The Dubai Diaries
My life as a flight attendant in the Middle East!

April Roster

I’ve had a couple of requests to post my monthly roster – so here’s April for you!

I think I’ve explained before about the bidding system we have. There are 7 groups that all the crew are divided up into (randomly, as far as I can tell) and the bidding system goes by group seniority. So my group (group 5) is at “top bid”, where you supposedly have the highest chances of getting what you bid for, in April.

Even after nearly two and a half years I still haven’t got the bidding system completely sussed out, and I only got 2 of the things I asked for – you can bid for up to 5 (this includes layovers and days off).

  • Barcelona (one of the destinations I bid for!)
  • Munich (didn’t bid for this, but I seem to get it every month regardless!)
  • Los Angeles (trying to swap for our new 42 hour JFK layover)
  • 5 days off (which I bid for)
  • Kuwait turnaround
  • Munich
  • Barcelona

So as you can see – no new destinations again. 🙁

At least I got a couple of Barcelona trips in there, which will be fun as I’m hoping it’ll have warmed up nicely!

As for the lovely string of 5 days off, mum and dad have very kindly invited me to join them in Athens for a little holiday! Unfortunately it’s not quite enough time to visit any of the beautiful Greek islands, so I’ll try and see if I can do that sometime later this year. Any tips for Athens are very welcome! 🙂

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for day-to-day updates of where I am in the world and what’s going on! 

A trip to Petra & the Dead Sea

After my incredible holiday to Zanzibar, I still had some days of leave left. I didn’t want to stay in Dubai when I have such a great opportunity to get cheap tickets and travel, so my friend Sally and I decided spontaneously to go to Jordan!

Our plan was to visit Petra and the Dead Sea.

Our first stop was Amman airport. After a 3 hour delay due to a technical fault on the plane, and a 3 hour flight, we finally arrived!

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In a bid to save a bit of money, we decided to get the public bus to Petra. After a rather squashed, very long journey, we finally arrived in Petra! Our original plan had been to visit Petra in the afternoon, but due to the flight delay and long bus journey, we were a bit later than planned.

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Escape to Zanzibar

I recently came back from an amazing holiday to the beautiful island of Zanzibar!

My flatmate Kirsty and I both had some time off, and although we had originally planned to go to India to see the Taj Mahal and experience Holi festival, we couldn’t get our visas in time. So a new destination was needed, preferably somewhere neither of us had been and relatively close by. Zanzibar was the perfect choice!

We booked our tickets to Dar Es Salaam, and a 4,5 hour flight later we were there.

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Once in the airport we walked outside to the tiny ticket offices to find a flight to ZNZ. The next flight was leaving in around an hour, so we handed over our money and got ready to fly on this tiny plane!

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Another trip down under!

So if you read my last post you will have seen that I did a 6 day trip to Sydney and Auckland. The same month I was rostered another one of these multi-sectors, this time Brisbane and Auckland!

This would be my first time visiting Brisbane, so I was excited to see a new city.

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We arrived early morning after a long 14 hour flight, and I was ready to pass out! A couple of hours and a nice nap in the comfiest bed ever later, I was ready to do some exploring.

Plan for the day: koalas!!

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A trip down under

One of my recent flights was a 6 day trip to Sydney and Auckland. It’s been a while since I’ve done a multi-sector trip (I think the last one must have been Rio – Buenos Aires back in September) so I was a bit apprehensive. The Aussie sectors are always very tiring and it’s easy to get jet-lagged.

After a 14 hour flight we arrived in beautiful sunny Sydney! My Grandparents and Aunty and Uncle live in Australia, so when I saw I would be going to Sydney I knew I had to meet up with them. My cousin flew in from Melbourne (where she is at university) and Granny and Aunty Mary were waiting for us, then we drove home to see my Grandpa as well.

It’s become a little tradition to go for afternoon tea, and seeing as it had also been Granny’s 92nd birthday a few days prior, we had something to celebrate! Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get many pictures, as I had not slept in quite a while and was feeling a little bit exhausted! Nevertheless I had a lovely day catching up with everyone and it was well worth the lack of sleep! Thanks so much for having me 🙂

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The next morning we were up bright and early for the flight to Auckland. It’s only around 2,5 hours and the Auckland sectors are usually not full in business class, so it’s a nice and easy flight. I’ve only ever been to Auckland once before, so I had big plans to get out and see the city and more this time!

After we arrived at the hotel we were all starving, so a few of us went out for some dinner down by the harbour.

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