Destination: Dubai

Knowing that our time in the UK was likely going to be ending in 2017, Geoff and I started discussing over the summer if there any final destinations we wanted to travel to. Geoff mentioned Dubai as a possibility and after a little thought, it made sense. Dubai is a destination we would never travel to once settled back into the US so we figured it was now or never.  So while the girls were on a two week holiday from school back in October, we boarded an Emirates A380 airplane (which is huge...a full upper deck!) for the seven hour flight for the shiny destination of Dubai.

Our destination for our five days there was the Palm Atlantis, situated on the top of a man-made island in the shape of a palm tree.  If you've never seen images of this incredible engineering feat, do yourself a favor and go google it.  It really is incredible.  The resort was amazing!  It reminded me of hotels in Las Vegas...massively big, over-the-top, lots of restaurants, lots of people, staff that caters to everything and of course, expensive!  😟

The view from our hotel room by day...

...and by night.

Below is a photo of the resort beach with the Burj Al Arab Jumeriah in the background which is dubbed as the world's most luxurious hotel.  With standard rooms going for around $2,000 per night, also probably one of the world's most expensive hotels!  I don't think we will be making any return trips to stay there anytime soon.  Or ever!

Our itinerary for our trip was swimming, swimming and more swimming! We never left the resort. Our time was split between the hotel swimming pool and the water park attached to the resort.  From the moment we arrived, all the girls wanted to do was be in the water and with hot temps (in the mid to upper 90s degrees), we were happy to oblige.

The waterpark had a kids section that was perfect for us. There were some little slides that Ashton loved going on repeatedly and some larger ones for Olivia. Quinn was happy to sit in the wading pool and splash around.  In the rest of the park, there was a lazy river we rode around on a few times and Geoff and I occasionally took turns leaving to go on some more adults oriented rides, but primarily we stayed in the children's part until it was time to leave and switch to the hotel swimming pool.

If she wasn't on a waterslide, this is where Olivia could be found

Adjacent to the waterpark, the resort had a dolphin experience you could do.  Geoff and the girls signed up for their chance to get up close and personal with a dolphin.

One of the restaurants had a chocolate foundation for dessert and I thought the girls' eyes were going to pop out of their heads when they saw it. Without our good parental oversight, they would have skipped dinner entirely and headed straight for the fountain.  

Quinn looking on with envy.

The chocolate fountain and dipping nibbles were so good they made your teeth fall out!  Not quite, but Olivia did have a tooth fall out while she was eating her chocolate goodness.

It's hard to define trips with three little children as relaxing but this trip ending up being as close as we could get.  Lots of down time soaking in the sun and playing in the water made for a very enjoyable time! 

As a parting gesture, on our way to the airport we drove near the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, with a whopping 163 floors!