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This is just the usual Emirates time schedule, I don’t think I have traveled on Emirates Airlines without having the flight delayed. Its a ritual which can not be changed, they have difficulty staying on time. I think I have traveled on about 20 flights on Emirates over the past year and half, and out of them only 4 have been on time, so 80% of all their flights are not on time. Delays can vary between 1 hour to 6 hours, the worst one for me was 6 hours and they wouldn’t even let us leave the airport and come back. The way to know how late your going to be is to ask if your plane has landed or not.
The lounge was packed full of people and 90% of them were business people. I haven’t seen this many Nokia Communicators, iPhones, and Blackberrys all in one room. Everyone was either working on spread sheets, emails, or on the phone talking to work. I wasn’t really going to work that late in te day, I just enjoy many episodes of Family Guy Season 4.
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A friend of the family passed away yesterday, so I was asked if I could go to Bahrain for the funeral. I dont know the man personally but I have heard about him every once and while from my family, so I went to Bahrain in the afternoon for a few hours to give my condolences with some members of my family, and I returned by sun down.
 I had nothing to do with the planning, but it was very well organized with a lot of people going to give their condolences.
Since I was with some friends who haven’t been to Dubai before we decided to go on one of those tours in the Desert, the one thing that I knew was that it was a 90% chance that the company vehicle would be a Landcruiser. We woke up really early in the morning since we knew we had to head out around 7:30 am to make it to the location at 9:00 am. So I was beating at the drums from early in the morning to get everybody up.
We were five guys not including the driver in the car, laughing our heads off in the car with music blaring. It was going to be a start to a very funny day. By the time we got to the location we convinced the driver to go ballistic and do his worst. He took the challenge and there were times the Landcruiser was either going to flip or all four tires were going to pop because of the jumps we were taking.
We stopped a few locations which was a lot of fun and we saw a lot of camels which was also fun. The car had a roll cage and I was sitting comfortably in the back, it was a hell of a lot of fun, and then we went sandboarding which was ridiculous and a few people landed face down on the ground.
 
This is one of the things that I wanted to do but I haven’t had a chance yet. Seawings is a company that gives you a tour of Dubai’s attractions from the air which is fantastic, for 30 minutes it costa around 900 AED and for a 40 minute private tour it costs 8500 AED.
 
It would be a lot of fun just taking off from the water, and viewing all these attractions from the coast and air is something everyone should experience.
Link: Seawings
Dubai has done it again and built this supermall on the outskirts towards old Dubai, I didn’t eve know this mall existed until my friend wanted to take us their for lunch. Festival City Dubai was built with many different shops in mind, there is a lot of repititions in the mall but there is also a lot of different stores opened up in these malls. Whats unique about this mall is the way they have designed this mall and how they have made it decentralized, there are different parts to this mall that makes it feel like its multiple buildings instead of one huge building. Still its fun to walk through and check it out, and this mall is big enough that you will get lost without some sense of direction, we almost lost someone.
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This a place situated just beside DIC (Dubai Internet City) in Jumeirah, its a man made marina for boats and a lot of buildings have been built around it. There are a lot of towers being built around the bay, many differen kinds of buildings are being built as business rental, hotels, and apartments. In the marina area itself they have setup some very nice outdoor seating with many different restaurants such Johnny Rockets, Indian, Italian, Sushi, Lebanese, and a few sheeha places (for those who like sheesha).
We had lunch there because we were really hungry and it was amazing just sitting outside and enjoying the view. Its nice to spend the morning or afternoon there, lots of people were walking around, its even packed at night.
I have been to Dubai enough to experience the different levels of service they have, and there is one conclusion that I have come to. They really don’t care, its a bit of a facade that they give personal service but they don’t they only really give good service if they know you.
At this point there are so many people always going to Dubai and a lot who want to do different things so they always have a different experience. They always try to get as much money as possible from the people passing through and they don’t care for a personal touch. What one person told its very simple for them, if your not going to buy it somebody else will.
I kept thinking that Egypt’s population is at 60 million but it turns out over sometime they are now closer to 75 million, and Cairo is one very packed City. As one friend said it, there is basically no reason to have a fast car in Egypt, you just want a car that would win in all bumper to bumper accidents, and those taxis are strong tin cans!
The honking in Egypt came as expected, but what I noticed was that people just drove with their hands on the horn. Unlike Kuwait where road rage is rampant and honking is one of the last resorts with a inclination to kill, in Egypt they just honk and lean on each other without getting that pissed, even sometimes they are very cool about it. There is no where to go and everyone just honks the horn and squeezes into every possible crevice they can, I probably get a Hummer H1 or a Land Rover Defender to drive through Egypt and clear the way.
In Egypt one thing that gets annoying is how they try to push their car through, there is no concept of lanes, doesn’t matter how many white lines you paint its invisible in Egypt. Traffic lights are another story, they are only there as suggestions for drivers and not to be followed, red, yellow, and green are all one color “GO”.
I have heard horror stories of Gulf Air and I wanted to avoid a horror story of my own, but through fate I had no choice but to go on this airline or on Kuwait Airways, reluctantly I went with Gulf Air and I though I would try my luck.
The First plane from Kuwait to Bahrain it felt like a plane that was stuck in the 70s and 80s, and hasn’t been upgraded since then. From I remember Gulf Air was owned by multiple companies and countries so it had no direction and everyone was trying to fill their pockets as fast as possible, only recently has it been bought out by the Bahrain Government and there has been improvements. I have to say even though the plane was old the service was good and the people were courteous.
The lounge was nice and very relaxing, it isn’t the newest but still nice. This is my first time to land in Bahrain Airport, I’m used to driving Bahrain, and it just doesn’t feel like an Airport, it feels more like an old shopping mall because of all the carpeting a some parts which have low ceilings.
Then the flight from Bahrain to Egypt was another story, the plane was very nice with upgraded interiors with really good service. The colors aren’t to my taste, but thats something on a personal level, but I think Kuwait Airways needs an attitude adjustment and they can learn what good service is from Gulf Air.
This has been a whirlwind of a trip, flying all over the place, going to my best friend’s wedding, doing a million things, getting as little as sleep as possible to make sure all my friends have a good time. It felt like we didn’t have a chance to breath there was too much to do and we were just having a really good time together.
Just flying back to Kuwait I realized what was on my plate, and how much work piled up for the last 10 days. Its going to take a bit to catch up but it was all very worth it.
I hope everyone had a great new year, a good new year in my opinion is with the group that you are with, and I was with a very good group of friends. What a start to this year.