normally we go warm places). But travelling light needs thorough preparation and reflection. My trick is to put everything I intend to take on the floor or on the bed, so that I can have an overview of how many things I plan to bring along. This usually makes me realise that there are a lot, too many, things on the bed. Then I start counting: five t-shirts, four dresses, two blouses… This is enough to change clothes every day for 11 days! But frankly, do I need to change my outfit every day (and I will not be walking the red carpet in Cannes)? Therefore, I think it is enough to pack one outfit for two days with some extra for emergencies. Basically for a trip of one week it is enough to take five combinations of clothes and for any longer trip 7-8 outfits will do. For the longer trips instead of more clothes I take detergent tablets (buying detergent at the place results in getting huge box for just one washing).

Another important trick is to be realistic about what you will be doing during the trip. If the holidays bring you to Bali you will not, believe it, you will not need two pairs of jeans and three sweaters. And there is no ‘what if’! It is also highly unlikely that you will need an evening dress and stilettos, especially if you do not even wear them at home. Better leave some space in your luggage and profit from an occasion to do a little shopping if it finally appears that you are invited to a king’s palace.

Finally, when travelling with kids do not forget to bring along a small piece of ‘home’. Our hand luggage always includes two small cushions and kids’ bed toys. This way they feel a little bit like at home when sleeping in the plain or in a hotel. We also bring for kids one or two of their favourite books to read before the bed and some pencils with paper for them to draw. They can also pack some toys they want to have but the rule is that all these things shall fit into one backpack and shall not contain the things they would really hate losing.

At the end of the day, the only three things you shall not forget are the passports, the credit card and the curiosity to explore. Soon you will realise you don’t need anything else.

Dunes beyond skyscrapers

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A typical reaction to the fact that we went to Emirates for holidays was “Is there anything worth seeing or doing?” Well, it depends on what you are looking for.

I do not argue that Dubai indeed has many skyscrapers, many shopping malls and many Russians. But it does not stop there. All these skyscrapers and shopping malls were not there 50 years ago, but people lived there, they had traditions, culture, food and dunes with the sea. Leave the city and you will be faced with the infinity of the sand on the one side and with the endless sea on the other. Just too many visitors never leave their hotel’s beach club. On the other hand Emirates (and not only Dubai) are packed with the attractions for kids that could keep you busy for weeks. It is true kids’ paradise (but I will write about this next time).

A good place to learn about the country and its past is Al Ain (an oasis city that shall be on everyone’s ‘must see’ list!). A trip to a different country starts the moment you leave Dubai’s or Abu Dhabi’s high-rises behind. All you can see around is sand – yellow, orange, red, and an occasional roaming camel. If not the modern highway you could imagine yourself to be an explorer on the back of the camel crossing the Empty Quarter. The trip from any of the two megalopolises is only a bit more than an hour so could be done as a day tour, but I think that there are a lot of things to see making it worth to spend in Al Ain at least few days. One shall also consider that the place is inland that makes it very hot (our car showed 43 degrees).

During our two day visit we saw Al Ain palace museum – the home of Sheikh Zayed, the founder of UAE; Al Jahili fort – the most historic building in UAE, Al Ain national museum that holds artefacts from surrounding archaeological sites and shows a very interesting short movie about the history of the oasis. The big attraction for kids was a visit to camel market where we saw hundreds of different camels, small and big, old and babies. We just forgot to ask how much they costJ. When entering Al Ain oasis you understand why this place was of such an importance as the shades of the palms make a nice retreat from the midday heat. Finally we drove all the way up to Jabel Hafeet, but frankly, did not find it somehow extraordinary. Maybe because the views were not clear as the air was hazy. But there is a nice playground for kids at the top so they did not complain about the drive.

As the trip was too short and the days were too hot we had no time to visit Al Ain zoo which is apparently very nice and the attempt to explore Hili archaeological park failed as it was closed without any apparent reason. But maybe even better – now we have a reason to come back.

Roasted tourists in Dubai

I am a type of person that likes planning things and of course when the plans work out. But travelling with kids may never follow a strict plan. So over time I learned, no, not to live without a plan, but at least to plan the ‘unplanned’. My ability to accommodate plan failure was recently tested during our trip to UAE.

At a first glance two weeks in Dubai seemed as too long to fill the days but only until I started looking at what can be done there with kids. It appeared that there are more activities than the days we have, moreover that we also wanted to visit other cities. So we had to do some filtering and finally we came up with one attraction /activity /visit a day, sometimes taking up the whole day, sometimes just few hours (the rest being the planned ‘unplanned’ time). The guides and internet were telling that April is a good month for visiting Emirates as it is not yet too hot so quite some activities involved outdoors exploration (and we never considered Dubai as beach destination).

However the first day we left the hotel to explore heritage area of Dubai we realised that the weather forecast apps were not lying and that 38 degrees are indeed hot. As the heat is dry and seemed manageable in the shadow, we still made it to Dubai museum on foot (some 1,5 km) but looking at the faces of my kids I realised that any further stay outside during lunch hours would make us slowly roasted tourists in own juices. So there and then I had to admit that our exploration holidays have to be transformed into beach/pool holidays with occasional evening sightseeing. Luckily parts of the initial plan could be saved by the fact that in the afternoons, around 5pm, the temperatures become acceptably warm but any sightseeing had to be squeezed in two hours as by 7pm the sun was definitely down. It was also interesting to see how the place is adapted to the heat – the bus stops have air conditioned cubicles, quite some of the attractions are located inside mega shopping malls, even the zoo in Sharjah is set the way that the visitors watch the animals from air conditioned premises. On the other hand we learned that Emirates have great beaches too (like Mamzar beach park in the photo), something we probably would have missed under the original plan!

Local food in McDonalds

When travelling around the world we inevitably end up visiting local McDonalds. Mostly for breakfast as it serves quite good pancakes (not in Spain though), but also for a fast dinner when kids get tired of trying out ‘strange’ food and want something known. It is interesting to observe how McDonalds adapts to local tastes by offering something from the place. In Spain it has gaspacho and burgers prepared by Spanish Michelin starred chefs, in Malaysia it offers corn as a desert and ‘Bubur Ayam’ (chicken strips with porridge), in Hong Kong it has pasta soup for breakfast and here in Emirates they have McArabia sandwich which is a version of shawarma with pita and chicken and Arabic salad (photo) which is another version of Greek or Turkish salad. It was so delicious (something you don’t normally say about McDonalds food) that would not make shame on a menu in any ‘normal’ restaurant.