We´re now back in Andorra after spending 2 wonderful and adrenaline filled weeks in Dubai.

Dubai is another quite popular destination now for holidays, since you only need a negative PCR test to be able to travel there. We decided to travel there as well because there was a conference within our sector.

AGS conference in Intercontinental Dubai

The conference was organized inside an Intercontinental hotel during 2-days. It was so nice to be able to finally meet face-to-face with friends and business partners after such a long time without any conferences. I have borrowed few images from the conference facebook page just to have them as memories, since I literally forgot to take any photos.

 

Since the conference was organized within the Intercontinental hotel, we stayed there for the first nights of our trip. The hotel was kind of far from the center, but since the first days was all about the conference and catching up with fellow business partners, it was great staying at this hotel. The views from our room were as well really nice, we could even see Burj Khalifa from our bedroom and bathroom.

 

 

Let´s get the holidays started, next up: Ritz Carlton!

People might think that there´s not much to do in Dubai, but I completely disagree with this statement. I mean Dubai is literally like Disneyland but for adults! I could easily have spent 2 weeks more in Dubai.

In May and especially in the end of May the weather is very (veeeeery hot). This was basically the only thing I could complain about. It was around 40 degrees both during the day and night….. so, I was sweating like a little pig 24/7.

In addition to the heat what surprised me as well, was the service. I have never in my life been in such a service-orientated city. It does not matter if you take a taxi, go to a restaurant, or go for some shopping in a shopping mall, the service is top-notch. Not only that, but Dubai is also super secure, and they really take care of the tourists in this place.

After the conference we changed the hotel and headed to the beach. I booked Ritz Carlton that was near the marina and on the famous JBR beach. Such a nice hotel, and I cannot talk enough about how extremely good the service was. We got this nice room with a balcony facing the beach, and in the night we had the most incredible sunset views from our room.

 

These were the views from our room and balcony during the day. The hotel was like a small oasis in the middle of the city, I actually think it is the only hotel that is so centric and has so much green and trees.

 

 

The hotel also has its own private beach, but we did not spend much time there, it was wayyyy too hot to be on the beach. Not only that, but the water was also extremely salty so we kind of preferred to stay at one of the endless number of pools that the hotel had. In the nights the sunsets were nice to watch from the beach though, and they even had camels walking around on the beach in the nighttime.

 

 

But during the daytime – hello pool! I mean sun, pool, and shisha??? I could literally not have asked for more.

 

 

As a last comment about the service I just need to tell the story about the time when I needed a plaster… I just had a small sore on my feet and I called the reception to ask if they could bring me a plaster. Well I did not get a plaster, but a doctor who literally came to “treat my wound” like my feet would have been broken.

 

 

 

Exploring Dubai

I am not a fan of big cities, artificial places, and enormous skyscrapers… But I have to say, Dubai surprised me. I enjoyed exploring this city very much. Although we stayed at a very centric hotel, it was way too hot to walk anywhere, thankfully the taxis are very cheap so wherever we went we always took a taxi.

 

Burj Khalifa

Burj Khalifa is the tallest tower in the world and it’s one of the top attractions to visit in Dubai. We did not visit the tower inside during the daytime, but since I am sure we will be back in Dubai, I left something to explore for the next time. We went to check out the tower from outside during the day time….. and my god, it was so tall… you cannot even imagine how tall this building is based on the pictures, you just basically must visit Dubai!

 

I also reserved a dinner in Burj Khalifa since I thought it would be cool to eat in the tallest tower in the world, and indeed it was a nice experience. The food is not on the level of European high standard restaurants though, and the price is quite expensive for a 6-course meal with wine. We ended up spending around 700€ that night… Was it worth it… For the food I would say that no. But you can also head up to the tower just for a cocktail or some tapas, which I think is a better alternative than to take the full menu.

 

 

The Dubai Mall

One of the “must see” places when being in Dubai is obviously as well the Dubai Mall! If you fancy you can even go skiing in the mall. The place was enormous, I have never seen anything so extremely big in my whole life…. When talking about shopping malls at least. We spend a half a day there and we did not even have time to see 1/10 of all the mall…. After strolling around for few hours in this place we even felt tired after walking so much hahaha.

 

Brunch and pool party

We have several friends that lives in Dubai, and we were told that it is very typical to go for a brunch / pool party during the weekends. You pay an entrance fee, and you have free drinks and food for 5 hours, in my opinion a very nice concept! We got together with some of our friends that was as well in the conference and headed for a Friday brunch at a place called Zero Gravity – very nice and if you fancy a bit of party, I can highly recommend this place!

 

They also had a beach where you could spend the day, but as I said before, wayyyyy too hot to be on the beach.

 

 

Discover Dubai from the sea by renting a yacht!

Another very “Dubai thing to do” is to rent a yacht for few hours and discover how Dubai looks from the sea. It is very affordable especially if you get together with some friends. We were a group of 5 and paid around 100€ each for a very nice yacht, including a captain and even another person helping to serve the drinks. We had a great time, and 4 hours on the sea is more than enough with all that sun and heat.

The boat we rented was like this one (it is the one behind though).

 

 

Dune buggy adventure

If you want to see the real desert and get away from the city life, I can highly recommend you go for a dune buggy adventure! It´s slightly outside of the city, with the transportation it takes around 1 hour, but it was plenty of fun and I would probably do it again when going back to Dubai! You can choose between 1- or 2-hour buggy tours, we chose 1 hour, and I think it was more than enough. You also get to try sandboard (I have no idea If that’s the correct name… like snowboard but on the sand? Sandboard? Hahah) After the tour we had booked a proper desert dinner experience including entertainment, shisha, henna, belly dancing and buffet dinner. It was a really nice way to spend the afternoon / evening! We reserved this through Big Red Adventure Tours and I can definitely recommend them.

 

 

Dubai zipline (Xline Dubai Marina)

During the conference, we met one important business partner that we have never met before, it was super random, and it ended up in us 3 together doing the zipline few days after the conference. These are the moments and people why I love this business, so extempore and random…

I am afraid of heights, let’s just begin with saying that. And we were discussing during the conference what we could do together, and I was like “There’s this cool zipline in the middle of the marina”. And we were all just “Let´s go”. Next day I had an email with the confirmation and time… I have added the video, and you can clearly see how freaking scared I was in the beginning. But after the few first seconds you start relaxing, and I was enjoying this ride so much in the end!

 

Skydiving in Dubai

Yea, afraid of heights…. That’s how I have always felt. But I wanted to surprise Jaume with an early birthday present: skydiving in Dubai. I was not supposed to jump… but then I just felt that I cannot be such a coward and not jump because I’m afraid of heights… So, I booked the skydiving for both. And it was one of the best experiences in my whole life…. Would I do it again? Hell yes! What a real adrenaline kick, and the views…. Just wow. I was lucky to have a Spanish speaking guy that made me super comfortable before and during the jump. I always wanted to do skydiving, but never thought that I had the courage to do it. It was such a weird but awesome feeling…. I have added the video from the whole jump in the end of the post if you want to check it.

 

 

Skydive Dubai video

 

Surprise souvenir from Dubai: Covid

Yup. Both me and Jaume have tested positive for covid after coming back from Dubai. We´ve been locked inside home for almost 2 weeks already. We got both negative on the PCR tests we did before coming back, but on the same day as we arrived, I started feeling slightly bad. Day after we went for a test, and both got positive. For us it has been like a normal flu, with the only difference that we cannot basically smell or taste much… We´re already both feeling much better and hopefully we´re able to head out already next week. It has been a great lockdown business wise though since we´ve been working non-stop since we came back.

We´ll continue working hard for now until we are allowed to go outside again. I am still kind of planning what to do this summer, kind of in-between going to the south or to the north of Spain…. Let´s see where this summer will bring us!

Hope you all have a great weekend!