Woodbury Island Adventures: April 2017

February holiday break brought us to Dubai for a week. It was an amazing trip and a fun experience flying Emirates - if only every airline was like Emirates! :) We had the blessing of staying at Atlantis on the Palm Jumeirah with the views of the Arabian Gulf.

Never flew in a double decker plane, kids thought is was pretty neat.

Turkish Mountains, so beautiful!

Emirates had special kids meals and they were served first. Abby felt like a princess. :)

Day 1:

We spent the day exploring the resort and visiting their aquarium. Before we left for our trip I watched a 50 minute video of how they made the Palm island. It was so fascinating on all that went into creating that. It took them a little over five years to create the island and then to start building on it. What an awesome God we serve when it took him nothing but words and seven days to create an entire world.

Atlantis

Glass sculpture in entry.

Ceiling

View from our room.

Aquarium

Day 2:

Venturing out to the prestigious downtown Dubai we visited the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. It has a roof height of 2,717 feet, and with its antenna included, it stands at a total height of 2,722 feet, making it the tallest building and structure in the world. We went to the 124th and 125th floor. When we entered the elevator to go up, they told us we would be at the 125th floor in less than two minutes. It is a beautiful skyscraper and the views of Dubai were amazing. We did have a bit of fog that day so we were not able to see the Palm Island but it was a neat experience.

We then walked over to the Dubai Mall, the world’s largest and most visited retail and entertainment destination. The Dubai Mall has 3.77 million sq. ft. with over 1,200 retail outlets including two anchor department stores - Galeries Lafayette and Bloomingdales - and over 200 food and beverage outlets. We explored the mall for quite some time, enjoying the various American, European and Middle Eastern stores. Our kids thought it quite funny that the world’s largest mall did not have an Apple store in it. :)

After our adventures in the mall we stayed to watch the Dubai fountain show. It is the world's largest choreographed fountain system set on the 30-acre man-made Burj Khalifa Lake. It was designed by WET Design, the same company responsible for the fountains at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 25 colored projectors, it is 902 ft. long and shoots water up to 500 ft. into the air accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and work music. It was neat to see but the show at the Bellagio has it beat easy!

Burj Khalifa

At the top of Burj Khalifa

Dubai Mall

Fountain inside

Kaden & Abby

We thought this mug was so true!

Sweet shop and sweets tree.

Now, that's a cup of tea!

Chocolate bar or strawberry syrup anyone?

Burj Khalifa at dusk.

Dhabi fountain show

Colin and his cars!

Day 3:

On day 3, we went for a morning of swimming, visited the sea lions, walked along the shore and then headed out for our desert safari. We started our safari with dune bashing. Dune bashing is a form of off-roading on sand dunes. A large sport utility vehicle such as a Toyota Land Cruiser is an example of a vehicle used. I knew we were in for a ride when they had roll bars in the SUV. The kids and I took Dramamine before we left the hotel, however Randy missed that reminder or thought he would be okay in the front seat. Randy wasn’t sure what I got him into when the driver was telling us there were vomit bags in the seat pockets for everyone and that if you threw up to much they would charge you a cleaning of the vehicle. Lets just say the kids and I had a great time, Abby was airborne a few times and Randy - well lets just say he needed to sit a bit when we got to the camp in the desert. :) We arrived at the camp in the middle of the desert and there we were able to ride camels, sand board, use four wheelers, drive around in the sand (boys loved that), have henna done, enjoy a Mediterranean buffet, watch a fire dancer, a belly dancer and a tanoura show. Tanoura means skirt in English and tanoura dance is a kind of folkloric dance which is very common in Islamic countries. The tanoura dance developed from sufi dance in Turkey and Egypt, distinguished but the use of a multicolored skirt. The fire dance was by far all of our favorites. The boys enjoyed the sand boarding which is similar to snowboarding. It is recreational and takes place in the sand dunes rather than snow covered mountains. The board sport is supported throughout the world, most prevalently in desert areas or coastal areas with beach dunes. The desert safari made for a wonderful Middle East experience.

View into the city from the shore.

They do love each other sometimes. :)

Sea lions

Mom and her boys.

My girl

Abby

Colin

Kaden & Abby

Desert Safari

Camel riding, Kaden & Randy.

Kaden & Randy

Kaden driving the 4-wheeler.

Kaden & Randy

Colin driving the 4-wheeler.

Randy & Colin

Ready for the dancing and meal.

Our henna.

Atlantis at night.

Day 4:

We went to IMG Worlds of Adventure on Wednesday. IMG Worlds of Adventure is an indoor amusement park in the UAE. It is Duabi’s first mega-themed entertainment destination. The park is divided into four “epic zones”. Two of the four represent global brands (Cartoon Network and Marvel), while IMG Boulevard and the Lost Valley – Dinosaur Adventure zones are original concepts created by the IMG Group. IMG Worlds of Adventure is the largest temperature-controlled indoor themed entertainment destination in the world, covering an area in excess of 1.5 million square feet. With the capacity to welcome more than 20,000 guests a day, the destination is featuring a unique array of adrenaline-pumping roller coasters, thrill rides, and spine-tingling attractions based on popular Cartoon Network characters, iconic Marvel Super Heroes and hair-raising dinosaurs. Additionally, the destination is the home to a number of world-firsts, a variety of themed retail stores, exclusive dining venues, and a 12-screen state-of-the-art cinema. It was a fun day and a tummy turning one! There were a few tears shed by a certain little girl that got talked into a few scary rides. Colin conquered them all (that kids can go). He even got Randy to go on the Velociraptor…big mistake. The Velociraptor is a roller coaster that goes from 0-62 mph in 2.5 seconds. It has a G-Force of 3.8 and takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds to do the whole ride which is 3,464.6 ft, containing a 105-ft tall loop, twisted horseshoe roll and inline twist. That was my Randy’s last ride! Colin tackled that one three times and once by himself. It was by far his favorite. After all morning and most of the afternoon making ourselves sick we ventured back to Atlantis to enjoy dinner and a stroll around the property and a walk along the beach.

An alligator someone made of sand.

Day 5:

Thursday was spent at Atlantis sleeping in, swimming with dolphins and swimming in general. The dolphins were so much fun! Randy and the boys did the dolphin swim and Abby and I just did an encounter. We were all in wet suits and in the water with the dolphins but the boys got to swim with them. You had to be able to tread water for a bit and I wasn’t sure Abby could do it that long. However, she greatly enjoyed her time with the dolphins. We learned that they shed their skin every two hours and they feel very leathery. We danced with the dolphins, swan with them, touched them and played with them. Afterwards we headed to the water parks and tackled some slides and a lazy river with many crazy rapids. It was a fun last day! Sadly on Friday we had to return home. We all really enjoyed Dubai and would love to go back someday!