Maybe…
Here’s the second attempt to get to Bali, still no-one can advise if the luggage will join or not, but now the stance is “you need to arrive at Bali, wait for the entire carousel to empty and if it’s not there, queue with everyone else to report it lost”. Roughly translated as, you’re out of Dubai and no longer our problem, bye.
So here we are in Dubai airport sat in the worlds largest Business Class lounge, with the worlds only Moet & Chandon bar inside it. Put it this way I’m drinking my suitcase cost tonight.
Hi Mr & Mrs Fogg!!
We are having a lovely holiday in Dubai with my other suitcase friends. I can’t tell you where though as no one knows! Maybe I might come to Bali with you or maybe I’ll stay here and chill, or just maybe I might end up in Outer Mongolia – hey the world is my oyster!
Love from your suitcases
Xxx
Today should in theory (fingers and toes crossed!) be our last in Dubai. We’ve visited at least 5 or 6 shopping malls since being here, made friends in a local clothes store since we spent so much time in there sorting the basics out, and walked literally miles and miles.
Dubai is a shoppers city so it’s not really for us. Today we decided to visit the Dubai Marina as there is a marina walk and a load of luxury yachts for the oober rich. Boy it was hot!
We even managed to visit a Souk which is a traditional market. This one was pretty posh as it’s near Burj Al Arab.
Let’s see what happens at the airport….
So you know when you ain’t posh enough, when you rock up to the Burj Al Arab and get told no booking no walk in (the windsail hotel from Mission Possible). Mission accepted and we got a photo opportunity before the cravat exploded.
And today we will mostly be taking a trip to the airport to see if our luggage has had a nice break and come back to join us.
Divide and conquer, Mrs Fogg went up to the information desk while I joined another Emirates queue to see if the luggage fairies had returned our bits. Clearly not!
The stance from the stressed luggage team is, if your final destination was Dubai, come over here and we will help you, if you were travelling onwards, good luck, not our problem, queue for 2 hours and be told “your luggage is not lost, it’s in a container along with over 100,000 other little scared cases”. But you cannot claim it is lost since we know where it is, so there. Then the stressed lovelies walked off unable to cope with irate customers who have been stranded for up to a week with no information. All this while the Emirate PR Puppies push out the good vibe that all is good in the world and everyone has been reunited with their luggage and the team are mega awesome (put it this way looks like Geppetto has been working overtime whittling in an effort to keep up).
The Mrs got us checked into the next flight to Bali (good luck if that one happens).
On then to the Palm hotel that stretches into the sea, however, no you ain’t cos due to flooding all trains are cancelled at a certain station and you have 2 options, walk or taxi.
Given we only have 1 additional set of clothes and might be making it to Bali (all appendages crossed) we took the decision to taxi to the Mall of the Emirates to find new clothes and believe me drivers on these roads close their eyes and just gun it. All you need to drive here is 1) can drive in a straight line 2) know where the car horn is 3) never look left or right and just slice in front of everyone with a thousandths of an inch to spare.
So the Mall, is still under at least 1 foot of water as they continue 247 to pump it out after a week. Clearly using foot pump then
This Mall is actually much smaller with next to no guidance to find food, so we headed back in a taxi again to buy a second round of clothes from Mr Thrifty (I look cool in a cravat, polka dot socks, sock braces and a frilly shirt now).
And tomorrow, will the airport be open, will our luggage join us, will it yak it down again and close the airport (yes apparent forecast is for more heavy rain)? personally I can’t wait to join another queue of passengers.
To supplement our income in Dubai, we are now opening a laundry washing service in the room (well given we have a washing machine in the hotel room, yes a washing machine!). Although drying times are a bit slow (my grundies are still wet). We also just bought yet another case to transport the hideous clothes we just bought (the case glows in the dark, let’s see Emirates lose this bad boy!).
Finally at midnight yesterday Mr Fogg managed to get through on the phone to Emirates customer service about our suitcases. Now let’s just be clear – this was the number we were given for the team that were supposed to be retrieving our bags from the “in transit” container. The conversation went something like this:
Mr F: hi, I’m checking on the progress of retrieving our bags. Here’s the tag numbers. Can you check pls?
Emirates: certainly sir, I just need to do a security check. Can we have your inside leg measurement, eye colour, weight, foot size oh and blood type
After managing to navigate all that the conversation continued:
Mr F: Do you have an update on the bags please?
Emirates: Yes but no
Mr F: Eh? So have you managed to retrieve our bags?
Emirates: Well yes they are here at the airport but we don’t know where
Mr F: But we were told our request to retrieve them was triggered.
Emirates: oh we’ve not done anything with that
Mr F: we fly out of here on Monday though and still have no clothes
Emirates: I’m sorry sir but we have no clue where your bag is and no plans do do anything about that for some days
Mr F: How long will it take?
Emirates: we don’t know
Mr F: but we have no clothes or anything. Can we get a PIR number so we can report to our insurers to be able to claim as we will have to buy clothes
Emirates: oh you should have got that at the airport here
Mr F: your team said they could not issue one
Emirates: That is correct sir. Your luggage is not lost it is here
Mr F: So we can come get it?
Emirates: Oh no sir, we don’t know where it is
Mr F: so can we get a PIR as we are already out of pocket needing to buy more pants
Emirates: I’m very sorry sir that’s not my department. Have you tried washing them?
Mr F: Aaaarrrrrghhhhhh
Emirates: thank you for your call sir
Standing at 828m in height, just over half a mile high, it’s awesome and stood on the 154th floor with champagne at 585m is an awesome view. We have been up the tallest building in the world.
Afternoon chaps
So here we are in downtown Dubai after searching shops for another pair of grundies each. Put it this way you can only wear a pair of pants four days before they need a wash.
Mrs Fogg decided to visit the local “thrift stores”, where t-shirts have slogans such as “trendy, hip to be and my other cat has hair”. After I educated her in the fact thrift is not what she thinks it means and instructing her that she dutifully must walk behind me at all times in this country (shhh don’t tell her), we found a new set of duds and clean unsmelly pants.
On then to the Dubai Mall and the Burj Khalifa, via the sky tower where you can walk on a glass floor and slide down the side of the building on a carpet. we also found a place to cook our own dinner.
On then for a photo stopportunity at the Birk. Today we received a postcard from our luggage which is currently enjoying the sights and sounds of Singapore!!!!
Awesome pickup, awesome flight and food and that’s where it ends.
Flight arrived 1hr late so missed the connecting flight however Emirates new after this weeks downpour that all flights were delayed or cancelled, but still transported you to Dubai where it was your responsibility to sort it yourself by queuing for 9 hours to rebook your flight along with hundreds of other passengers and 6 checkout staff. The people just kept surging so you couldn’t move.
Next flight to Singapore is in 3 days, so we would arrive after we are due to depart to Bali. So rebooked from Dubai to Bali in 3 days, can’t get a hotel voucher from Emirates since compooota says no, you should have been given a voucher when they rebooked your flight. So now booking our own, oh and we also have no luggage, won’t get it before we leave Dubai so it’s having a holiday on its own.
Amazingly 12 hours after we landed, Emirates posted a backdated “do not travel alert” showing the time before we were due to set-off, in full protection of the company, even though they advised hundreds of flights to take off for Dubai. Oh I can see a formal snotty complaint coming.
So awesome it is not, no clothes, delayed flight, incompetent staff, no currency. We are tired and smell. Still slightly better than some who have been in the airport 3 days.
And now the Dubai Savoy, well it’s a minor step up from a DaysInn (only just), with spectacular views of a main road and a supermarket car park.
Still off we go to explore downtown Dubai and buy another pair of undercrackers, I’ve been wearing these 3 days and they only have one more turn left in them.
