When we first moved to Germany, my sister, Sundie, told me that we have to go to Keukenhof in The Netherlands in the spring. I’m so glad she clued us in to this little piece of paradise!

Our quick trip started with a mild panic situation. Jay and I had dinner on the patio at Valentinos Friday night. This is our favorite place in Königstein – and it happens to be in our front yard. We adore the owner, Valentino, and the main waiter, Ari. It’s our own little “Cheers”. I put my purse on the back of the chair, had a great meal, and when Lily’s takeaway dish was ready, we paid and left. Pretty normal chain of events.

Saturday morning as I was gathering my things together to hit the road, I realized my purse was not hanging on the hook by the door. I looked around the house but I immediately remembered that I left it on the chair, on the outside patio, at the restaurant. Crap. I ran outside and looked for it at the restaurant. Not there. I started texting my friend, Tally, who I knew went to the restaurant after we left (again – it’s like Cheers). She hadn’t heard about it. I checked our mailbox, thinking maybe Ari dropped it in there when he found it. Not there.

Tally encouraged me to wake up Valentino. It was 7:30 in the morning. I really didn’t want to wake him up, but I needed to get on the road to make our garden entrance time. I knew which building he lived in, but didn’t know his last name. Some quick detective work and I figured it out, saw his name on the doorbell, appeased the button, and prayed that he would forgive me for waking him up. He buzzed me in. It was clear that I woke him up. His dog, Mafiosa, was not happy with me. He was so confused to see me at his door. He speaks some English, but not a lot. He likes to say “my English is not so sexy today”. His brain wasn’t prepared to translate, so between his broken English and my broken German, I told him I left my Handtasche (purse) on the patio. He didn’t see it, and Ari didn’t say anything to him. My heart dropped. My mind started racing about what I was going to have to do – call the Polizei, cancel bank and credit cards, get a new drivers license, call the hotel to see if they would accept my husband’s credit card, get cash from Jay, and the list goes on.

He called Ari – and of course woke him up. Ari said that he DID find my purse!! It was sitting under a blanket all night and he didn’t find it until closing up after midnight. If I could have jumped through the phone to hug him, I would have. Valentino and I walked over to the restaurant, he went in the back, and found my purse!!!!

Tally and I have talked a lot about the things we will miss when we move back to the US (she is also an expat). Valentinos tops our list.

With that crisis averted, Lily and I were able to load up the car and head to the Netherlands – still on time! We arrived at Keukenhof and my first thought was “gosh, the parking lot is massive here” – and it was FULL.

And now I am going to bombard your screen with selfies of Lily and I with gorgeous flowers in the background.

After exploring the gardens for a couple hours, we went into town to check into our hotel. We stayed at Boutique Suites Lisse, which was right on the Main Street pedestrian area. Saturday was the King’s birthday, and every year the Dutch celebrate by partying in the street all decked out in orange.

Lily took a bunch of videos and pictures and put them into a YouTube post. Check it out. Spend a Day with Me at Keukenhof Garden

We rarely get to hang out with just the two of us, so this was a pretty special trip. One I won’t ever forget!

We split our vacation into 2 – city and beach resort. We all enjoyed the city but the consensus is that we wish we had more time at the beach. The Atlantis on The Palm Jumeira is an awesome resort.

Update on the tour from Hell. I confirmed that the tour guide gave himself 5 stars and wanted me to just add some comments and submit. That explains the 4.5 star review for the company. I have submitted my complaints and had the rating changed to 1 star. Unbelievable.

Our flight leaves early tomorrow morning, so it will be early to bed and early to rise. Taxi is booked for 5:00 am…. Ugh. Back to reality.

Goodbye Dubai! وداعا دبي

I have booked many tours over the years. I have had some great ones, some OK ones, and this trip I booked the Worst Tour Guide Ever.

The kids already don’t love it when I book a tour guide. They don’t necessarily care to be told fun facts about sites (I do). And they certainly don’t want to spend time planning in advance (I don’t either). So I roll the dice, cross my fingers, and hope the reviews are factual.

I booked a Private Tour to Abu Dhabi through Get Your Guide (have had good luck with that app in the past). The tour was provided by Dream Journey. “Private” does not mean “luxury”, and Dream Journey was more like a Nightmare Journey.

Spoiler alert. We survived.

After several WhatsApp chats to confirm the time, and me yelling at the kids to hurry up and get ready, we can’t be late – he showed up 25 minutes late.

Our guide’s name was Zohaib. He rolls up in this POS SUV that might be fine for busting through sand dunes, but not really ideal for a 1+ hour drive. He had not cleaned his car in possibly forever. It appeared as though the airbag had exploded at some point. We all know how much Jay likes his cars – his feed is full of sweet rides. This, folks, was not a sweet ride.

As our luggage was getting shoved on top of his personal crap in the back of his vehicle, I looked at Jay and said, “if we’re going to bail, we better do it now.” We didn’t bail.

Awkward silence. I think maybe he had said his name once, but then it was silent. Um….

So after about 5 minutes I said, “What do you have planned for us today?”

“Just wait, I will tell you on the tour.”

I thought we were already ON the tour?!?!?!

Ty immediately started rapid fire texting our family group chat. “Bro, what’s this guys deal? Do we really have to spend the next 7 hours with him?”

He then talked to his wife on the phone in Hindi. Mrs. Zohaib. The. Whole. Drive.

Well, he stopped talking long enough to pull over and fill up with fuel. Apparently he didn’t plan ahead (weird) and thought that it was professional to spend part of our time at the fuel station. On a positive note, him getting out of the car gave us a few minutes to all look at each other, say “what the heck is happening?”, come up with a plan to get through the day as quickly as possible, and try to find the positives.

And then he filled up the air in his tires. Not exactly portraying confidence in our ability to arrive at our destination.

At one point he stopped talking to Mrs. Zohaib long enough to turn on the radio for about 10 minutes.

And then she called again. Back to silence. And family texting.

We arrived in Abu Dhabi and he drove us to Yas Island. I would love to tell you amazing facts about the island, but I didn’t learn a thing. I did, however, see the parking lot for Ferrari World.

Next stop in the tour was some sketchy market. From what I could tell, the sold a lot of dates. But Zohaib didn’t tell us anything. He just stopped the car, got out, went inside a shop, poured himself a coffee. Um. Ok? So what, we walk through this parking lot of date shops? Moving on….

Let’s drive by the Emirates Palace Hotel. It’s the 2nd most expensive hotel in the UAE. We literally did a drive by, through the check-in area, and we drove right on through…. If you are wondering why there are not many pictures in this blog, it’s because so far there were no good photos to be taken.

Maybe the Heritage Village will be worth seeing. From what I gathered by my powers of observation (definitely not from learning about it from our tour guide), it’s basically like a Living History Farms on a tiny scale. There was a nice view of the city and the water.

But wait. There’s more.

This part is actually good. The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is the 3rd largest mosque in the world. It was massive. And beautiful.

After putting on appropriate attire for visiting the mosque – a prayer dress that covered me from head to toes (hot hot hot), our tour guide said “go have a look and come back to the car when you are done.” Ok??????? We walked through a shopping mall, food court, and looooong hallways to the entrance of the mosque. White marble + Bright Sun = so hard to open our eyes. But it was gorgeous.

We grabbed a bite to eat at the food court because we did not trust Zohaib’s ability to find us a nice place to eat, and then we headed back to Dubai.

Normally when we book through Get Your Guide, we get a link to complete a survey and share feedback about 24 hours after the excursion. Zohaib was pressuring me in the car to submit the feedback while driving home and send him a screenshot of it. “Just a few words is fine.” Yeah, no. I’m going to need some time with this one.

And then when we arrived at our hotel, he asked again if I sent the review. No, Zohaib, I have not, and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to see what I have to say. Awkward.

I learned some things on this trip that I want to share.

Do: Skip the “tour” and rent a car to visit Abu Dhabi for the day. we could have rented a Mercedes G-Wagon for $100 more for the day. And then I would have had a better driver (Jay), control of the radio, a seatbelt that didn’t lock up every time I leaned forward, and control of our time.

Don’t, for the love of all things holy, book a tour with Zohaib.

Do: Visit the mosque. But bring sunglasses. And buy a pretty lightweight prayer dress anywhere in Dubai (or at the entrance) with a separate head shawl.

Don’t: buy a prayer shawl on Amazon in advance

Don’t waste your time on Yas Island unless you are actually going to visit one of the theme parks (there are several).

Do: end the worst tour ever by checking into the Atlantis Palm hotel. I will write more about that later, but the day went from a low to a high.

Do: Forgive me for sounding like a complaining, whiny, spoiled rotten little brat. I know how lucky I am to experience the things we get to see and do. And I truly am thankful. I’m also going to remind the kids about this every time I turn on the Gypsy Guide (Audio Tour that they HATE and I LOVE) in our comfy vehicles with dad behind the wheel that I could ask Zohaib to come give us the tour instead….

Lily wanted to see a few things in the Dubai Mall, so we spent Saturday wandering around again. We couldn’t pass by the Aquarium without a visit. I failed to do any research and just bought a ticket. I thought it was just an entrance ticket but apparently it included a glass bottom boat ride.

Check out Lily’s video of the waterfalls! https://youtube.com/shorts/-LPm5KeS568?si=A3sc-OlNGwNb2CUl

And then we watched her artwork come to life on the screen! https://youtube.com/shorts/ZKJB2sTPTvU?si=oNF7cEYEJe8HXk-k

Unfortunately the food was 3-stars. Limited menu, which is fine, but then I expect each dish to be incredible- especially for the $$$. I’m not sure I would recommend it to others. Save your dining money and just get a ticket to At The Top to see the views.

The dessert was the best part. https://youtube.com/shorts/a4Wdfs-8j3A?si=BZsz6gDuJucH6lhB

We are staying at a VRBO right next to the Burj Khalifa, overlooking the Dubai Fountains. It’s a perfect location. We can watch the fountain show from our balcony. We were so lucky to see the last shows before they closed it down for renovations. https://youtube.com/shorts/R8qMEk_wLH8?si=-Wc8RhKJ19-0ke0Q

The Burj Khalifa puts on an incredible light show several times a night – over 1.2 million LED lights! https://youtube.com/shorts/cdFX7FgHC50?si=9Yv0lDYVM3OCdu0s

The kids were tired of seeing “old stuff” so we decided to go to Dubai for Spring Break – where everything is shiny and new.

Ok so don’t judge. But we ate Texas Roadhouse for lunch. We walked by and Dierks was playing in the sound system, basically begging me to come inside (and we all know I can’t say no to Dierks). We haven’t had Texas Roadhouse for a year. The ROLLS and cinnamon butter!! Crispy cold salad with yellow cheese and RANCH DRESSING!!!! A loaded baked potato. We were all in our little quiet bliss while we savored every delicious bite.

We passed a Camel Hospital and Camel Racetrack. The racetrack has 50,000 racing camels. That was not a typo. They only race during the winter months so we won’t be able to see one in person, but wouldn’t that be an amazing thing to see?!?!

We also saw Arabian Oryx, which is the national animal of United Arab Emirates. They were too far away to get a good photo of, though.

I was most looking forward to riding a camel. I mean, it’s not every day that I get to ride a camel in the desert. How do I describe what it is like to ride a camel? I assumed it would be somewhat similar to riding a horse. You climb on from the right side and straddle its back. From there the similarities end.

The sand is not solid footing, so with every step they kind of slide around. We went at a slow walking pace. I cannot imagine how difficult it would be to avoid falling off on a race camel going 60 km/hr!

Yes, we rode the camels at night. The sunset is around 6:45. Because it is so hot when the sun is shining, the night brings a bit of relief. We spent a couple hours at our evening campsite, the weather a perfect temperature. While I’m sure it is fine to ride camels in the daylight, I wasn’t complaining about having a cooler experience.

The chicken skewer was delicious. The chicken porridge was not my favorite. I had a few good pieces of lamb before I tasted the smell of the lambing shed (if you know, you know) and I couldn’t eat anymore. I tried the camel, which wasn’t terrible. It was tough, kind of tasted like a super lean not great cut of beef. Kind of.

After dinner Jay and I smoked a tobacco-free hookah, which they call Shisha here. I had to try it, but I can’t say I will do it again. It was a sweet flavor – Abid said it was apple but we think it was black licorice. I coughed after every inhale, like a true rookie. A stargazer gave us an astronomy lesson while we listened to the bubble of everyone’s shisha (and my occasional cough).

Dessert in the desert was not Strawberry Shortcake (see what I did there), but there was fruit (including strawberries) and these delicious little fried date syrup balls called luqaimat.

I couldn’t stop smiling the whole evening. Nor could I stop singing “Arabian nights” which was on repeat in my mind. This whole place is a real life Disney World. Over the top, magical, igniting all of your senses. It’s like nowhere else in the world.

Here is a link to Lily’s YouTube channel so you can see watch the video of our desert safari experience.

https://youtu.be/y-Lv-rDVBkI?si=ySf5ZjnFKhPlrgM9