DUBAI PART TWO

I woke up on my birthday with an incredibly sore head.

My mum had sent over my birthday cards, so once I'd popped a paracetamol and downed a bottle of water, I curled up in bed and opened my cards from my mum and dad, brother and sister in law, and a couple of fabulous friends who had sent cards to the desert in time for my birthday.

Jemma had naughtily asked the hotel to organise flowers and a cake, so whilst she was getting ready, these arrived at the room as a lovely surprise.

My mum had sent over a beautiful necklace that I wore to brunch, and Jemma had naughtily bought me a gorgeous Ciate nail polish and Victorias Secret perfume, and my other flat mate Sara had sent over possibly the best t shirt iv ever seen...

Still with sore heads, we got ourselves ready and hopped in a cab to the Atlantis, where we would be celebrating my birthday at the Saffron brunch.

The Atlantis is quite spectacular. None of the photos I have really do it justice, and I had to wander quite far away to actually fit the magnificent building in a photo!

My best friends little girl described the photo as a Disney palace, and she wasn't wrong! Except far more adult friendly!

Our meeting point was the Aquarium (yes, a giant aquarium in the hotel, as you do)

We met up with Kayleigh, Nabs, Ben, and two of his friends, and joined the enormous queue for brunch at Saffron.

I always thought brunch in Doha was great. It's the thing to do when there are a bunch of you of work on a Friday (although that's pretty rare given the nature of our work). I'd heard brunch in Dubai, and in particular Saffron, was a crazy affair but I literally was not prepared for it.

It was a Doha brunch on steroids - in Doha you only get a choice of wine, beer or bubbles (although some places offer a choice of 1 or 2 cocktails that you can have throughout the meal) but at Saffron, nothing was off limits.

I'm talking every single spirit under the sun, beers, wine, bubbles, cocktails (there was a stall serving up strawberry daiquiris), Pimms (a whole stall serving Pimms!) a jaeger bomb station, a station serving up pineapple with syringes full of alcohol that you inject into the fruit before you eat it, and last but not least, whole melons carved out and filled with vodka for your whole table to enjoy

Needless to say, it got messy very quickly.

Then there was the food. Stations for sushi, pasta, salad, roast dinner, burgers, Chinese, Indian, every possible cuisine you could think of.

We ate, drank, and chatted, and as the afternoon went on, Saffron turned into one giant party. The DJ was blasting out songs that everyone was singing along to, and by 3 o clock everybody was up dancing.

So much fun!

4 o clock signals the end of brunch, and everyone bundles on to mini buses to a club called N'Dulge, which is also at the Atlantis.

Feeling it was far too early in the day to be clubbing, we made our way to Naisimi beach, a chilled out beach bar at the hotel.

Peach belinis and water all round, we relaxed in the sun to a chilled out soundtrack, courtesy of the DJ behind us.

Groups of friends around us chatted and smoked shisha, while we sat and nursed our food babies and tried to process what we had just experienced!

As the sun began to set, we caught a second wind and made our way to N'Dulge, stopping to snap some snazzy cars that were parked at the beach bar along the way

 

We partied until about 9pm (hardcore!) and then headed back to the hotel, in desperate need of painkillers, water, and my bed!!

All in all a very fun and drunken birthday although I was a very poorly girl that night, and asleep by 11pm!

 

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DUBAI PART ONE

Please forgive my absence on the blogging front, but I've just returned from a little jaunt across the Gulf.

On Thursday morning, Jemma and I hopped in a cab to Hamad Int Airport, climbed aboard our FlyDubai freebie flight and jetted off to Dubai!

(Obligatory giant airport bear photo. Nobody knows quite what the point of the bear is, but it definitely symbolises escaping from the sandpit!)

No sooner had we taken off when we found ourselves decending into DXB. It was almost like we had just driven an hour out of Doha - everything looked exactly the same, except someone had turned up the heat. Where Doha has started to lose the unbearable humidity, Dubai is still very much in the midst of summer.

We jumped in a cab and drove the 40 or so minutes to our hotel, the Westin, drinking in the view out of the window. Once we had checked in, we headed straight to the pool bar for a salad and a complimentary glass of wine.

First port of call after lunch was a trip to the Heavenly Spa. Jem and I had decided to kick off our trip with one hour Heavenly Massages. We slipped into the most amazing fluffy robes and were led through to our respective treatment rooms for an hour of pure pampering.

Zen-like, we headed up to our room to check out our home for the next 4 nights.

 

Comfiest bed, ever!

The sunset from our balcony was beautiful.

Dinner on the first night was at Blue Jade, an Asian restaurant in the Ritz. We put on our glad rags and headed out, stopping for a few hotel photos on the way

 

At the restaurant, we ordered so much food. Sea bass for Jemma, coconut king prawn curry for me, and Phad Thai noodles with rice to share.

The food was beautifully presented and so delicious, and the staff were very sweet and so attentive without being intrusive. It was a little lacking in atmosphere but I'd highly recommend Blue Jade all the same.

After dinner we went for a cocktail in Buddha Bar - this place looked amazing for dinner! We had tried to book but as it was the start of the weekend it was full. The place was buzzing when we arrived, and after one drink we decided to venture on somewhere else as it was so packed with nowhere to stand.

Our final stop of the night was Barasti, a beach bar / sports bar that was absolutely packed with an amazing atmosphere. We bumped into Paul and Ollie almost straight away who became our new BFFs for the night.

They are also entirely to blame for how ill I felt the next day on my birthday, as they insisted we try 'Bullfrogs' which are a lethal combination of pretty much every spirit behind the bar, and toxic blue in colour.

We prematurely celebrated my birthday on the beach as the clock struck midnight with birthday cheers and the dreaded Bullfrogs!

Feeling exhausted, hot, and drunk, we decided to call it a night at around 1:30am and headed back to the hotel after a brilliant first day in Dubai :)

 

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