New Year’s Eve! We are a little bit excited. We are both big fans of fireworks, and we only expect the best from Dubai! Before we go out, let’s do a quick internet search for fireworks. Just a quick search, and it seems like there are fireworks all over the city from when the sun goes down until midnight. Essentially it seems as though we could watch fireworks from 7 pm to midnight. How exciting! We obviously won’t run around the city, because others will do that (we imagine) and everything will be packed and we could miss out on the main one we want to go to, so… let’s just focus.

But there are A LOT of hours until midnight, and we can’t just lay around waiting for midnight, so let’s get going. Today we want to go to the otherrrr end of Dubai to do some sightseeing. So, let’s head on out.

FIrst thing is first, back to the Dubai Frame we go. It is about 5 hours earlier than yesterday, so hopefully it’s an attraction that builds up popularity during the day. Our plan is simple, we will walk to the main metro line, take it two stops, get off, and go up the Dubai Frame. Well… we got to the station, paid, got on, and then noticed that the “stop” we wanted to get off at wasn’t a metro stop, but a bus stop. So we only rode the metro for one stop. Saved exactly 7 minutes of walking or something like that. Not worth paying, that’s for sure. And although this is something very minor in the grand scheme of things, it is an omen of the day we are about to experience and tell you about..

We get off the metro and walk through a “normal” looking neighbourhood. On this end of Dubai things are more “normal,” not so much glitz and glamour as the downtown area. Our hotel is also in this more “normal” Dubai.

And then it was on to the Dubai Frame.

Even though we got here about 5 or 6 hours earlier than yesterday the line was still gigantic and the sign still said that the wait time was approximately 2 hours. No thanks. It’s too bad, would’ve been cool.

Off we go back to the same metro station we just got off at because it is closer than the next station. Back on the metro and we take off across the city. While on the metro my partner is looking at the map to try to decide which station to get off at. I don’t know why, we had already planned everything out at the hotel on what to do today, why does he want to alter it now? Well, alter it he does. We go way past the station we had intended to get off at. How far do we go? Far. We went aaaaaall the way to the furthest palm island. As you may know, Dubai has created A LOT of islands during the boom years including a few palm islands and most famously the world islands. Well, let’s take a look.

First we get off and go walk in a park looking for something. We get off, walk for 45 minutes to look for this thing, it is not there. Great. 45 minutes we didn’t need to spend walking. We found a nice little park though, seemed like a lot of people were enjoying the area.

Now let’s go look at the “Dubai Pearl,” whatever that is. All we know is that it’s between us and the Palm Jumeirah. Weeeeeell…. we looked and looked and couldn’t make out an easy way to cross the road, which is wide and very, very busy. So let’s not tempt fate and get moving again. Back to the metro station we just got off at (a pattern is emerging already). Back on the metro, and now we get off at the station we had looked at this morning, the Mall of the Emirates.

It’s not as extravagant as the Dubai Mall we showed you yesterday, but many of the same stores are found here, so it’s no less glamorous for shopping, but much more “low-key”. Except for one thing. Again, before we show you or tell you we need to remind you, this is a desert, but it has this.

You may not be able to tell what that is, but it is a ski hill. At a mall. In the desert. Crazy.

Well, that’s enough looking at the mall, let’s get moving again. We leave the mall and the metro station and start walking towards the coast.

After walking for quite a bit through residential areas, we came to a very nice looking beach. For some reason my partner didn’t put two and two together to know that we could have been swimming at this beach. He figured they must all be private. But no, they’re public. So… we don’t have a bathing suit to swim in. Great planning. We just put our feet in and the water feels niiiiiice. Too bad for us.

Well, the coast means we are close to our objective. We walk a bit further until we’re close enough to our main objective, the Burj Al Arab (you could see it in the background of the first picture). And with just a few more steps, we’re there. Well… there is generous. Because today is New Year’s Eve and they will be doing fireworks off of the Burj Al Arab this is as close as we can get….

Like we said above, the first fail was really an omen of fails to come. As you may know this was the first six star hotel in the world (or seven stars, depending on where you’re reading) and it has become famous for it’s shape, opulence, and a few sporting events held here (Federer vs Agassi). Just another one of Dubai’s touristic attractions.

Then we went a few steps to the bus stop. The bus stop that said a bus every 15/20 minutes. We waited and waited. The time did not go by quickly. Families would come, wait a while, then flag down a taxi and leave. This repeated and repeated. And we saw two busses going in the opposite direction. Finally over 40 minutes had passed and no sign of the bus. My partner decided to walk along the route back to the Mall of the Emirates. The route took 40 minutes walking, and there wasn’t a single bus to be seen. So it’s good that he decided to walk, but where are the busses? One fail after another today, haha. Let’s see how much more we can take!

Then it was back on the metro we had gotten off of earlier today, and back towards “Dubai proper”. At this point it is 5:30 pm. Why don’t we stop by the Dubai Mall to check it out. If there are a lot of people we will stay so we can claim a spot for the fireworks, if not, we will go back to the hotel to change and drop some things off before going back to the Dubai Mall. So we’re going on the metro and it gets more and more full. More and more people. So we decide to get off at the Dubai Mall and check it out. What. A. Mistake.

Now, we will give you a fair warning. What you are about to read will be A LOT of complaining, so if you would rather not read that, skip to tomorrow, haha. Here goes…

So, we made it to the Dubai Mall at around 6 pm. Remember, New Year’s Eve is at midnight. There are A LOT of people getting off at the Dubai Mall metro station. No way that all of these people are staying till midnight, right? Well, we won’t be able to tell you. We walk about 100 metres from the train and they separate us, “families” to the right and everyone else to the left. We put families in quotation marks because the criteria for a “family” here is the presence of a woman. That’s it. We keep walking and didn’t think anything of it. There’s probably security in front because there are so many people and they may have female security to check the women and male security to check the men. Nope. That is not why we were separated. About 200 metres further the non-families path is completely blocked off, we are not allowed into the mall. Instead we are steered out an emergency exit down to street level. The guards keep telling us “men will be allowed in at another entrance”. Okay… this is weird… but sure. We get down to street level and start walking. At this point my partner turns on his GPS-enabled watch. You’ll see why this is a good call in a bit….

The first intersection going back towards the Dubai fountains is closed off by police/security. We ask them where we can enter. “Not here, this entrance is only for families, the next intersection you will be able to enter”. Okay… literally told us upstairs that this was the entrance… We continue walking along with a lot of others. Next intersection arrives and everyone approaches it, “No one can enter here! Keep moving!!” And they make sure we keep moving, but families and couples are clearly allowed to enter here… This just keeps happening and happening until we’ve walked 6 km from the metro station in a wide, wiiiiiide circle/arc around the Dubai fountain… at this point people start to get annoyed and finally security tells us the truth: we are not allowed in. I don’t know why they made us walk all of this. They clearly had decided very early on that we would not be allowed in to see the fireworks, but instead they just kept telling us “a little further, a little further”. Well… people were not happy. We had no other option than wait here at the barricade…

Now you can imagine my partner, he was very angry. How can Dubai invite the whole world to come to Dubai, and then treat people like this? They even had a full campaign where they showed something extravagant and then said “habibi, come to Dubai!” Well… not so. Seems like they only want a certain type of people to come. And, what makes it more interesting, and we will allow you to make your own interpretation here… typically Emiratis have families to celebrate New Year’s Eve with, so they show up with families. Typically tourists travel in groups, so they at least have one woman in the group to classify as a “family”. Who is typically a lone male (or group of lone males)? Hmm…. And it was made all the worse when at one police barricade we looked to one guy next to us and said “this is crazy” and he responded with “yeah… these are supposed to be for everyone…” So sad…

At this point we didn’t know what to do. It was still pretty early, but we were far from any metro station, we knew we likely wouldn’t be allowed into the Dubai Mall metro station, and it was far to walk… so we just sat there thinking. Now, if the security/police were trying to make everything more “secure” inside… they made it weirder outside. Now there were men sitting around the perimeter of the event asking people if they could be included in their “family” to try to get in. We didn’t see it work for anyone, but many tried. We didn’t, we thought it would be weird to go up to people at night and ask such a thing.

We tried one last time to enter telling the security/police officers that we had travelled a very long way just to see these fireworks and that Dubai had invited the world but was clearly not allowing the world to see them, but it didn’t work. The security/police just made sure we weren’t recording them and then told us to continue on our way. Great. My partner was more annoyed at this than the cancelled flights to and from Khasab.

We continued until we saw a highway area that had an okay view of the Burj Khalifa. We could see the upper portion, with a bit of the bottom missing. Well… if we continue we may not see anything, so we just sit and wait on the side of this big road (that had been closed, we’re not crazy) with a lot of others. And then the police decide to clear this and send people further back into a dusty parking lot. Well… we just turned around and walked back the way we came with others, and then the police stopped clearing people away. So this is where we sat for a few hours as we waited.

And then, it was time! We were so excited! We both really enjoy fireworks, and Dubai’s are supposed to be legendary. The Burj Khalifa started a laser and fireworks show… and then it was done. Let me tell you, we were underwhelmed. Of course the whole situation probably caused this feeling to be amplified… but we would never come back for the fireworks off of the Burj Khalifa. In the distance we could see the fireworks which “our neighbourhood” did along the Dubai Creek and they were a million times better. WAY BIGGER! Not sure what my partner was expecting when it is fireworks off of a building between other buildings… but we would have been better off going back to our hotel and watching the fireworks there. And we would have probably been allowed to see them from closer. But we still filmed it and this is a screenshot from that.

And then, just to drive the point home a little more directly about the fact that we don’t think separating all of us was for safety… everyone started streaming out of the Dubai Mall/fountain area and mixing in the street. The streets were absolutely paaaaaacked. So we were all mixed again. So… we honestly can’t think of many reasons why we would be separated.

Anyway, we start walking in the direction of our hotel with A LOT of people. We get to the first metro station, absolutely packed. No point in waiting. Then we see the metro going by, absolutely packed as well. We continue. Same thing at the next metro station. By the time we finally make it to the next metro station it seems to have calmed down and we go up to the metro station, quickly get on our train, and ride it to our metro station. At least we were able to get some “unique” pictures since the roads were closed. We got some food then headed in for a well deserved sleep.

Happy New Year, and we hope your New Year starts better than ours ended! Goodnight from Dubai!