Burj Khalifa

Yesterday I took my guests on the Big Bus Tour of Dubai which culminated in us going to the top of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world. Keep in mind that by top, I mean to the observation deck which is on the 125th floor out of 140. The tour was changed around from last year which was confusing for us as what I remembered about the Dubai tour conflicted with what their map said.

We had booked our reservation time to go up the Burj Khalifa over the internet. Our reservation time was 5:30 so we made sure to get there by 5:10 to allow plenty of time for any problems. We went to the counter and sure enough, we got our tickets that were booked for 5:30 February 7th, two weeks from the day that we wanted.

We were dumbfounded. We explained that it must've been a computer error but then we were directed to the voucher that I had printed out saying the date. We tried to exchange our tickets. We tried to ask for our money back but we were told that we had to try to sell the tickets to someone else. The most infuriating thing about the situation was the staff member's self satisfied smirk that he was giving us as he was being as unhelpful as possible.

Doing the only thing that we could do, we went to the counter to try to buy more ticket for the following week when we'll be back in Dubai. Sensing our frustration, another member of staff asked if he could help. When we explained our situation, he had a quick chat with a woman, who gave him a nod and then he escorted us through the gates.

When we got back to Abu Dhabi we checked out the web site and found the problem. The day that we wanted was booked so we clicked the "next day" button on the website. When you click that button, the system spits out a random day. I urge you to go to the website by clicking on the above link Then click "next day" at the bottom of the page. Sometimes it will actually give you the next day. Other times it gives a random day. Ours was February 7th. Granted we should have checked the date more carefully, but we didn't expect a date two weeks in the future.

In the end it worked out thanks to some helpful people who have probably encountered this situation before. It's a shame that this had to be contrasted with the staggering level of unhelpful staff. Lesson learned. If someone won't help, ask someone else.