In February 2022, after two years of no travel due to the restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we were able to take a holiday in Dubai. I’ve been there a couple of times before, but this was Val’s first visit.
To say that I was looking forward to it is a huge understatement. Equally, to say that I was getting stressed about the risks of not being able to go would also be a huge understatement. We booked the holiday in October 2021, at a time when it appeared that Covid-19 was coming under control, and both of us were fully vaccinated and thus had some immunity.. But then in December along came the Omicron variant, which turned out to be much more transmissible than the previous version, and which seemed to be able to overcome immunity. We’d had to pay for the trip just before Christmas, and when we examined the fine print relating to Covid-19 on our travel insurance – the precise conditions under which a claim for cancellation would be allowed, for example – we found that it wasn’t quite as comprehensive as we’d thought. You can imagine that as we went through January and into February with infection rates rising (especially during January) the stress levels mounted. But in the event we were Ok, and on the morning of 24 February we made our way over to Manchester Airport, in the cold and the rain, to check in for our Emirates flight.
I’ve done a number of posts about the details of the holiday, so this page will just point to them.
- getting there and the flight with Emirates;
- Expo 2020;
- the hotel;
- the Aquarium, and Dubai Marina;
- some practical issues that we dealt with;
- and finally, some thoughts about Dubai.
We really enjoyed the holiday. Just being able to travel was satisfying, and after what had felt like a long grey Yorkshire winter, the warmth and blue skies of Dubai were wonderful.