Al-Appointy: From the City of Lakes to the City of Sheikhs! [Part 1/2]

Some companies take the concept of work hard, party harder way too seriously.

And we’re a proud member of the club.

Once every year, Appointy takes its entire team out on international offsite. Once every year, we get to check off boxes from our to-do-lists, learn more about our international customers, and bond with our team. Once every year, we get to live our travel dreams.

This year the destination was the global dream capital: Dubai.

Why Dubai?

The destination you choose for your corporate offsite is entirely a matter of perspective. For companies based in big-bustling metro cities, a spa retreat in the quiet of nature seems like a perfect idea.

But things are different for us. We’re based in a Tier-2 city. And a very beautiful one. We visit dams and resorts for weekends. So for us, we wanted our team to have a taste of luxury, high-end technology, and a fast paced world.

With lenient Visa policies, and being close to India, Dubai made the cut.

The Team

This year, we also invited some of our interns to join us on the trip.

With this trip being our young champs’ first international venture and the crazy team that we are, there is so much we have to tell.

Better yet, this time, we’ve so much to show! Hop on! This is going to be a fun ride…

Dubai: The first look

We landed during early morning hours. All of us watched in awe as the city unfolded itself in front of us on the way to our hotel.

Checking in

There is a reason why our check-in to the hotel has an individual subheading in this blog.

Our flights had great connectivity, which saved us spending hours on the airport in uncomfortable seats. As a result, we arrived at our hotel a tad bit early before the check-in.

All that waiting in the hotel lobby made us go from this!

To THIS!

But we were (I was) back to the state of awe when we saw our rooms which looked like these:

DAY 1: Desert Safari

Desert Safari is probably on the cover page of all the Dubai Tourist guides there are. And rightfully so.

It started around mid-day here:

They put us in groups of six in one of these: [The guys were drooling. Literally]

Played a super-Arabic track and rolled it in sand like this. [Have an Arabic playlist since then]

And took us here:

where we did this:

And this:

Also drove this:

And had a little talk with him:

While taking a whole lot of pictures!

After having a super fun day, and watching this beautiful sunset…

…all of us headed back to the camp for the most anticipated part of the evening.

The Dance show:

Tanoura Dance

It is a traditional Egyptian dance. The word tanoura  refers to the colorful skirt worn by the whirler, with a color representing each Sufi order.^[10] The word may also refer to the dancer who performs this dance. It looked breath-taking.

Have a look:

Aaaaanddd the belle-dancing!

Meanwhile, dinner was served. And thankfully so, because we were famished. We had Lebanese and Indian for dinner and came back in the Hummer.

I’d suggest people with a sensitive stomach to eat light or simply ask your driver to not drive rough during the back journey.

You wouldn’t want such a fabulous day to end with you being sick. ????

This was all about the first day of our Dubai trip. I was obviously wrong in thinking that I could wind everything up in one single blog post. There’s too much to tell.

So, I’m making this Part 1 of a 3-part series.

Click here to know all about Day 2 in Dubai. It has a visit to one of the best water parks in the WORLD and taking a private cruise around the city involved.