Exploring Abu Dhabi

After we woke up refreshed from our nap, we headed out to check out the first of many malls we visited during our trip.  The UAE has no shortage of fancy malls, but the first one we stopped at wasn't too impressive.  We grabbed lunch at Fuddruckers, one of our favorite US chains, and then walked out by the water to a small village-like area where the girls had a great time running around in the grass and picking up garbage.

After kind of striking out at our first stop on the trip, we grabbed a taxi and went to the Corniche which I think is the stretch of road that fronts the beach area in the main part of Abu Dhabi.  The weather was beautiful and we found a nice playground right by the beach where the girls enjoyed running around for about 45 minutes.  We walked around the beach area for a while longer and got some drinks and ice cream before heading out to grab dinner at another mall on the way back to our hotel.

After walking around for a while, we decided on PF Chang's because there is a shortage of totally unauthentic Chinese food in Tokyo and because it's one of Annie's faves.  We had a pretty enjoyable dinner and were pretty tired by that time so headed back to the hotel in a taxi and got the girls ready for bed and watched a show or two before calling in a day.

Apparently this is the only picture I took on this day - travel blogging skills on point!!

The next morning, we walked over to a nearby grocery store to pick up some things for breakfast and tried to decide what to do for the day.  We are not very good at having plans before we go on a vacation, which I think is one of the main reasons we sort to a beach vacation since your choices pretty much revolve around pool or beach.  City exploration in foreign countries is tough with our two travel companions!

In a split second decision, we decided to head over to Yas Island and visit Ferrari World.  Since Joe likes to see other theme parks for work, it seemed like it would be a waste to come this far and not go and check it out.  We are very glad we did because we had a great time.  It was about a 25 minute taxi ride to the Yas Island Mall, which was giant and incredible.  

Ferrari World is basically at one end of the mall and was very well done and looked pretty classy.  The tickets were reasonable but not cheap, but you could easily have a nice four or five hour experience there if you plan your time well.  It is entirely indoors except for the roller coaster (the world's fastest!) which starts and ends inside but has the entire thrill portion of the track outside.  The structure is enormous and is essentially a mini theme park entirely indoors.

A picture of the outside of Ferrari World - doesn't do justice to how massive it was

O My Buns, just because

Getting ready to enter Ferrari World!

The girls had a lot of fun on the Ferrari ride through Italy, the indoor play place and sampling a variety of snacks.  Annie was tall enough to drive the mini-Ferraris but Lizzy just missed the height cutoff which made her really sad.  A pretzel quickly cheered her up.  Annie got to drive some cars when at Universal Studios Japan so she was ultra-confident on this attraction and did it three or four times.  It was great.

A happy little driver

Lizzy wouldn't let me touch her or the steering wheel during the ride

Annie and Joe when on a Soarin'-like ride and then we all got together to go to one of the three Ferrari-theme live action shows with dancers and stunt people.  It was pretty good but we thought that they were reaching a bit too far at times to make everything car related.  We went to another show that had an incredible polar bear like character that we still aren't 100% sure if it was real or fake.  There was an entire winter wonderland area where the girls had a great time playing in the fake snow until some poorly behaved child projectile vomited all over the place and we had to evacuate.

It's snowing in the desert!

Our angels making snow angels

Lizzy was especially excited to get her face painted and daddy generously allowed it since the price was $0.  I'm not sure why she was wearing a swim shirt at this point but her previous outfit must have been ruined somehow!

I took Annie ice skating which was completely impossible and horrible, but I think she had a good time.

Probably the least fun portion of the entire trip

Before we left, we wanted to go check out the roller coaster but the line was nearly three hours.  There was a great viewing platform over the launch area so we got a feel for it watching it take off five or six times.  It was fast. I really regret not immediately getting in line for this when we entered the park. The coaster goes 0-60 in a few seconds and reaches 150 miles per hour! I guess it's always good to leave something for next time. 

We wandered around the gigantic mall for a while and ended up at Shake Shake for dinner.   It was amazing and expensive, but totally worth it.  The girls were tired by this time so we started to head out.  We had a bit of a challenging time finding a taxi but after a brief tour of the mall, we found one and took the 25 minute ride back to the Holiday Inn.

It ended up being a really fun day and we were very glad we headed out to Yas Island to see all the fun stuff they have built out there.  Not sure how they are making money from any of it, but we appreciate the fact that it was built (Hansel).

We woke up the next morning and felt the need to do something cultural so we went to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque about 15 minutes from our hotel.  The Grand Mosque is the largest in the UAE and can hold up to 40,000 people.  The fog that day was like nothing we had ever seen.  It was so bad that you couldn't see 50 feet in front of you, so it made the taxi ride a bit stressful but we arrived in one piece.  It also created massive delays at the airport and kept passengers on one plane for nearly 24 hours.

We were very worried about doing something wrong and offensive while visiting the Mosque  especially since an American pop star and her friends had taken some disrespectful photos there a few days prior and it was all over the news.  I had to go down to an area in the basement to get more appropriate clothing, but Joe and the girls were dressed suitably. The mosque was gorgeous and huge, at least the portion we could see.  The fog was so thick we couldn't see the entire structure at any one point.  We wandered around inside for a while in our socks and tried not to doing anything impolite. After about 90 minutes, the girls had had enough so I returned my clothing and we grabbed a taxi to head back to the hotel and check out.  I wasn't sad to say goodbye to the Holiday Inn (snob alert!).  Joe thought it was great and would have happily lived there.

We packed up, checked out (no bill since the hotel had been paid for with some IHG points we had sitting around from years ago) and jumped in a taxi for the 25 minute ride out to Saadiyat Island where we would spend the next 4 nights.

Unrelated, but just wanted to point out that televised camel racing is a real thing and amazing

Middle East in the Winter

We very much enjoyed our New Year's trip in 2014, so we wanted to see if we could line something up again and start 2015 off right.  As has been the case with most of our travel since we moved to Tokyo, this one was driven solely by trying to find seats on a new airline in a premium cabin.  After some research, Abu Dhabi moved to the top of the list since Tokyo to Abu Dhabi on Etihad is one of the sweet spots on the American Airlines award chart.

We had a long layover in Dubai coming back from our honeymoon and thought it was a fun place, so we were excited to bring the girls back and experience more of United Arab Emirates with them.  Dubai and Abu Dhabi have a number of nice hotels that a very reasonably priced in the summer when it is 130 degrees, but even in the winter they are a pretty good value for what you get.

We continue to focus our stays at Starwood and Hyatt properties because we have had good success with those brands and there were a number of great options in the UAE during our dates. After spending a significant amount of time trying to make all the pieces line up, we settled on the following itinerary:

• Holiday Inn Abu Dhabi -  2 nights at 5,000 points per night
• Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Saadiyat Island -  2 nights at 10,000 points plus $125 per night, used Diamond Suite Upgrade
• St. Regis Abu Dhabi Saadiyat Island - 2 nights at 6,000 points plus $110 per night, used Suite Night Upgrades
• Sheraton Mall of the Emirates - 1 night at 12,000 points, the second at 6,000 points plus $110, used Suite Night Upgrades
• Park Hyatt Dubai - 3 nights at $310 per night, used Diamond Suite Upgrade

In order to get all of us the opportunity to experience Etihad First Class, we had to split up on the way to Abu Dhabi.  Joe and Lizzy were going to fly on New Year's Eve and Annie and I were going to follow up on New Year's Day.

The First Class seats were 45,000 American miles each way with about $18 in taxes.  Since we have never flown American and didn't have enough miles to make this trip happen, we had to borrow some of Uncle Ace's to get this once in a lifetime trip booked.  Thanks again!  Maybe someday we will return the favor and pay back the miles we borrowed.  We ended up getting a few nice surprises close to departure that made this leg even better.

On the way home, in order to get on the same flight, we booked two seats in Business Class at 30,000 miles each, and two more seats First Class.

Not that we could ever in a million years pay cash for flights like this, but the airline tickets were over $40,000.  Still blows my mind there are people out there who would/could pay cash for these.

About a month before we were supposed to leave, there was a murder of a Western woman in a mall in Abu Dhabi that spooked us a bit and made us reconsider the trip for a moment.

Ultimately, we decided to go and are glad that everything worked out since this was one of the best vacations we have ever had!  A few days before our departure, availability opened up and we were all able to travel together which made everything so much easier than anticipated.

Tokyo to Abu Dhabi

We left our apartment early evening for our 9:00pm flight and made it Narita in no time. Everyone always says how far away Narita is from the city, but when there is no traffic, it really isn't that bad. Would much rather drive to Narita than LAX.

We found the Etihad First Class check in and got rid of our bags and made our way to the lounge. We made a special effort not to look homeless for our nice flight in First Class and did a pretty good job for the most part. The lounge at LAX is nice but unremarkable. We did eat a mini dinner because you never know what to expect on the plane.  Of course, the food turned out to be the best airline food we have ever had, so we regretted eating anything at all beforehand!

After an hour or so at the lounge, we made our way down to the gate. It felt very full for a New Year's Eve flight, but we were allowed to board first because we had the little ones with us. Every now and then they are good for something.  They were excited to get on the plane because we had told them during our trip to Da Nang in November that the next trip would be on the fancy plane.

Excited to take TsumTsum Sven on her trip

Posing in front of a Japanese New Year display at the airport

We were very warmly greeted by three or four of the cabin crew and were shown to the First Class cabin.  They informed us that we were the only ones in First Class tonight so we could pick any of the 12 suites.  Joe and Lizzy sat in the middle two seats in Row 3 while Annie and I sat in Row 2.  It is awesome getting to fly up front for a 14 hour flight, but hearing that we were going to be the only ones up there really removed all stress from the flight.  Joe was sort of disappointed that he could have looked homeless like usual since we were the only ones up there, but that was the only negative. We are always a bit sensitive when we have the girls in a premium cabin in case they would act up, so being the only ones up there allowed us to relax a bit more than we would have.  Let the fun begin!

The divider in the middle of the seats goes up if you want some privacy

Enjoying some pre-flight drinks - coffee for me and freshly squeeze orange juice for the girls

The flight attendants took the girls up to the cockpit before takeoff! 

Juice monsters

One of the flight attendants was the designated "nanny on board" - she brought special gifts for the girls

Annie's evening meal - fruit platter, rolls and a fruit smoothie

Champagne and snacks for mom

Hoping she doesn't think this is normal

The door next to the aisle also slid closed for total privacy!

Mini bar in every suite - was have been great if actually refridgerated

Etihad has a "chef" on board for the First Class cabin and she came out and introduced herself and explained how the food would work for the flight. There was an extensive menu and since we were the only ones in the cabin, she said to just tell her what we wanted to eat and she would try to make anything we could come up with. They came around with amenity kits and an awesome pair of black pajamas for Joe and me that we both put on before the flight took off. There was a fairly sizable bathroom at the front of the plane were we changed and they took our clothes and hung them up for us and brought them back for us to change into at the end of the flight. It was nice to spend the 14 hours in some comfy pajamas instead of regular clothes. We got the girls fed as quickly as we could and then got them in their jammies, set up their beds, and put on a movie for them in their seats. I then moved back to Joe's suite and sat on the ottoman across from him and had a great New Year's Eve dinner at 38,000 feet. It was pretty cool to finish off the best year of our life in this way.

Annie's friends all ready for sleepy time

Princess Ariel in her pull up

Only have date night once or twice a year but they are usually good ones

We ended up ordering a garden salad, some chicken briyani, a steak sandwich and a dessert sampler. We intended on sharing one of everything and when the chef sent two of each we realized it was WAY too much food and sent the extras up to the pilots.

Seriously good airline food

After we ate, I went to check on Annie and found out that she had ordered a couple of chocolate cookies on her own and was very much enjoying her New Year's eve without any parental supervision.  As usual, Lizzy was being a handful and was not interested in going to sleep. She was still up at midnight when the crew came around with champagne to celebrate the New Year.   Both Joe and I fell asleep shortly after and got a good six or seven hours of sleep. They make up the beds very nicely with a nice mini mattress and some pretty comfortable bedding. Certainly the best sleep I have gotten on a plane.

We woke up in advance of landing and had breakfast and some other snacks. The crew was fantastic and really nice to the girls. Annie and Lizzy had a lot of fun on the flight. Annie was basically perfect and Lizzy was Lizzy so all an all, no complaints. The flight attendants allowed us to get off the plane first so the people at the back of the plane were queued up waiting to deplane. Annie looked up to me and very innocently asked who all those people were. We told her those were the other passengers and she innocently said, "Oh, I didn't know there were other people on the plane." We realized that since we boarded first and were the only ones in our cabin, she never thought that there was anyone else with us. Idiot.

It was BY FAR the best flight of our lives. Instead of making the travel part miserable, it was actually fun and we didn't want it to end. However, it still blows our mind that anyone would actually pay retail for that. We used miles to make it very reasonable, but the cash price of our round trip tickets for the 4 of us was almost $50,000.  I suppose that was part of the reason there was no one else in the cabin.

We gathered our luggage around 5:30am on New Year's Day and it took a while since the stroller seemed to have been misplaced. After finally collecting all our stuff, we stopped by the Etihad arrivals lounge to get the girls a bit more food.  Joe got a complimentary shave and then we headed over to the Etihad chauffeur service that is complimentary for all premium class passengers. We took the car to the Holiday Inn Abu Dhabi and wondered how often that service takes passengers to such an "ordinary" drop off point.  My guess is never.  By this time it was around 7am and we checked in without a problem. We had reserved a room for the prior night to ensure we had a room ready for the arrival because it would be really tough with the girls to not have a place to recover for a bit after such a long flight.

Joe picked this hotel because at his core he is a cheapskate and it was really cheap at only 5,000 IHG points (~$35/night) for the first three nights of the trip.  It was completely fine and clean, but it was in an isolated area, so we had to take a taxi everywhere we wanted to go.  If we were to do it again, we would just spend a bit more and try to go to a place a more in the thick of things.

Despite getting to fly in the lap of luxury, we were all still a little tired so we all had some snacks and took a nap until around noon. After a bath, the girls were ready to go, so we ventured out into Abu Dhabi.