The Dubai Aquarium is accessed through the Dubai Mall (the biggest of the big malls here). Part of the largest tank can be seen without paying any entrance fee – just follow the signs in the mall and you can see it on the ground level.

As you go in, you walk inside the ropes to get a closer view of the public side of the tank, then on through the glass tunnel where the fish swim overhead. Then if you opt for the boat ride – which we did as it was recommended by our landlady – we went up two escalators and then found our way into a waiting area. When the line goes down, we go into another room and are given life jackets. Then we are seated in a rectangular-shaped craft with a “captain” who pulls you along the ropes in order to get a view from above of the aquarium tank. Just below this area is where those who want go and swim with fish (sharks too!) in the large tank. Because the aquarium tank isn’t that big from the top – it’s quite deep – it’s better than other glass-bottomed boat views we’ve had as the fish are concentrated into a relatively smaller space. I think I took more photos of my feet than the fish, but we enjoyed it.

The last stop is the “Underwater Zoo”, a series of smaller tanks with fish, turtles, tortoises, a crocodile, crabs, eels, etc. For the space involved, there are quite a lot of sea creatures. Of course our favorites were the sea otters and the Humboldt penguins!

As is expected the exit is through the gift shop – the good news is that our entrance fee gave us a 20 dh credit (about $5) towards anything in the shop. I think this is one of the better marketing ideas as people are likely to spend more and you get what you want. We combined our credits for a plush penguin similar to the Gentoo that we saw at Ski Dubai.

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One of the best things we planned for Sarah’s visit was our “Exclusive Peng-Friend Encounter” at “Ski Dubai”. Ski Dubai is where one can down winter clothing and spend several hours snow boarding, skiing, going on the chair lift and otherwise playing in the snow. None of us have any particular snow bunny tendencies, but up close and personal with penguins sounded good!

There are three different ways to see the penguins – taken from the website.  The X marks what is included.

PENGUINS ENCOUNTERS	Peng-Friend Encounter	Exclusive Peng-Friend Encounter	VIP Private Peng-Friend Experience
Underwater Viewing	x	x	x
Up-close and personal with your own Penguins	x	x	x
Training session with your new Peng-Friend		x	x
Penguins you will meet	min. 2	max. 14	14
Photos of your experience	optional	x	x
A souvenir from your Peng-Friend		x	x
Free hot chocolate		x	x
VIP room with a Ski Dubai attendant			x
Access to Snow Park			x
Access to Giant Snowball and Chairlift			x
Duration	40min	1hr 15min	1h 30min
Price per person	AED150	AED500	AED850
	US$41	US$137	US$232

One makes a (paid) reservation on-line and you will receive a confirmation that you take with you on the day. We opted for the one where you get to “meet” penguins, but without the extra time in the snow area. This currently costs the not so low price of 500 dh or $137.

You are asked to be “ready” fifteen minutes before your time – we went at 4:00 pm – and it is definitely advisable to get there at least 30 minutes before that as the lines for the snow gear can take time depending on how busy they are. The equipment for the other snow activities is checked out at the same place. Rental of boots, socks, coats and pants – they give you a voucher for gloves from the shop is included. Bring your own hat or buy one there. There are lockers and your ticket works as the key. You pay a deposit for the use of the locker, but when you return the key to a machine, you get the fee back. Remember to bring any vouchers they give you along – the jackets have pockets.

Our guide was an assistant trainer – a very enthusiastic young man from Ethiopia who gave up his engineering career once he got the opportunity to work with penguins. Trainers and their assistants rotate the birds they work with. They try to avoid the birds getting too attached to any one human – because they would.

What the activity translates to is first going back into the penguin public viewing area (on the penguin side of the fence). Yes, one does feel a little self-conscious as those on the outside of the fence look at you enviously and wonder how “those people” got inside the fence. We then went to a private area and got to meet our first penguin – they have King and Gentoo penguins. These are the only cold weather penguins in Dubai. The Dubai Aquarium has Humboldt penguins that do not need colder temperatures. The trainer/assistant tells you how to approach the penguins – squatting or on your knees is best, so you are not looking down on them. Then we each got to hug and kiss (!) the penguin! Sarah didn’t stop smiling the entire time!

The feathers aren’t like those of other birds. The outer layer covers a much softer thick layer which insulates the penguin. You have to work your fingers through the top layer so see the other layer.

We then went to the penguin “kitchen” where you get to see the food preparation area – each bird has a trainer and assistant and its individual diet in its own cooler. Each bird is banded with color coded bands and depending on their sex, the band is on the right or left flipper.

You then mount stairs to the top/pool side of the swimming tank – the underwater viewing area is where you can see them through the glass on the lower level. You get to meet other penguins and hug and kiss them too!

Then we went to a room with charts and maps on the walls that explain the different types of penguins, and general facts about them. One of the penguins eventually comes down (with a little help from another trainer) and joins us. We are instructed as to how to feed him and then we each got a turn. You can ask questions the entire time, but this is the best place to do so. The penguins pretty much can wander around the back area, unless the gates are closed. They do get moody/grumpy during molting season as they cannot eat during this time. They lose about half their body weight. The males also lose a lot of weight when hatching an egg.

The guide gives more details about the penguin center and that it IS separate from Ski Dubai which is a much more commercial enterprise. Obviously the upkeep of +/-14 penguins isn’t cheap but they also donate $500K to $700K to other centers and research facilities.

The last penguin we saw was “Pebbles” a Gentoo – who are not as friendly/approachable as the King penguins. Sarah did get to pet her though. Word of warning – don’t stand right behind a penguin if it’s eaten about 20 minutes before – s/he will poop! (Sarah just missed this part of the activity 😉 ). Pebbles walked over a paper that was prepared with non-toxic water soluble paint and then on to a blank canvas. She did this several times and thus creating our “penguin souvenir”.

We exited through the public area by the ice sculptures and had one more photo with the penguin area “greeter” in costume. You get souvenir buttons, magnets and one free photo per person with the admission price. We bought the whole set which is on our penguin shaped USB stick J

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Did we have as much fun as it looks like in the photos? Yup! Are they adorable? Yup! And this was a very interesting tour as well. Now my biggest problem is getting Richard and Sarah to accept that we are NOT getting one of our own!

 

We’ve been off the blog radar for a couple of months now – I do better when sitting in front of a real computer with a  real keyboard – no offense to my iPad which quite honestly has saved my sanity early and often over the summer

The short answer of what we did is spend time in Europe – mostly Belgium and England. I got a day with friends in Paris – sounds bourgeois, but it is only an hour by train from Brussels, so not really.

The longer answer is we kept Sarah company as she had her first internship/office job with the Brussels office of Richard’s firm, saw friends and visited favorite restaurants. Richard and I went to England twice seeing friends, museums, performances at the Globe Theater and had a “slap up binge” with friends at a lovely restaurant. We also had a grand day out of family fun at Pairi Daiza, an animal park near Mons BE. Most importantly, we stayed out of the heat and humidity of the U.A.E. I grew up in an area (Yakima Valley of south central Washington State) where the temperatures do get to be over 100F degrees, but it is dry heat, which makes all of the difference to me. Worse yet, here it doesn’t cool off at night. I don’t know if it is due to the water holding the heat, but there is very little difference between the temperature of late afternoon and the night. During our absence we missed Ramadan and the end of Ramadan Eid celebrations. We will no doubt be around for these at least once before we leave. Anyway, no first-hand information for this year on this topic.

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This past month, Sarah, has been here for her first visit to the U.A.E. She was quite determined to dislike the weather and wondered what she would be doing for four weeks with her parental units and no friends. The wonders of the internet and getting one of her wisdom teeth out took care of part of this “down time” and much to her surprise, she found she liked the place (despite the building’s AC system malfunctioning for about ten days – not a lot of fun for any of us)! She left last night for a semester in Osaka. She has some trepidation about the placement test at the school, but hopefully that will go well. It will be a great experience anyway and we will join her at the end of December for about nine days. I haven’t been to Japan since I was twenty-seven years old – so definitely time for another visit! We did get used to having her with us, so the nest is feeling a bit empty today and the coming four months will be the longest we will have spent without seeing her. It had to happen sometime!

The next couple of entries will be catching up on what we did during August. Richard has been working most of the summer and I’m about to delve into “really living in Dubai” – I’ve physically been here, but with all of the travel outside the U.A.E. since the move, a “normal schedule” has been established yet. Stay tuned! We’ll be back!