My second trip of this year was to Dubai. A huge contrast to my previous trip which was absolutely freezing. Dubai has always been a place on my list to visit. We didn't go to do the typical Dubai, beach clubs & brunches, we went to see the city. Different to our usual sight seeing trips, Dubai doesn't have a lot of history because as a country it's still quite young, but it has a lot to see with lots of amazing skyscrapers and huge malls. I'm here to tell you what we did, where we stayed and where we ate if you are thinking of going to this gorgeous city.
We flew with Emirates and I was actually looking forward to the flight because I had heard lots of good things. Everyone had told me that you're holiday starts when you get on the plane. I was looking forward to spending the flight watching films and all you can drink Diet Coke. The flight was 6h 30mins going and 7h 30mins coming home.
We stayed at the Atana Hotel, I saw pictures of the hotel when we booked the trip months ago but I has forgotten it's name and what it looked like. I was pleasantly surprised when we got to the hotel. We were staying for 6 nights, the hotel only cost us £250 each including breakfast, so I wasn't expecting anything fancy but like I said I was pleasantly surprised. The room was clean, spacious with a huge bed and from our hotel window you could see the Burj Al Arab. The staff there were so friendly and helpful. Luckily there was a taxi stop (if that's what you call it where all the taxis line up) just at the corner of the road so taxis were super easy to get because you will need to get taxis everywhere. I was told that everything was quite spread out but I wasn't expecting that we would have to get a taxi everywhere.
Let's get into what we did.
The first place we visited and a place that was top on my list was the Miracle Garden. Now if you haven't seen this place on instagram I suggest you go and look at it. It's stunning. The garden is over 72,000 square meters which makes it the worlds largest natural flower garden, featuring over 150 million flowers! The garden is only open from mid November to mid May, so if you're going to Dubai within those months I would highly recommend paying the Miracle Garden a visit. An aeroplane, huge Disney characters, love heart and butterfly archways completely covered in flowers. This was probably my favourite place we visited on the trip! So pretty!
From the miracle garden we got a taxi to Dubai Mall & Burj Khalifa.
If you didn't know, the Burj Khalifa is the worlds tallest building, the top floor is 1,918 ft and the tip is 2,722 ft! We were going to pre book our tickets to go up to the Burj Khalifa, but we did end up deciding that we would wait until we get there so we could do it whenever we felt like it. There are three different ticket options which have different prices if your going up during peak time or not. Theres Level 125 & 124 (this is what we chose), Levels 148, 125 & 124, then the lounge which is levels 154, 153 & 152. As I mentioned we did the Levels 125 & 124 because we weren't to fussed about going right to the very top (plus going to the lounge would cost over 600 AED). We had a bit of a fuss trying to get our tickets, we went to the ticket desk to purchase our tickets and they only had the tickets that cost 525 AED (which is the second option I mentioned above), but we looked on the Burj Khalifa website and it said they had availability for the first ticket option, so we went back and she told us that she didn't have any tickets for that one, go to the aquarium they may have some. So we had to go all the way to the aquarium where they finally had some tickets (the story is actually a lot more long winded than that but keeping it to the point). If you go and they tell you they don't have the tickets for floors 124 & 125 go to the aquarium and see if they have any because we only paid around 250 AED for them, you still get the same views just not as high. I would have loved to have gone as high as we could go but its a lot of money just to go up a building, and an extra 200 EAD to go up 10 more floors!
Dubai Mall has over 1,200 shops and in 2011 it was the most visited building in the world. The entrance to the Burj Khalifa is through the mall, there's a Fashion Avenue for all of you designer lovers and there's lots of places to eat. Outside is the Dubai Fountains, we ended up watching these 4 times in one night! The show happens twice an hour, and I really recommend watching this. There are lots of restaurants in the mall the have outdoor seating where you can view the fountains, we watched them in a restaurant and then later we went down to the front and watched them there. You can also watch the fountains from a boat that goes around the pool while the fountain show is going on.
The day after we set out to see the Burj Al Arab, we got a taxi and then walked to Jumeirah Public Beach. Most of the beach fronts are private areas that you would need to go to a beach club or a hotel to get onto. The Burj Al Arab is the 5th tallest hotel in the world. Construction started in 1994 and it opened in December 1999. I would have loved to have gotten a closer view of the Burj Al Arab by going into the Madinat Jumeirah, which is actually a resort with several hotels and lots of restaurants. It was a place on my list to go and see and take a little boat ride around the resort, but we didn't get a chance to do this. You could also get a better view from Shimmers beach club. From the public beach we got a taxi to the Marina. The marina was one of my favourite areas. We were there around lunch time so it was nice and chilled. It was quite quiet when we were there, I can imagine at night its quite lively as there are a lot of bars and restaurants.
The next day we had an early start as we had booked a day trip to Abu Dhabi, if your in Dubai I would definitely recommend going to Abu Dhabi for the day. We had pre booked our trip before we went but you can do it why your there also. We booked through the website
getyourguide, We had an amazing guide, she was very informative and friendly. The main reason we wanted to go to Abu Dhabi was to see the Grand Mosque, Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. This is one of the most stunning places I have seen. Women are required to wear an abaya, which our tour guide provided for us, and men need to wear long pants and a long sleeve top. The building was completed in 2007. Inside the mosque there is the worlds largest carpet (60,570 sq.ft.). The mosque wasn't the only thing we saw in Abu Dhabi, we went to a museum (Emirates Heritage Village) which showed the history of Abu Dhabi, a view point to see the Presidential Palace and the observation deck on the 74th level of Etihad Towers.
The following day we had booked to go to Aquaventure Waterpark Atlantis. This was our first 'look' at the palm. You obviously can't see the Palm properly unless your looking down from above (we would have loved to do a helicopter but it was fully booked). We spent the day in the waterpark and before we left we had a walk on the beach which looked back to the mainland Dubai with its stunning skyscrapers. I would have loved to have done a boat ride to see Atlantis properly.
Our last day we did the desert safari, which included a camel ride, quad bikes and sand duning. Now, if your get even I tiny bit car sick I do NOT recommend this! It was a cool experience but the sand duning is ok for 10 mins but being thrown around up down and sideways will catch up on you (I was the only person in our car who wasn't sick, which I was so surprised at this because I do get a little travel sick, but I think that may have been down to the fact that I was sat in the front). There are still things that I would have liked to have seen and done but nothing that will keep me up at night.
Moving on to where we ate...
We had a total of 6 nights in Dubai, the first evening when we landed we didn't go out for food as it was late by the time we got to our hotel. The first place we ate was the famous Cheesecake Factory. This was 100% on the list of places to eat! The menu is huge and the portions are HUGE! If you can finish one of their pasta dishes hats off to you because they are double the size of a normal dish! We could have probably shared, but we didn't know how big they were going to be! Even though we didn't finish our meals we had to get a cheesecake! It would be rude not too! We ate at the The Cheesecake Factory in the Mall of the Emirates, which inside has a ski slope which the Cheesecake Factory windows look out to!
The next evening we ate at TGI's. We wanted to eat somewhere with a fountain view so we could see the fountain show and my friend told me that TGI's outdoor area looked out. I am a huge fan of TGI's and pretty much everywhere we go in the world we usually make a stop off there. A head up if your like me and obsessed with TGI's Jack Daniels Sauce/Chicken they don't have it there because there's no alcohol on the menu, which I didn't know until we got there, so I had a pasta but that was really nice!
Next up was another place I had on my list before we went was Barasti. Barasti is actually a beach club/bar so you can go in the day, chill on the beach, drink, swim in the pool. But I always intended on going there for our evening meal. Id heard about it from people I know and then on instagram, seeing the pictures of the marina buildings lit up in the background. We actually went here to eat twice. The first time we went was on a Tuesday evening, it was so chilled and had a relaxed vibe which is what made me want to go back. The second time we ate there was our last night which was a Thursday and it was a lot busier! Most of the tables outside were taken, the music was louder, more people were downstairs and in the pool/pool area, but the food was just as nice. I had actually looked at the menu online before we went. The staff were also so lovely, I think everyone we came across was really friendly.
The last place that was on my list of places to eat was a place called Switch. I was looking on the instagram Dubai story and I saw a video of a dessert with chocolate being poured over it and I decided we were going there! It was such a find in my opinion, if you didn't already know about this place you wouldn't be able to find it. It's in Dubai Mall and it's in the middle of the Timberland shop and the Birkenstock shop, so it's not with all the other food places. We were the only tourists in the restaurant! I think the place is best know for its desserts, but the food was also really yummy! If your looking for places to eat I would really recommend visiting here. We had lunches at normal fast food restaurants, KFC, Burger King and in the Marina we had lunch at Nando's!
That is all for what I did, saw & ate in Dubai! I hope you have found this post helpful if you are going to Dubai and were thinking of places to go and places to eat! I'm someone who likes knowing what I'm doing and of possible places to eat before I go somewhere, it makes it less stressful!
To see more pictures follow my instagram @ellietaylorrxx and I also have a full instagram story highlight of the trip!
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A Chanel bag was always my dream bag, since I was 11 years old. I had dreamt about owning a Chanel Classic Flap bag, gold hardware, Caviar leather. If you haven't seen my pervious blog post (click here), I actually purchased my dream Chanel bag in Paris in 2016.
I had turned 21 in January (I celebrated for 6 months, I'm one of those people) and I knew we were going to Paris, and we were going to Paris for me to buy my first Chanel bag (and see Paris obv) that I had wanted for 10 years. I did buy my dream bag. Caviar Leather, Gold Hardware, Maxi Classic Flap. I know a Maxi isn't the most popular classic flap choice, but before I went to Paris I had been to the Chanel boutique in Manchester and looked at the different leathers, they showed me the Jumbo (one of the most popular sizes) I tried the bag on and honestly I wasn't blown away, which is very disappointing when your about to spend thousands on a handbag. I had seen a few people with a maxi and when I saw it it made my heart skip. When I got to the very busy boutique in Paris I tried on a Jumbo & a Maxi and again it was the Maxi that stole my heart, so that's the bag I bought. I was obsessed with that bag and it was such an amazing experience buying my first Chanel bag in Paris (a very fast one, Chanel on Avenue Montaigne was VERY busy). But after I had only used the bag a handful of times I realised it was too big for my new style, I was once into big handbags and now I had veered off to smaller handbags.
I don't regret buying that bag, because like I said that was my dream bag and it made my heart flutter which is exactly what you want when your spending that much on a bag. So I made the decision to sell it (an experience which I found very long and difficult). I now know the size of bag I love and use, I never actually needed a big bag, I don't carry that much! I sold my first Chanel bag knowing that with the money I wanted to repurchase another Chanel bag in a size I knew I would get use out of. These bags are crazy amounts of money. I know people don't like to talk about prices but I will. My maxi classic flap was £4100 in 2016 and it currently retails for £5200 (2019). I put my Chanel bag up for sale before the most recent price increase and I wanted to sell it for the price of the medium classic flap which at the time was £3990. Then the price increase happened and the medium was then priced at £4300. I ended up selling my maxi for £3800, which meant putting £500 towards getting my new one. With the prices of these bags, I think if I were ever to purchase another Chanel bag I would probably turn to the pre loved market, because like I said it's crazy money, but for my first I did want to buy it brand new.
I have now purchased my second Chanel bag, which I decided on the Medium Classic Flap bag still with gold hardware, but I decided to change leather and go for lambskin. I did lots of research and I also compared the two leathers in store and the minuet I saw the two leathers side by side I loved the look of the lambskin (in the medium, I do prefer the Maxi & Jumbo in Caviar). I do look after all of my bags, but I am still nervous about lambskin being so soft and delicate, but so many people say its not as delicate as it seems.
I had never really considered the Medium classic flap bag ever, it was either the Jumbo or the Maxi. Im not someone who thinks you can only use a small bag for the evening, I've taken my medium Givenchy Antigona out in the evening plenty of times. I just didn't want one that was too big, because I realised that the bag I was reaching for the most out of my collection was my Celine Nano Luggage and I had been loving it for the day time and evenings! Then I saw some of my favourite fashion bloggers/instagrammers Chanel bags and they were all the medium classic flap and I thought it was the perfect size. I am really in love with my new bag! The leather is so soft and it just instantly makes any outfit look chic. On my Maxi I did absolutely love the caviar leather, and I did love the look of the whole bag, it was absolutely gorgeous. I was actually shocked at myself when I decided I wanted Lambskin because I never thought I would want a Lambskin bag.
The Maxi is 23cm in height, 10cm depth and 33cm in width. The Medium is 16cm in height, 7cm depth and 26 in width. Then there is the Jumbo (Large) which is 19.5cm in height, 10cm depth and 30cm in width. There is also a Small which I tried on, which is 14.5cm in height, 6cm depth and 23cm in width.
My Maxi was my 4th designer handbag, behind my medium Givenchy Antigona, my Louis Vuitton Neverfull MM then I purchased the Givenchy Clutch as I didn't have an evening bag. As you can see with the bags I had bought before my Chanel bag, I was very into larger bags. Out of those above I only use my LV Neverfull, its my everyday bag which I use for work. I don't use my Antigona anymore, again because its now too big for what I look for in a bag, even though I absolutely love that bag and I would love it in the size down. What I'm getting at is that peoples style changes and its ok to buy something and the realise its not what you actually want now.
If your considering purchasing a Chanel bag I would say make sure you try them on before you make the decision. They are a lot of money and you want to get it right first time because you don't want to loose out on money like I did.
Is a Chanel bag on your luxury Wishlist? If so, what size, leather and colour? Leave a comment!
I can't wait to start using my new bag!
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From the miracle garden we got a taxi to Dubai Mall & Burj Khalifa. 
