Aloft Breakfast
Getting ready to leave with our stash of Coke Light
The mall the Aloft is attached to
The mall entrance to hotel
After breakfast, we went back to our hotel room. Hunter added a bit of information to our blog and I sent it off. We then went down to the mall to the DU mobile store to get Hunter's sim card working with data so he can have 4g service while we're exploring. It's only $28 usd for 6 GB of data, which is all we really need. My phone unfortunately only gets 2g data in Dubai with T-Mobile, and it really isn't fast enough to do anything with, especially when we want to book taxis and use google maps. After we were done in the mall we got our luggage and took an Uber to the JW Hotel. It was only a 20-minute ride.
The frame
Interesting Architecture on the drive to the JW
When we arrived at the hotel, we were met by a bellhop named Norman as we exited our taxi. He tagged our luggage and we left it at the door as he escorted us into the hotel lobby. He was lovely. When he asked us what our loyalty status was and we said ambassador elites, he had a look of surprise, but quickly changed course and brought us directly to the executive lounge for check-in on the 37th floor rather than checking in at the general counters. When he dropped us off, we were introduced to Samir, the executive lounge manager. We gave Samir, our passports and were escorted to the lounge while they completed the paperwork. It felt really weird not having our luggage or passports, but it was so cool getting to have such an elevated experience than we are used to having. Hunter and I got sparkling water and sat down by the window, enjoying the spectacular views. When Samir returned, he had a folio with all our information for us to sign and provide the billing info. It was a very unique experience, to say the least. I really could get used to this treatment, however.
Being escorted to the executive lounge
Once we finished our drinks we left to go to our hotel room. It was on the 64th floor of tower A. Both Hunter and I's ears popped as we went up to our level. When you exit the elevator, you enter a round lobby and then turn into the room hallways. Our room is near the elevators, but not beside them. It's quite an excellent location. When we entered the room, the luggage was already inside. We walked further into the room and were met with a gorgeous ocean view out of a massive window. The bed was also large and plush. I think the photos speak for themselves. A few moments later, we had a delivery of a cheese plate and sparkling water. What an awesome way to be welcomed to a hotel. I am not used to this level of service and treatment.
The new hotel room
Beautiful seaview and the artificial end of Dubai Creek
Personalized TV
Can you believe this is our room window!
They brought us a fruit and cheese platter when we got to the room
Here is the entrance to our room
This is the floor lobby where the elevators are
here is the top of Tower B
After enjoying our snack, we got ready to leave for the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo in the Dubai Mall. They have a taxi queue outside, so there was no wait to leave the hotel, and we found out that it's actually cheaper to hail a taxi off the street than it is to use Uber or the taxi app Careem. it was a very short ride to the mall and only cost about 7 USD for the taxi.
Entrance to the mall
Walking through Souk in the mall
Dubai Mall is the world's largest shopping mall. It contains 1200 stores. It also contains the world’s largest indoor aquarium, the Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo, which is where Hunter and I went. It's pretty impressive when you walk towards it. The main tank holds 10,000,000 (10 million) liters of water and the aquarium houses more than 33,000 aquatic animals from over 200 species. When exploring, there are multiple tunnels to walk through, and seeing all the different fish is amazing. The whole aquarium is layered on top of itself through the mall so even though you're in a massive aquarium every now and then you'll see something very random like the sale rack at an H&M through one of the tanks, which is quite the experience and not at all what we are used to with zoos and aquariums in the US.
Healthy live coral
Stormy and the Sand Tiger Shark
I got in trouble for taking these pictures and had to show I was deleting them, and I thought I did, but there were more on my phone.
Strange anchoring eels
Going on the glass bottom boat ride
Saw nose shark
Feeding platform for the aquarium
Bonnethead shark
Angelfish
Otters!
Blue and Gold Macaw
Glass Catfish
The weirdest fish ever! Duck-billed paddlefish from the US
Cute gentoo penguins
Breeding jelly fish
These are shark eggs
Baby shark, doo doo doo doo
It was so bizarre seeing through the tank into a shopping mall with people shopping!
Albino softshell turtle
Blue-spotted ribbon tail ray
Snowy barn owl, also Hunter
Nemo closer to home than we normally see him
Scaled Pinecone fish
After making our way through the exhibits, we sat down at the cafe where our tickets got us 20 AED included. We managed to get 2 sodas and 2 waters for the cost, which is amazing because we expected to see high prices like in any attraction, but things were actually reasonably priced. After taking a break, we headed back down to the otter tanks because we had an otter experience booked where we got to go hang out with otters and hold their cute hands! It was so amazing and I am so glad we got to do it!
After playing with the otters, we left the aquarium and as we were leaving we exited through a gift shop, where we got a 40AED credit if we spent a minimum of 50AED. 50 AED is about 14 USD and 10 AED is about 2.72. Hunter and I found the perfect souvenir, which was a cute stuffed otter that is similar in size to our stuffed kangaroo from Australia. In the end, we paid ~4USD for a stuffed animal, which I think is an excellent deal at an aquarium gift shop. Hunter and I were both pleasantly surprised with the cost of the experience.
We left the mall after the aquarium to head over to Time Out Market which was in the building over. Time Out Market is basically a food court, but a little more classy. On our way there, we got to see the Dubai Fountain and the Burj Khalifa. It was pretty awesome staring up at the massive building. The Burj Khalifa is 2716.5 ft tall and maintains being the world's tallest building.
When we got to the Time Out Market, we sat outside and got the perfect table looking out over the fountain. We ordered food on the app from somewhere called Pickl and also Pitfire Pizza. Our timing was excellent because after finishing our food, the fountain show began at 6pm. We stayed for two shows, one at 6pm and one at 6:30 pm and then went back to the mall. I got an icecapp from Tim Hortons and we also wandered around, stopping at a Ray-Bans store and Lululemon. As we were walking out to the taxis, we passed the indoor icerink which was pretty neat. When we got to the taxis, we immediately got one and headed back to the hotel. When we got back, we still had enough time for happy hour at the executive lounge. Hunter and I had a drink and chocolate mousse for dessert.
After the lounge, we headed back to our hotel room to get ready for bed. We ordered our Expo2020 tickets for tomorrow, showered in the lovely rainfall shower, and I worked on my blog. It wasn't long before the clock said 11pm and Hunter was falling asleep. I was tired too, so we decided to shut all the lights out and sleep.
We found this when we returned to the room, another Ambassador welcome touch
Here are all the video clips from day 2 in Dubai. Youtube was giving me a hard time with uploading 10-15 clips individually, so I put them all together. If the video isn't loading, come back and check at a later time since it may be still uploading on our end. Don't forget to change the quality to the highest option using the gear icon!
No comments:
Post a Comment