Five Days In The Heat Of Dubai

Hello everyone! We’ve been staying busy, and we’re finally finding the time to share our five days in Dubai.

Dubai was a very different place! It’s ultra-modern, almost futuristic. And it was incredibly hot. We experienced an average of 104 Fahrenheit / 42 Celsius every day, with lows of about 90 degrees F / 32 degrees C, which was difficult for the kids, especially when going outside. To put that heat in context, they have to cool off the swimming pools or else they are too hot to swim in! And it was even rather humid with a hot sun, so those temperatures understate how hot it felt.

We also visited during the holy month of Ramadan, which added an extra layer to the whole experience because—as we learned after arriving—eating and drinking in public during the daytime during Ramadan is a crime, including for foreigners (children and pregnant women are exempt). That made it even more challenging to do activities outside. There were a few exceptions, including mall food courts and a few restaurants, which would cover all windows and doors so that people couldn’t see you eating inside. In other words, if the restaurant looked absolutely boarded shut, then it was open! But Ramadan was also an interesting time, because there were extra sweets and markets set up and things got really lively after the sundown. We also had the good fortune of staying with friends, so we were able to cook and eat freely inside their home (which is generally how we did our meals during our visit, since Dubai is also pricey).

As we mentioned in our last post, we had not originally planned on going to Dubai so we took this time to relax and unwind a bit. Our friends’ house had a lot of toys so the kids were super excited to hang out there and play. They also had a pool so we enjoyed just splashing around and relaxing there, usually around the time the sun was going down (even then, with a cooled-off pool, it was like taking a hot bath on a hot day, so it wasn’t exactly “refreshing”!).

Dubai was also a great place to spot all kinds of sweet cars, which Hugo definitely enjoyed. Even the police drive nice rides, like big BMWs and Toyota Land Cruisers (the police even have Lamborghinis, but we didn’t see any).

These are some of the things we did while in Dubai:

• Our friend drove us around the city and showed us a lot of the fun areas. There are lots of malls there, and they all have fun activities for families. She also showed us water parks and beautiful beaches we could visit during our stay.

• We visited Dubai Mall, which is the biggest mall in the world. Shortly after walking in, we spotted a huge tank with fish, stingrays, and sharks. Yup, the mall has large sharks swimming inside! Both kids were super excited and wanted to go in. We spent a couple of hours at the aquarium and at the underwater zoo (both in the mall), which was super fun as we go to see big sharks up close!

• Our friends took us to the Jumeirah Beach Club in the evening to watch their daughter’s tennis match. It was amazing to see the kids play tennis and run around in what felt like totally oppressive heat to us, but they seemed to be totally adjusted to it!  After watching the kids for a little bit, we headed to the beach and had a great time swimming at the private beach (with free popsicles and water, which you were allowed to eat/drink during Ramadan inside the club) until after sunset!

• We visited beautiful Kite Beach, on the Persian Gulf. Our friend let us borrow her beach tent and we were able to sneak in a couple of sips of water to survive the heat (we lasted from about 9am to 10:30am before we were all dying of heat as it hit about 105 F / 40 C). Joe rented a stand-up paddle board and went out with Hugo. Valentina and Paola hung out on the beach, splashing in the crystal-clear water and collecting beautiful seashells. The water was placid, warm, and full of fish. And the sand was smooth with beautiful shells. It was an incredible beach and we would have loved to have spent more time there—it must be more palatable in the “winter” time!

• We visited the Gold Souk (market) and Spice Souk in the old historic district. We had a lot of fun walking around the alleys and interacting with people who wanted to sell stuff to us. It felt like people didn’t hassle us much because we had kids, which was nice. Hugo was very interested in the spices he saw at the stores and the store keepers had him smell a lot of spices, and told him what they were and what they were used for. People also gave our kids free treats at pretty much all the stores we visited! Like Malaysia, people in Dubai were very warm towards our children!

• We visited a local library at Umm Suqeim. Libraries have become a favorite place of ours to visit when the weather is not ideal. They are free, and (obviously) they have lots of books, which our kids LOVE! We spent a couple of hours at the library and, on our way out, the library keeper gave our kids coloring sets to take home!

• Towards the end of our visit, we went back to the Dubai Mall and our kids spent the afternoon working on arts and crafts, which were set up for kids as part of Ramadan festivities. We also checked out the indoor waterfall and then headed outside to the Dubai Fountain to see the beautiful water show, with the Burj Khalifa (the tallest building in the world) as a backdrop.

• On our last day we went to Play Town at a fancy mall. We had the entire place to ourselves, which was nice and also overwhelming as ALL the people working there were basically following us around and trying to interact with our kids. Our kids had a good time here. It was interesting for them to meet characters like Bob the Builder and Barney for the first time. We wouldn’t rank it as a top experience, but it was a good way to spend two hours running around in climate control.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned for Paola’s post of Dubai pictures!