The day of my flight from the U.S., I was still receiving packages with things that I needed for my trip, like my debit card (money’s usually a good thing to have). I’m very on top of things, I know. But despite my very last minute scramble, I was packed, full from Chipotle, and at the airport 3 hours before my 15.5 hour flight to Dubai. The flight wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but it wasn’t all bad. The two girls in my row were total homies when I climbed over them like 3 times to use the bathroom. Also, apparently it’s a thing to hand out “refreshing towels” before take off, which was a plus. (@Southwest you should get on that)
At around 7 pm (but 8 am PST), Katrina and I got off our plane from San Francisco and met up with Harry, Jason, Austin, and Andrew at Dubai International Airport. DukeEngage booked hotel rooms for us since we had a 12-hour layover, which gave us our first of many opportunities to make sure everyone knew we were tourists! We probably spent 25 minutes looking for where we need to wait for the hotel shuttle, in which time we walked back and forth between the pick-up zone and the rental car place across the street about 4 times. Six capable adults(?) probably should’ve been able to figure it out a little faster, but in our defense, some of the signs were definitely pointing the wrong way. We did eventually make it to the hotel so I’m gonna say overall it was a victory.
Our layover was just for the night, but time zones had us all messed up and thinking it was daytime, so we left the hotel and headed to the Dubai mall.
We only got to spend a couple hours in Dubai, but we saw the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa), walked through the largest mall in the world, and checked out one of the largest suspended aquariums in the world. Summary: everything in Dubai is hella big. Considering it was only layover and not an actual trip to Dubai, it was really amazing! I saw so many things that I’d heard about but had never imagined I’d have the opportunity to see. I also got all of my touristy ignorance out of my system by mentioning that Burj Khalifa reminds me of Wiz Khalifa, so hopefully I won’t say anything stupid in Vietnam!
At around 7 pm (but 8 am PST), Katrina and I got off our plane from San Francisco and met up with Harry, Jason, Austin, and Andrew at Dubai International Airport. DukeEngage booked hotel rooms for us since we had a 12-hour layover, which gave us our first of many opportunities to make sure everyone knew we were tourists! We probably spent 25 minutes looking for where we need to wait for the hotel shuttle, in which time we walked back and forth between the pick-up zone and the rental car place across the street about 4 times. Six capable adults(?) probably should’ve been able to figure it out a little faster, but in our defense, some of the signs were definitely pointing the wrong way. We did eventually make it to the hotel so I’m gonna say overall it was a victory.
Our layover was just for the night, but time zones had us all messed up and thinking it was daytime, so we left the hotel and headed to the Dubai mall.
We only got to spend a couple hours in Dubai, but we saw the tallest building in the world (Burj Khalifa), walked through the largest mall in the world, and checked out one of the largest suspended aquariums in the world. Summary: everything in Dubai is hella big. Considering it was only layover and not an actual trip to Dubai, it was really amazing! I saw so many things that I’d heard about but had never imagined I’d have the opportunity to see. I also got all of my touristy ignorance out of my system by mentioning that Burj Khalifa reminds me of Wiz Khalifa, so hopefully I won’t say anything stupid in Vietnam!
After getting 2-3 hours of sleep, we arrived at the airport 4 hours before our flight (as instructed), checked our bags and made it through security in about 15 minutes, and then used our meal vouchers at an all-you-can-eat buffet to kill the time. We met up with 4 more members of our group, somehow didn’t notice that our plane was boarding and almost missed our flight despite being at the gate like an hour and a half early, and then were on our way to Saigon!