Long story short, I work for an oil company based in Aberdeen and got the good news that I was being sent to work in the Dubai office for a week. The flight over on Friday with BA was most unpleasant, no leg room or sideways room whatsoever, the magazine rack in front was broken so I had that digging into my shins the whole duration, and the reclining mechanism on my seat was broken which meant that any pressure whatsoever on the backrest resulted in the seat falling down. To add to that, the guy in the seat next to me got comfortable with elbows sticking out into my ribs, and legs spread open, and not content with that, slept most of the way with his head centimetres from my shoulder. I asked if there were any seats I could move to, but the only seats available were those vacated by a family who were kicked off the plane because one of the kids had a severe outbreak of chicken pox and the air hostess said contamination would be at my own risk, so didn chance it. On the plus side, at least they didn lose my luggage. Exchanged money at the airport, 7.25Dhs to the pound sounded ok, although I was a bit annoyed when they would only give me 7.19Dhs because I had Scottish bank notes.
After an eternity at passport control and waiting for my luggage to turn up, I eventually got to the hotel my employer had booked for me, the 5 star Habtoor Grand Resort Spa at Dubai Marina. The first impression of the service wasn that great, due to some sort of mix up, I had to pay with my own debit card instead of the business account that was supposed to be charged to. Good job I had sold my car a few days before leaving so had enough money to cover it. At least I can fiddle with the exchange rate on my company expense claim form to suit.
The room itself is a resort room so not actually attached to the 2 towers at either side of the lobby. It a very nice room, the bed is huge, although it seems to be 2 three quarter sized double beds stuck together. It has lots of lamps, a sofa, an armchair, a well stocked minibar, 32" flatscreen telly, DVD player and lots of complimentary bathroom products. It a very high quality room and is costing 8,500Dhs for 9 nights. Free bottles of water are left every morning as is a copy of the Gulf News newspaper and the fruit bowl is replenished every day too with fresh fruit. Only complaints are that the pillows are far too soft, I need to use 4 to get the same thickness as the 1 pillow I have at home and the shower isn too great either. Also, the wireless internet service that they so proud of costs around 65 for 7 days which I didn realise until after I signed up for it. Hopefully I can claim that back too. I wouldn mind so much if it wasn painfully slow and half the websites I try to use weren blocked. Also, the hot food is rarely warm let alone hot at the breakfast buffets.
The next day, I went out for a walk around to look at the facilities, the pool area looks very clean and popular, the beach looks like it would be beautiful if it wasn surrounded by a construction site and the main view out to see wasn another construction site. I decided to go for lunch at the Italian restaurant beside the pool area. The mediteranean seafood soup was magnificent and the huge portion near enough filled me up, and as suspected, I couldn finish my main course, spaghetti carbonara which was fantastic also. The service was also great too.
In the evening, I went for tea at another restaurant in the hotel complex, Munchi, a Thai restaurant. The food was great, the service was apalling. Firstly when I went in, the waiter type guy was too busy playing solitaire on the computer to show me to a seat. Secondly, I was halfway through my starter when I went to wash it down with my drink when I realised that I had never received my drink in the first place. When I then asked for my drink, I was provided with a bottle of Amstel Light instead of the normal Amtstel I asked for. Then when my main course of crispy peking duck arrived, I immediately thought that the measly 4 pancakes supplied would be nowhere nearly enough, and as I ran out of pancakes without getting halfway through the duck, I was proved right. I requested some more, and they came, eventually. I also didn appreciate the waitress standing over me watching me eat then pounce on my empty plate as soon as the fork made contact. Especially when I was left sitting for 15 20 minutes waiting for her to bring me the bill.
Last night, I went to the gold and diamond park to get some things on my list, a ring for myself, diamond ear studs for my mum and a gold bracelet for my dad. Ended up just going straight to Cara (I not one for shopping around) to see what they had to offer and got all 3 items in 18 carat gold for 300 ish. After being in and out so quickly, I went to the Deira City Centre for a look around, it quite good, like the MoE but on a smaller scale. Only problem was, when I decided it was time to go home, the queue for a taxi was enormous, and would taken at least an hour. Luckily a shady looking guy standing in a doorway offered to drive me to the hotel for 100Dhs which wasn a bad price and certainly worth avoiding the queue. Getting into an unlicensed cab probably isn the best of ideas, but I guess I got lucky.
One thing that has been bothering me is picking up a cold, my nose has been running like a tap which isn pleasant. This morning, after very little sleep, I felt really rough so called the office to tell them I wouldn be in. After sleeping to lunchtime, I felt a bit better so headed off to the Burjaman Mall in another free bus from the hotel. The mall was quite quiet which was nice, and treated myself to some things from the Ted Baker shop. And then I decided to do what I been looking most forward to the Karama Market to pick up some quality fakes.
The taxi driver dropped me off at the side of the road and sped off. I wasn quite sure what I let myself in for, I knew I get pestered but this was unbelieveable, at one point I had 6 different hands on my wrist trying to drag me into their shops. Eventually, I got some breathing space and went to work getting everything on my list. I ended up with 2 Breitling watches (one of which has the time adjusted knob broken so can change the time.), an Omega watch and a female Rolex watch. Then I went onto the handbags and got a brown Jimmy Choo, a red Marc Jacobs, a brown Miu Miu, a black Fendi and a Luis Vuitton. Then I went for some polo shirts. I got 2 Lacostes and 2 Ralph Laurens with the extra large polo player logo that I been after for ages. Unfortuantely, when I got back to the hotel, I realised that the Ralph Laurens weren the size I requested and don fit. In addition to all of that, I got 3 pairs of Oakley sunglasses, 1 pair of Ray Ban aviators and 1 pair of ladies Gucci sunglasses. Also, a Chloe purse, a DKNY wallet and a big suitcase to put all of the stuff in. All in all, I don think I did too well with haggling, but I got all that I needed more or less so it not the end of the world.First attempt at a trip report
Long story short, I work for an oil company based in Aberdeen and got the good news that I was being sent to work in the Dubai office for a week. The flight over on Friday with BA was most unpleasant, no leg room or sideways room whatsoever, the magazine rack in front was broken so I had that digging into my shins the whole duration, and the reclining mechanism on my seat was broken which meant that any pressure whatsoever on the backrest resulted in the seat falling down. To add to that, the guy in the seat next to me got comfortable with elbows sticking out into my ribs, and legs spread open, and not content with that, slept most of the way with his head centimetres from my shoulder. I asked if there were any seats I could move to, but the only seats available were those vacated by a family who were kicked off the plane because one of the kids had a severe outbreak of chicken pox and the air hostess said contamination would be at my own risk, so didn chance it. On the plus side, at least they didn lose my luggage. Exchanged money at the airport, 7.25Dhs to the pound sounded ok, although I was a bit annoyed when they would only give me 7.19Dhs because I had Scottish bank notes.
After an eternity at passport control and waiting for my luggage to turn up, I eventually got to the hotel my employer had booked for me, the 5 star Habtoor Grand Resort Spa at Dubai Marina. The first impression of the service wasn that great, due to some sort of mix up, I had to pay with my own debit card instead of the business account that was supposed to be charged to. Good job I had sold my car a few days before leaving so had enough money to cover it. At least I can fiddle with the exchange rate on my company expense claim form to suit.
The room itself is a resort room so not actually attached to the 2 towers at either side of the lobby. It a very nice room, the bed is huge, although it seems to be 2 three quarter sized double beds stuck together. It has lots of lamps, a sofa, an armchair, a well stocked minibar, 32" flatscreen telly, DVD player and lots of complimentary bathroom products. It a very high quality room and is costing 8,500Dhs for 9 nights. Free bottles of water are left every morning as is a copy of the Gulf News newspaper and the fruit bowl is replenished every day too with fresh fruit. Only complaints are that the pillows are far too soft, I need to use 4 to get the same thickness as the 1 pillow I have at home and the shower isn too great either. Also, the wireless internet service that they so proud of costs around 65 for 7 days which I didn realise until after I signed up for it. Hopefully I can claim that back too. I wouldn mind so much if it wasn painfully slow and half the websites I try to use weren blocked. Also, the hot food is rarely warm let alone hot at the breakfast buffets.
The next day, I went out for a walk around to look at the facilities, the pool area looks very clean and popular, the beach looks like it would be beautiful if it wasn surrounded by a construction site and the main view out to see wasn another construction site. I decided to go for lunch at the Italian restaurant beside the pool area. The mediteranean seafood soup was magnificent and the huge portion near enough filled me up, and as suspected, I couldn finish my main course, spaghetti carbonara which was fantastic also. The service was also great too.
In the evening, I went for tea at another restaurant in the hotel complex, Munchi, a Thai restaurant. The food was great, the service was apalling. Firstly when I went in, the waiter type guy was too busy playing solitaire on the computer to show me to a seat. Secondly, I was halfway through my starter when I went to wash it down with my drink when I realised that I had never received my drink in the first place. When I then asked for my drink, I was provided with a bottle of Amstel Light instead of the normal Amtstel I asked for. Then when my main course of crispy peking duck arrived, I immediately thought that the measly 4 pancakes supplied would be nowhere nearly enough, and as I ran out of pancakes without getting halfway through the duck, I was proved right. I requested some more, and they came, eventually. I also didn appreciate the waitress standing over me watching me eat then pounce on my empty plate as soon as the fork made contact. Especially when I was left sitting for 15 20 minutes waiting for her to bring me the bill.
Last night, I went to the gold and diamond park to get some things on my list, a ring for myself, diamond ear studs for my mum and a gold bracelet for my dad. Ended up just going straight to Cara (I not one for shopping around) to see what they had to offer and got all 3 items in 18 carat gold for 300 ish. After being in and out so quickly, I went to the Deira City Centre for a look around, it quite good, like the MoE but on a smaller scale. Only problem was, when I decided it was time to go home, the queue for a taxi was enormous, and would taken at least an hour. Luckily a shady looking guy standing in a doorway offered to drive me to the hotel for 100Dhs which wasn a bad price and certainly worth avoiding the queue. Getting into an unlicensed cab probably isn the best of ideas, but I guess I got lucky.
One thing that has been bothering me is picking up a cold, my nose has been running like a tap which isn pleasant. This morning, after very little sleep, I felt really rough so called the office to tell them I wouldn be in. After sleeping to lunchtime, I felt a bit better so headed off to the Burjaman Mall in another free bus from the hotel. The mall was quite quiet which was nice, and treated myself to some things from the Ted Baker shop. And then I decided to do what I been looking most forward to the Karama Market to pick up some quality fakes.
The taxi driver dropped me off at the side of the road and sped off. I wasn quite sure what I let myself in for, I knew I get pestered but this was unbelieveable, at one point I had 6 different hands on my wrist trying to drag me into their shops. Eventually, I got some breathing space and went to work getting everything on my list. I ended up with 2 Breitling watches (one of which has the time adjusted knob broken so can change the time.), an Omega watch and a female Rolex watch. Then I went onto the handbags and got a brown Jimmy Choo, a red Marc Jacobs, a brown Miu Miu, a black Fendi and a Luis Vuitton. Then I went for some polo shirts. I got 2 Lacostes and 2 Ralph Laurens with the extra large polo player logo that I been after for ages. Unfortuantely, when I got back to the hotel, I realised that the Ralph Laurens weren the size I requested and don fit. In addition to all of that, I got 3 pairs of Oakley sunglasses, 1 pair of Ray Ban aviators and 1 pair of ladies Gucci sunglasses. Also, a Chloe purse, a DKNY wallet and a big suitcase to put all of the stuff in. All in all, I don think I did too well with haggling, but I got all that I needed more or less so it not the end of the world.First attempt at a trip report
Long story short, I work for an oil company based in Aberdeen and got the good news that I was being sent to work in the Dubai office for a week. The flight over on Friday with BA was most unpleasant, no leg room or sideways room whatsoever, the magazine rack in front was broken so I had that digging into my shins the whole duration, and the reclining mechanism on my seat was broken which meant that any pressure whatsoever on the backrest resulted in the seat falling down. To add to that, the guy in the seat next to me got comfortable with elbows sticking out into my ribs, and legs spread open, and not content with that, slept most of the way with his head centimetres from my shoulder. I asked if there were any seats I could move to, but the only seats available were those vacated by a family who were kicked off the plane because one of the kids had a severe outbreak of chicken pox and the air hostess said contamination would be at my own risk, so didn chance it. On the plus side, at least they didn lose my luggage. Exchanged money at the airport, 7.25Dhs to the pound sounded ok, although I was a bit annoyed when they would only give me 7.19Dhs because I had Scottish bank notes.
After an eternity at passport control and waiting for my luggage to turn up, I eventually got to the hotel my employer had booked for me, the 5 star Habtoor Grand Resort Spa at Dubai Marina. The first impression of the service wasn that great, due to some sort of mix up, I had to pay with my own debit card instead of the business account that was supposed to be charged to. Good job I had sold my car a few days before leaving so had enough money to cover it. At least I can fiddle with the exchange rate on my company expense claim form to suit.
The room itself is a resort room so not actually attached to the 2 towers at either side of the lobby. It a very nice room, the bed is huge, although it seems to be 2 three quarter sized double beds stuck together. It has lots of lamps, a sofa, an armchair, a well stocked minibar, 32" flatscreen telly, DVD player and lots of complimentary bathroom products. It a very high quality room and is costing 8,500Dhs for 9 nights. Free bottles of water are left every morning as is a copy of the Gulf News newspaper and the fruit bowl is replenished every day too with fresh fruit. Only complaints are that the pillows are far too soft, I need to use 4 to get the same thickness as the 1 pillow I have at home and the shower isn too great either. Also, the wireless internet service that they so proud of costs around 65 for 7 days which I didn realise until after I signed up for it. Hopefully I can claim that back too. I wouldn mind so much if it wasn painfully slow and half the websites I try to use weren blocked. Also, the hot food is rarely warm let alone hot at the breakfast buffets.
The next day, I went out for a walk around to look at the facilities, the pool area looks very clean and popular, the beach looks like it would be beautiful if it wasn surrounded by a construction site and the main view out to see wasn another construction site. I decided to go for lunch at the Italian restaurant beside the pool area. The mediteranean seafood soup was magnificent and the huge portion near enough filled me up, and as suspected, I couldn finish my main course, spaghetti carbonara which was fantastic also. The service was also great too.
In the evening, I went for tea at another restaurant in the hotel complex, Munchi, a Thai restaurant. The food was great, the service was apalling. Firstly when I went in, the waiter type guy was too busy playing solitaire on the computer to show me to a seat. Secondly, I was halfway through my starter when I went to wash it down with my drink when I realised that I had never received my drink in the first place. When I then asked for my drink, I was provided with a bottle of Amstel Light instead of the normal Amtstel I asked for. Then when my main course of crispy peking duck arrived, I immediately thought that the measly 4 pancakes supplied would be nowhere nearly enough, and as I ran out of pancakes without getting halfway through the duck, I was proved right. I requested some more, and they came, eventually. I also didn appreciate the waitress standing over me watching me eat then pounce on my empty plate as soon as the fork made contact. Especially when I was left sitting for 15 20 minutes waiting for her to bring me the bill.
Last night, I went to the gold and diamond park to get some things on my list, a ring for myself, diamond ear studs for my mum and a gold bracelet for my dad. Ended up just going straight to Cara (I not one for shopping around) to see what they had to offer and got all 3 items in 18 carat gold for 300 ish. After being in and out so quickly, I went to the Deira City Centre for a look around, it quite good, like the MoE but on a smaller scale. Only problem was, when I decided it was time to go home, the queue for a taxi was enormous, and would taken at least an hour. Luckily a shady looking guy standing in a doorway offered to drive me to the hotel for 100Dhs which wasn a bad price and certainly worth avoiding the queue. Getting into an unlicensed cab probably isn the best of ideas, but I guess I got lucky.
One thing that has been bothering me is picking up a cold, my nose has been running like a tap which isn pleasant. This morning, after very little sleep, I felt really rough so called the office to tell them I wouldn be in. After sleeping to lunchtime, I felt a bit better so headed off to the Burjaman Mall in another free bus from the hotel. The mall was quite quiet which was nice, and treated myself to some things from the Ted Baker shop. And then I decided to do what I been looking most forward to the Karama Market to pick up some quality fakes.
The taxi driver dropped me off at the side of the road and sped off. I wasn quite sure what I let myself in for, I knew I get pestered but this was unbelieveable, at one point I had 6 different hands on my wrist trying to drag me into their shops. Eventually, I got some breathing space and went to work getting everything on my list. I ended up with 2 Breitling watches (one of which has the time adjusted knob broken so can change the time.), an Omega watch and a female Rolex watch. Then I went onto the handbags and got a brown Jimmy Choo, a red Marc Jacobs, a brown Miu Miu, a black Fendi and a Luis Vuitton. Then I went for some polo shirts. I got 2 Lacostes and 2 Ralph Laurens with the extra large polo player logo that I been after for ages. Unfortuantely, when I got back to the hotel, I realised that the Ralph Laurens weren the size I requested and don fit. In addition to all of that, I got 3 pairs of Oakley sunglasses, 1 pair of Ray Ban aviators and 1 pair of ladies Gucci sunglasses. Also, a Chloe purse, a DKNY wallet and a big suitcase to put all of the stuff in. All in all, I don think I did too well with haggling, but I got all that I needed more or less so it not the end of the world.
阅读(366) | 评论(0) | 转发(0) |
