By Ann Marie McQueen www.thenational.ae
Recently I jumped at the chance to see Dubai from on high, aboard a Cessna 208 Caravan sea plane. I’ll never look at it the same way again.
The 40 minutes we spent flying over some of the city’s most iconic sights, including The World islands, the Burj Al Arab and Burj Khalifa, Port Rashid and the mind-boggling interlocking and overlapped loops of the Defence Roundabout between Al Wasl and Satwa, marked a highlight in my almost-seven years in the UAE.
In case you’ve started taking it for granted, this trip will assure you Dubai is stunningly beautiful as a whole and fascinating in its astonishing parts, even the grotty ones. It was so impressive, I almost couldn’t wait to get back down on the ground to dig into it again.
The World Journey is part of a collection of luxury experiences being offered in Dubai and Abu Dhabi by the seaplane tour operator Seawings, which launched in 2007.
Our adventure started when we boarded a boat from the Waldorf Astoria Dubai Palm Jumeirah hotel, travelling for about 10 minutes to a tiny dock on The World. This is not an area that is open to boats, so I felt pretty fortunate to be seeing all those sandy mounds up close for the first time, rather than in a Google Earth image.
I’m quite a nervous flier of late, so I fretted as the pilot fired up the plane’s Pratt & Whitney turboprop engine. Yet, while I definitely did not expect to prefer the experience over a runway, that’s exactly what happened. More info
Absolutely great views of Dubai from the sky. Anything you dream of, of the city – Emirates plane landing, Dubai creek, Burj Al Arab, The Palm, Burj Khalifa, Sheikh Zayed Road, World Islands… on the vid. Thank you Mr Aussie pilot – never felt safer in the sky, and thank you Seawings – great idea… And yours truly up front as co-pilot (almost)…
