There goes our spring break in Dubai

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why people go to Dubai. It's such a manufactured place. Having stated that, I have always wanted to visit the Middle East, but that area has been a tinderbox for many many years. Sadly, I am not sure if I will ever be able to visit that region.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Final update from the OP: full refund of my entire trip, including my nonrefundable hotels and flights. Our airline declined a refund three times but given the airport was bombed this morning, they relented when I called today. Guess that does not teach me a lesson never to book nonrefundable again. It is significantly cheaper so that’s the way that I have always rolled in my 20 years of travel all around the world.

I would really love to get to Dubai one day. Our entire family was truly alight with excitement about seeing this part of the world, and all of the cool experiences we were planning there.

Now to figure out where we’re going for spring break. Nothing sounds remotely as exciting to me as Dubai did. Looking at Florida, Phoenix, California, Turks…but likely sticking in the states given what’s happening in the world right now.

California is so much better than Dubai. Heck, even Florida, which I’m love and hate, is better IMHO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Final update from the OP: full refund of my entire trip, including my nonrefundable hotels and flights. Our airline declined a refund three times but given the airport was bombed this morning, they relented when I called today. Guess that does not teach me a lesson never to book nonrefundable again. It is significantly cheaper so that’s the way that I have always rolled in my 20 years of travel all around the world.

I would really love to get to Dubai one day. Our entire family was truly alight with excitement about seeing this part of the world, and all of the cool experiences we were planning there.

Now to figure out where we’re going for spring break. Nothing sounds remotely as exciting to me as Dubai did. Looking at Florida, Phoenix, California, Turks…but likely sticking in the states given what’s happening in the world right now.

I think you should have learned a lesson.

I booked a non-refundable AirBnB in Paris that ended up being cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid. I had travel insurance for that trip. As it happened, AirBnB decided to voluntarily refund everyone impacted and they stuck the losses on the hosts (because the hosts could not legally supply the lodgings due to quarantines). However VRBO, which we had also shopped through, did not have guest-friendly policies. Some people were out the entire value of the lodging. That really shaped my opinion of VRBO and made me less likely to consider them.

An all-out war with airports getting bombed is a lot more unlikely than other travel-related mayhem. But I visited NYC the week before the Twin Towers, two of my coworkers were at a conference at a hotel within the shadow of the Twin Towers on 9/11, I visited Bali 6 months before the nightclub bombing, I caught chickenpox while on a trip to Europe as a kid, etc.

The insurance for the non-refundable parts of your trip might have only been a few hundred dollars. And it would have given you medevac insurance. I've known several people who broke bones in foreign countries.

It's up to you if you don't want to spend the money. But I think it's a reasonable value in many cases.

By the way, for my cancelled Covid trip, I got a full refund on the travel insurance policy. Can't remember under what extraordinary Covid-era provisions. But I guess the point was that the company did not have to insure me for anything because I could not make the trip (flights did not run). I also had the option to keep the policy and make claims but since AirBnB and Delta made good, I had no losses.

[Anonymous]

Always, purchase airline tickets using Amex card

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Final update from the OP: full refund of my entire trip, including my nonrefundable hotels and flights. Our airline declined a refund three times but given the airport was bombed this morning, they relented when I called today. Guess that does not teach me a lesson never to book nonrefundable again. It is significantly cheaper so that’s the way that I have always rolled in my 20 years of travel all around the world.

I would really love to get to Dubai one day. Our entire family was truly alight with excitement about seeing this part of the world, and all of the cool experiences we were planning there.

Now to figure out where we’re going for spring break. Nothing sounds remotely as exciting to me as Dubai did. Looking at Florida, Phoenix, California, Turks…but likely sticking in the states given what’s happening in the world right now.

California is so much better than Dubai. Heck, even Florida, which I’m love and hate, is better IMHO.

Some of you need to get a grip and let it go. I know Florida and California. Dubai is different. It's clearly not for everyone but millions have gone there for vacations and enjoyed it. Let it go.

[Anonymous]

There goes people's homes and family members

Seriously WTF

[Anonymous]

It’s an awful place. They use near slave labor from India and Pakistan, take away their passports so they can’t leave. They bought the best farm land for nothing in Ethiopia to build high tech farms growing fruits and vegetables and shipping them to Dubai and UAE. In the meantime Ethiopians are starving. Corruption at the highest levels. They claim all that water they waste on fake snow and water parks is from desalinated water. In reality they steal water from African nations.

Men are jailed for holding hands. It’s absolutely gross that so many westerners go there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't have any sympathy for non-diplomatic families, non-relatives, who go to Dubai or anywhere else in that region. These are autocratic countries, built on current, not former, slave immigrant labor, with a piss-poor record for treating women of their own nations like secondary citizens.

Slave immigrant labor? Who do you think washes your dishes, slaughters the chickens you eat, picks your avocados, and rakes your leaves? Get a grip lady. What a hypocrite!

It’s not comparable. The immigrants can’t leave. And anyone in this country who pays slave labor for these jobs is a piece of garbage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Final update from the OP: full refund of my entire trip, including my nonrefundable hotels and flights. Our airline declined a refund three times but given the airport was bombed this morning, they relented when I called today. Guess that does not teach me a lesson never to book nonrefundable again. It is significantly cheaper so that’s the way that I have always rolled in my 20 years of travel all around the world.

I would really love to get to Dubai one day. Our entire family was truly alight with excitement about seeing this part of the world, and all of the cool experiences we were planning there.

Now to figure out where we’re going for spring break. Nothing sounds remotely as exciting to me as Dubai did. Looking at Florida, Phoenix, California, Turks…but likely sticking in the states given what’s happening in the world right now.

I think you should have learned a lesson.

I booked a non-refundable AirBnB in Paris that ended up being cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid. I had travel insurance for that trip. As it happened, AirBnB decided to voluntarily refund everyone impacted and they stuck the losses on the hosts (because the hosts could not legally supply the lodgings due to quarantines). However VRBO, which we had also shopped through, did not have guest-friendly policies. Some people were out the entire value of the lodging. That really shaped my opinion of VRBO and made me less likely to consider them.

An all-out war with airports getting bombed is a lot more unlikely than other travel-related mayhem. But I visited NYC the week before the Twin Towers, two of my coworkers were at a conference at a hotel within the shadow of the Twin Towers on 9/11, I visited Bali 6 months before the nightclub bombing, I caught chickenpox while on a trip to Europe as a kid, etc.

The insurance for the non-refundable parts of your trip might have only been a few hundred dollars. And it would have given you medevac insurance. I've known several people who broke bones in foreign countries.

It's up to you if you don't want to spend the money. But I think it's a reasonable value in many cases.

By the way, for my cancelled Covid trip, I got a full refund on the travel insurance policy. Can't remember under what extraordinary Covid-era provisions. But I guess the point was that the company did not have to insure me for anything because I could not make the trip (flights did not run). I also had the option to keep the policy and make claims but since AirBnB and Delta made good, I had no losses.

Does travel insurance cover war? I would think that Force Majeure would apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Final update from the OP: full refund of my entire trip, including my nonrefundable hotels and flights. Our airline declined a refund three times but given the airport was bombed this morning, they relented when I called today. Guess that does not teach me a lesson never to book nonrefundable again. It is significantly cheaper so that’s the way that I have always rolled in my 20 years of travel all around the world.

I would really love to get to Dubai one day. Our entire family was truly alight with excitement about seeing this part of the world, and all of the cool experiences we were planning there.

Now to figure out where we’re going for spring break. Nothing sounds remotely as exciting to me as Dubai did. Looking at Florida, Phoenix, California, Turks…but likely sticking in the states given what’s happening in the world right now.

California is so much better than Dubai. Heck, even Florida, which I’m love and hate, is better IMHO.

Some of you need to get a grip and let it go. I know Florida and California. Dubai is different. It's clearly not for everyone but millions have gone there for vacations and enjoyed it. Let it go.

It makes sense for Europeans to go to the Emirates because it is close and warm. It makes 0 sense for Americans to go there basically at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s an awful place. They use near slave labor from India and Pakistan, take away their passports so they can’t leave. They bought the best farm land for nothing in Ethiopia to build high tech farms growing fruits and vegetables and shipping them to Dubai and UAE. In the meantime Ethiopians are starving. Corruption at the highest levels. They claim all that water they waste on fake snow and water parks is from desalinated water. In reality they steal water from African nations.

Men are jailed for holding hands. It’s absolutely gross that so many westerners go there.

Is it more or less gross than the US blowing up a girls’ elementary school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to hear.
My parents are currently overseas and trying to figure out a way back to the states. They were supposed to fly into Dubai then head back to states.

After having to extend their stay overseas for additional 5 days my parents safely made it made it back to the states! Thankfully no issues they just mentioned the airport they flew out of was very crowded due to the rebooking/re routing for all of the other flights scheduled throughout the middle east.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Final update from the OP: full refund of my entire trip, including my nonrefundable hotels and flights. Our airline declined a refund three times but given the airport was bombed this morning, they relented when I called today. Guess that does not teach me a lesson never to book nonrefundable again. It is significantly cheaper so that’s the way that I have always rolled in my 20 years of travel all around the world.

I would really love to get to Dubai one day. Our entire family was truly alight with excitement about seeing this part of the world, and all of the cool experiences we were planning there.

Now to figure out where we’re going for spring break. Nothing sounds remotely as exciting to me as Dubai did. Looking at Florida, Phoenix, California, Turks…but likely sticking in the states given what’s happening in the world right now.

I think you should have learned a lesson.

I booked a non-refundable AirBnB in Paris that ended up being cancelled due to the outbreak of Covid. I had travel insurance for that trip. As it happened, AirBnB decided to voluntarily refund everyone impacted and they stuck the losses on the hosts (because the hosts could not legally supply the lodgings due to quarantines). However VRBO, which we had also shopped through, did not have guest-friendly policies. Some people were out the entire value of the lodging. That really shaped my opinion of VRBO and made me less likely to consider them.

An all-out war with airports getting bombed is a lot more unlikely than other travel-related mayhem. But I visited NYC the week before the Twin Towers, two of my coworkers were at a conference at a hotel within the shadow of the Twin Towers on 9/11, I visited Bali 6 months before the nightclub bombing, I caught chickenpox while on a trip to Europe as a kid, etc.

The insurance for the non-refundable parts of your trip might have only been a few hundred dollars. And it would have given you medevac insurance. I've known several people who broke bones in foreign countries.

It's up to you if you don't want to spend the money. But I think it's a reasonable value in many cases.

By the way, for my cancelled Covid trip, I got a full refund on the travel insurance policy. Can't remember under what extraordinary Covid-era provisions. But I guess the point was that the company did not have to insure me for anything because I could not make the trip (flights did not run). I also had the option to keep the policy and make claims but since AirBnB and Delta made good, I had no losses.

Does travel insurance cover war? I would think that Force Majeure would apply.

PP. You're probably right. My point though, was that war is not what you're usually trying to insure yourself against. It's needing an expensive flight home or to pay for better medical care if you break your leg. Or your flights get messed up and make you 3 days late starting your trip.

[Anonymous]

Dubai?
why?
My cousin works there. Hates it. All fake and plastic and nothing to do but go shopping and out to eat. Why?
Not my idea of a good time. No culture. No history. Nada. Just a buncha new stuff. yetch.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don't have any sympathy for non-diplomatic families, non-relatives, who go to Dubai or anywhere else in that region. These are autocratic countries, built on current, not former, slave immigrant labor, with a piss-poor record for treating women of their own nations like secondary citizens.

Slave immigrant labor? Who do you think washes your dishes, slaughters the chickens you eat, picks your avocados, and rakes your leaves? Get a grip lady. What a hypocrite!

The imported working class in Dubai is nothing like the immigrants in the US. The suffering by workers in Dubai is horrific. And your tourism supports that.

I’m always baffled by the Dcumlandia Faux-activists who pontificate about DEI and equality in the USA but brag about their vacations to places like Dubai where human rights simply aren’t “a thing.”

The point is, neither place is great. Human rights aren’t really a thing in the USA either. We treat immigrants despicably. So there’s really no difference whether you go to Vegas or Dubai honestly.

Wow, this is rich.