Atlantis Dubai

Six months ago, the girls and I put a check on my bucket list and added another continent/country/city to our visited map when we spent a few days in Dubai (posts are here, here and here).  We went sans B because he declared that he had no desire to visit and couldn't get away so it was the perfect spring break destination.  And then he saw the pictures of the sand and the sun and how much fun we had and decided that perhaps he would like to visit after all.  So, with a few days left in our fall break after our long weekend in Prague for Halloween, we did a quick unpack/repack and hit the airport bright and early on Wednesday morning.

We flew with Emirates again, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite airlines.  Their service and attention to detail are second to none.  They even came around and took pictures of the passengers wearing their attendant's caps which made MadHatters whole flight... (Stinkerbell missed it as she was sleeping).

 We learned a few things from our last trip and one of the most important was that you don't want to land at DXB too late because it will take you forever to walk from your gate, to luggage claim, passport control and customs.  Then you have to find your taxi driver and drive the  1/2 hour to the city and your hotel.  All in all it's about 2 hours from touchdown to your hotel.  Last time we landed at midnight which meant we didn't get into bed until well after 2 am.  This time we booked the trip to land us about 4 pm and get to the hotel in time to eat a late dinner and sleep.  Which is what we did - after marveling at their gorgeous lobby fountain...

We were up slowly the next morning with nothing on our agenda except the water park and the beach/pools.  So that is exactly what we did (I will post the waterpark pictures in their own post).  I snapped a few pictures of the hotel as we were walking through...

Our view

The view from the beach

These guys had a great time in the Gulf.

 I didn't take a ton of pictures as we played because, well, we were playing but I did manage a few...

 We played until the sun went down, literally.  We dried off walked to our concierge club for drinks and a light dinner and then fell into bed without even getting dressed once during the day!  I would call that a successful first day.