The Dubai Diaries

My life as a flight attendant in the Middle East!

Reserve month is over!

I survived my reserve month! As you may know I was scheduled reserve in January (and the beginning of February), which means you are pretty much on standby every day until you check your roster at 6pm. Then you’ll know if the next day is going to be a day off, a flight, or a standby duty. I was pretty much only rostered standby duties and put on a flight from there.

My first day of reserve I had airport standby, and before I even arrived I could see a turnaround to Bombay on my roster! Other than that quick overnight turnaround I was only rostered layovers, so I got pretty lucky really!

I ended up in:

  • Madrid
  • Melbourne – Auckland
  • Beijing
  • Boston

I guess now I’m writing it down that doesn’t seem like many flights, but the trip to Melbourne and Auckland is a 6 day trip so that took up a nice chunk of my roster.

Before that I’d had a few days off, and somehow I managed to get a rather nasty bout of food poisoning! I’m not sure what it was from but I had to call sick for 3 days, and I try not to call sick if I can avoid it. However this time I definitely needed some time to recover!

My trip to Beijing was pretty uneventful, although it was a 30 hour layover it was absolutely freezing (-1 degree!) and I had been on airport standby when I was put on it. It’s very hard to pack for airport standby as you could end up anywhere! Especially this time of year where it’s winter in most places, you need to pack for any type of weather and any length of trip. Luckily I’d packed a coat and I’ve been to see the Great Wall before so it’s not like I was missing out.

Boston was a nice surprise, as I’d never been there before. If you didn’t catch it, my last post was all about my snowy layover there!

After all that my reserve month was over! I got pretty lucky with my flights to be honest, and some good flying hours which means my salary won’t be suffering either, haha!

I then had a trip to Houston, where we visited a great Mexican restaurant, and did some shopping at the giant mall there. (As if we can’t get enough shopping in Dubai!)

After my trip to Houston, my best friend Lucy came to visit me in Dubai! This was the first time she’d been to Dubai, so we made sure to visit all of the usual attractions, and then spent a couple of days relaxing in a lovely hotel in Fujairah. Now I’ve got a couple more days off to relax at home before it’s back to work for me!

 

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! ðŸ™‚

Boston Baby!

I’ve just got back from my last flight of my reserve month. I was rostered home standby from 3am – 9am and around 4 o’clock in the morning I got a call from crew control letting me know I’d be heading to Boston! I was pretty excited, as I’ve never flown to Boston before and I knew it would be wintery and snowy there.

I quickly packed my suitcase, got ready and made my way to our headquarters. The Boston flight is operated on a 777-300, which is exciting as I haven’t done a US flight on the 777 since I worked in economy! I was particularly looking forward to the CRC (crew rest compartment, our little bunk beds) as it’s so much bigger than on the A380!

Flight time was 13,5 hours, and we were kept busy most of the time. Once we arrived in chilly Boston (1 degree!) a few of us arranged to meet up for some dinner. Since none of us knew the area, the concierge recommended a restaurant called Legal Seafood. There seem to be a few of them around Boston, so we got a taxi to the closest one to our hotel.

IMG_9887

And since we were in Boston after all, it seemed only right to order a lobster roll! Delicious 🙂

The next morning I woke up super early (always the case in the States, as there’s a pretty big time difference from Dubai) and headed to the gym. I’ve been trying to get back into my fitness and have been making sure to take my gym kit with me on layovers and actually use it, rather than letting it sit in my suitcase! I’ve especially been loving the Nike Training Club app, which has some great workouts which are really easy to follow.

After my workout I headed to breakfast, where I decided what my plan of action for the day was. Since none of the other crew were up to much due to the cold, I planned to take the hop-on hop-off trolley bus tour. At $37 it was a little pricey, but since I didn’t know my way around the city I thought it would be a good option.

View Post

Top Travel Tips

As cabin crew, I’m used to travelling the world and within a timespan of two weeks, I could have been in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia! So much flying certainly takes a toll on your body, and it’s not uncommon to wake up in the middle of the night wondering where on earth you are!

It can be hard getting up in the middle of the night to go to work, flying for anywhere between 6 and 16 hours, and then wanting to explore the destination when you get there!

I’ve tried to think of a few of my top tips to survive long-haul flights, and feel as refreshed as possible once you get there.

IMG_9515 View Post

The Dubai Diaries РFavourite Caf̩s

It’s about time I did a post featuring some of my favourite places in Dubai. Most of my blog posts are about my layovers, but after all I do live in Dubai and spend plenty of days off here so I thought I’d show you a few of my favourite cafés.

This isn’t in any particular order, it’s just a little collection of a few cafés that do great coffee and food, and that I enjoy visiting!

  • Coffee Club

This is actually a chain which originates in Australia, however in the past year it has made it’s way to Dubai. If you’re down on Al Wasl Road, I’d definitely give this one a try. The coffee is absolutely fantastic, I always go for either the flat white or the mocha, both of which I’d recommend.

IMG_5521

The food here is also delicious, they do all sorts ranging from cakes and brownies, to breakfast, brunch and lunch.

IMG_4512_2

Something else I have to mention is the wonderful service. All of the waiters are very attentive, without being too much. There’s also outside seating which is great for the winter months, although it can get a little noisy since it’s just along a busy-ish road. View Post

February Roster

It’s that time of the month again…it seems the first month of 2016 has flown by and I’ve already got my roster for February.

I’m still on reserve at the moment, and I’ve already had a turnaround to Bombay, a trip to Madrid (including lots of tapas!) and a 6 day trip to Melbourne and Auckland. I hope you enjoyed the pictures from that trip, where I explored a lovely little town called Devonport, just a 10 minute ferry ride away from Auckland.

My reserve continues until the 10th of February, and after that I’ll be heading to:

  • SFO (San Fransisco)
  • Leave (my best fried Lucy is coming to visit!)
  • BOM (Bombay turnaround)
  • DUS (Dusseldorf)

I’ve actually never been to Dusseldorf before, so that’ll be another magnet to add to the collection! I’m trying to swap my San Fran for something else at the moment (a Sydney would be nice, so I could go and see my grandparents) but we’ll see where I end up.

Don’t forget you can follow me on instagram, where I post more frequently. That way you’ll know which trips I end up getting on my reserve month!