Tag Archives: Dubai

Dubai Hosts World’s Largest Fireworks Display from World’s Tallest Building

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The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world. The project broke ground in January 2004 and building was completed in January 2010. The three-lobed, spiral design was inspired by a desert flower, the Hymenocallis, as well as the onion domes and spiral minarets of traditional Islamic architecture. The three-wing, Y-shape allows more surface area for windows, which maximizes light and views. As the building ascends it streamlines with 27 set-backs, very common in super-tall structures and an engineering devise known to the earliest architects. The Chicago firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (designers of the 1 World Trade Center in New York), with chief architect Adrian Smith, won an international competition to design the Burj Khalifa.

The building stands 2,717 feet tall, with 163 stories. The public observation deck on the 124th floor (At The Top) is the highest in the world. Levels 19-108 are home to some very wealthy people in 900 residences. At the current rate of approximately 3,750 UAE dirham ($1,021USD) per square foot, you can get an 1800 sq ft 2-bedroom apartment for $1,837,800, or you could consolidate and take the 560 sq ft studio for $572,000; micro-living is very trendy right now. (Micro-living in the world’s tallest building, ha ha.) The Armani Hotel occupies 15 floors with 160 guest rooms and suites and 144 private residences.

A 27-acre, Hymenocallis-influenced park swirls around the base of Burj Khalifa and is watered, at least in part, by the 15 million gallons of condensation collected from the building’s cooling system each year and stored in tanks in the parking garage.

Burj Khalifa anchors the Downtown Dubai development, which also includes the world’s largest dancing fountain on a 30-acre, man-made lake, the Dubai Mall, and The Address Hotel. The Dubai Mall has 1200 shops, over 1,000 places to eat, cinemas, an ice rink, a theme park and a very cool aquarium and underwater zoo, among lots of other stuff to look at and/or spend money on.

Check out the Dubai Fountain. It’s pretty.

See our tours to Dubai here.

Oh, Man – You Must Visit Oman!

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My first question was, where exactly is Oman?

Ya’lla Tours made history by being the first US tour operator to operate an educational FAM trip to Oman.

I didn’t know this would be the case when I packed up for our visit to the UAE and Oman, but found out during the trip when the Oman tourism director showed up and made a point of personally greeting our group. Later, the US Ambassador to Oman, Greta C. Holtz, invited our Ya’lla person in Oman, Amur, to lunch after the holidays.

Oman is a land of contrasts, and has something to offer the visitor who wants soft adventure, authentic experiences and even luxury.

With a long Arabian Sea coastline with great beaches and desert and mountains, there is a unique variety that is really unexpected. Oman is also a photographer’s paradise. It is almost impossible to take a bad picture there.

Our travels in Oman took us from Muscat, the capital, to the desert, for a beautiful overnight, to the souks, and along the fantastic coastline. Along the way we visited the Royal Opera House, a work of art in itself, the 5th largest mosque in the world, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, the Al Alham Palace, flanked by two 16th-century Portuguese forts, and the museum of Muscat, the Bait Al Baranda. A little later, further along the Corniche (promenade), we helped the local economy at the largest souk in Oman, the Muttrah Souk.

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We saw the Oman of ancient when we visited the brick-walled village of Bilad Sayt, nestled into the Rustag Mountains, and had a traditional lunch in a mud-walled building called Bait Al Safah outside the first capital of Oman, Nizwa. We spent the night about two hours from Muscat in a desert camp, Sama Al Wasil, which consisted of twenty suites and had another traditional meal Bedouin-style.

Oman is the best kept secret in the region. It is extremely clean, the people are kind and treat you like brothers and sisters when you talk with them, and it is totally unspoiled as a tourist destination. Look for even more interest in Oman, as Ambassador Holtz and the Sultanate of Oman have signed an “Open Skies” agreement.

Do your clients a favor, suggest a trip to Dubai for a couple of days, then a nice trip through Oman, and then maybe top it off with a visit to Abu Dhabi. Dubai is Las Vegas on steroids, Oman is Arizona-Arabian-exotic and Abu Dhabi is a real-life Disney World or Aladdin’s castle that has kept its natural heritage and culture intact. This is an adventure for singles, couples and families to enrich and enjoy the exotic that are usually the stuff of dreams.

To see some choices visit the Ya’lla Tours web site.

Remember, we can custom plan any trip for your clients, be it one person or a group.

Man, I really loved Oman.

Rich Davis, Ya'lla Tours USA Sales Manager, Midwest Region

Rich Davis, Ya’lla Tours USA Sales Manager, Midwest Region

Guest blogger Rich Davis is the Ya’lla Tours sales manager in the Midwest region.

Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Oman: A Few Photos from Our Recent Arabian Peninsula Fam Trip

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A couple of weeks ago our fam group returned from the Arabian Peninsula, specifically the UAE and Oman, bringing with them some great stories and thousands of photographs that I’m still happily sorting through. For those of you not in the travel industry, “fam” is short for familiarization and a fam trip is a discounted trip offered by a travel supplier to travel agents to educate them on a particular destination, product or service. In this case, Ya’lla Tours is the travel supplier. Our policy has always been to work with travel agents, not directly with travelers, so we put a lot of emphasis on educating travel agents about our destinations, which can be tricky to sell to Americans (the Middle East, Cuba…)

The Arabian Peninsula is a new product for Ya’lla Tours, just launched over the Summer of 2013. So, in addition to travel agency owners, managers and senior agents, most of our sales team traveled on the fam trip. In the coming weeks, we’ll roll out impressions of the experience here on the blog, in words and images, from some of the trip participants. We’ll start with some random images just to whet your appetite:

DUBAI

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OMAN

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ABU DHABI

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Stocking-Stuffers for Your Travelers

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My picks for stocking-sized travel gifts from TravelSmith.com:

All suitcases look alike, especially after emerging from a 12-hour flight into a strange airport with thousands of other disoriented people. These bright tags from TravelSmith stand out against all that circling black so you’ll spot your bag in time to lift it off the carousel on the first pass and be on your way to a hot shower and soft bed.

Bright luggage tags with your initial.

Bright bag tags with your initial.

Are you planning a trip to Egypt? Cuba? Morocco? Jordan? Dubai? …
Two words: personal fan. Yes, blowing your face with a tiny fan on a lanyard is less than dignified. Believe me, you won’t care. Dry heat or not, when it’s 120F in the shade, dignity is your last concern. Cool off and enjoy the sites. Even Hades is no match for the intrepid traveler armed with a tiny yet powerful fan on a lanyard.

personal fan

personal fan

Once I rode in a motor coach from Tiberias, Israel on the Sea of Galilee, below sea level, up about 5,000 feet into the Golan Heights on a very windy road. Throughout the ride, it took all my powers of concentration to hold my lunch down, but I did. Just behind me, a woman and her seatmate were not so lucky. The lunch of one ended up in the lap of the other. Pity none of us were wearing PSI bands.

PSI bands to combat motion sickness

PSI bands to combat motion sickness

Ever cry and stomp your feet like a frustrated toddler in the Musée D’Orsay? I have. Standing mere inches from Renoir, Cézanne, Manet, Van Gogh, there was no joy; jet lag sucked it away. I would have given anything to go back to my hotel and sleep but my mean travel companion wouldn’t let me (you know who you are). He insisted we stay up all day our first day in Paris, to acclimate to the time change. I purposely lost him at one point, found a vacant corner and just leaned into it. If I thought I could get away with it, I would have been horizontal on a bench. I hated the masterworks of French Impressionism for standing between me and sweet, sweet sleep. I hated the splendid, converted train station that is the museum. I hated the happy, time-adjusted people all around me.

This was many years ago, either before jet lag remedies existed or before I knew about them. Now, jet lag is just unnecessary. These No-Jet-Lag tablets work.

No Jet Lag pills

No Jet Lag pills

Smell pretty across the globe with these leak-free, TSA-approved, travel atomizers.

pocket atomizer

pocket atomizer

Merry Christmas!

www.yallatours.com

From Gulf to Peninsula

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Dubai,-UAE

In the early days of developing our new regional product, which includes Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates states of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, we referred to the area collectively as the “Persian Gulf.” Other than the assertion that Oman does not border the “Persian Gulf” (except by the tiny annex of Musandam, separated from the bulk of the country and surrounded by the UAE) by one pedantic member of our ranks, the term seemed an appropriate, concise way to refer to four neighbor countries. The lone stickler for geographical correctness pushed for use of the “Arabian Peninsula” but the greater momentum was behind “Persian Gulf.” Continue reading →