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Originally posted by Akridrot Well, you don't have to worry about sounding like a bleeding heart, because I am definitely going to sound like one enough for both of us. I've provided links to back up my arguments, so feel free to click and do your research. Until Dubai fixes up the disgusting social problems it faces, I will never visit it, no matter how hauntingly beautiful and progressive its architectural structures are. Yes, I'd love to visit, but what I would love more is to not fear being imprisoned for four years over a microscopic speck of cannabis under my shoe. I also don't fuck with citiess that don't give a fuck about 15 year old rape victims if those 15 year olds happen to be the same gender as their rapists. I definitely don't support a city where women are treated like animals -- no, worse than animals, men have more compassion for animals than treating women fairly over there and where the people who build it are enslaved and treated like garbage. But, hey! If you support this, then fine! I hope you also enjoy living in abject prison conditions, forcing children to have homosexual intercourse with you, beating, abusing and suppressing the potential of your fellow human beings if they happen to be women, and being an ignorant, useless, hateful bigot. Because if you still wish to set foot in this city after knowing that all this happened and that worse still happens there behind the surface, then you support all of those things wholeheartedly. A city as beautiful looking as Dubai can still be unacceptably backwards and ignorant in its views. Dubai can still be a misogynistic, homophobic, and bigoted city. Don't be fooled, and don't be a monster. But if you still want to be, please tell us how much none of this concerns you, and expose yourself as the evil subhuman savage you are. Fuck Dubai. Fuck that city. Fuck anyone who supports it. I don't even care how cool we are at this very moment. We cannot be friends any longer if you support Dubai.

and its outward beauty is very debatable

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Originally posted by nefardec and its outward beauty is very debatable

Agreed.

"ZOMG look at those cool buildings! Hey look that hotel has a tennis court on top of its roof!"

Outside of all that it's still a shit, backwards Arab country. This is exactly just like what China did with the Olympics to try to paint itself as a modernized, civilized country.

I went to Dubai for the first time in May and it was pretty incredible. We stayed down on Jumeirah Beach for a few nights and the amount of construction going on, and that has been completed just blows your mind.

There is still a lot of historical parts to the city and we stayed in the older part of the city by Dubai Creek as well.

There's no getting away from the fact that the emirate are gearing themselves so they are up and running when the oil runs out.

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Originally posted by Ian the general consensus in the press here is that the order is Qatar Emirates Iraqi (or Iranian) i forget which one Singapore ... .... ..... .... ... bmi baby british airways qantas ryanair

Emirates is possibly the most over-rated airline on the face of the planet. If you get the cabins in First Class (they aren't on all the fleet yet) then it is a decent experience but Business Class is a clusterfuck and economy is just bad. For example on the 777 aircraft the industry standard is to have a 3-3-3 seating configuration, however, Emirates squeeze and extra seat in to make it 3-4-3.

They have about four different types of business class seat, from positively ancient to the decent new seat on the A380.

The airline at the top certainly isn't Iraqi or Iranian Airlines. It could be Jet Airways from India, they are one of the up and coming airlines. Haven't flown them yet but they are supposed to be rather good.

BA and Qantas just suffer from the same problem; being beaten up by the national press. People still think Terminal 5 @ LHR is a disaster zone where bags drop into some black hole and are never seen again. Yeah, maybe for the first week or so but that wasn't the airline's fault, it was the airport operator, and even so as large terminal/airport openings go it was actually pretty successful. A week later almost all the problems had been ironed out. My Dad flew out to the US from Terminal 5 yesterday and said it took 5 mins to check-in and the same to get through security...and he was flying economy In the last five years I've flown BA around 100 times and never had a flight where I've thought that I should have flown a competitor. I'd like to know of those who slate BA how many of them have actually travelled more than once with the airline. It seems quite a bit of the time it is people reading a story from some journo who was pissed off he didn't get an upgrade for free

The Qantas issues haven't been helped by the fact the Aussie redtops are far too busy trying to find any old story to scare the shit out of the public.

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Originally posted by Ian sadly the last 12 months has seen the end of the 2 best trans-atlantic services, simply because they were running at such a low profit margin and once fuel rocketed, they couldn't pay the bills. these were EOS and Silverjet, both business class services that cost only a tiny bit more than economy, and less than some cheap ones from like BA

Did you ever do that trip out to Canada? I remembering a while back doing the pros and cons of the various airline options for you...which did you go for in the end?

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Originally posted by TranceOwnsLol http://www.worldairlineawards.com/ I've never flew on Emirates but if you ever get a chance to fly business class with Singapore Airlines, it's worth it. The Singapore Airlines First Class/Business Class lounge in Singapore's airport here is heaven. Large lounge with a free buffet and bar that beats even some of the best hotels i've been to.

Skytrax The biggest pile of shit of an organization that seem to have turned themselves into the airline industry gold standard consumer award. They basically just end up giving 5* awards to their sponsors. Singapore Airlines were awarded the Airline of the Year award a few years ago and failed to recognise the award in anyway whatsoever! Emirates also admitted to buying the award outright for several years too! I wrote a few reviews for the site and they were either edited or not posted. I know many other regulars flyers that have had the same happen to them and don't contribute anymore.

Free food (of varying degree) and drinks are completely standard in any airport lounge outside the US. The general consensus amongst the frequent flyer community is that whilst SQ has a superb onboard product their lounges aren't really up to that standard.

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Originally posted by Brizzo "It's all gone Pete Tong" is actually a phrase in Europe, England I believe. Pretty sure that's where Pete Tong got his DJ name from as well.

The infamous Rojam ID. 14 years, 9 months and counting...

My mom's friend who went to Dubai for the first time because she got offered a better paying job there compared to the already good paying salary she has here (im talking 150k+ USD) said Dubai was overrated. Aside from the buildings and construction, the quality of life there is poor compared to Singapore. She was a girl as well and she found it quite hard to live compared here and said that you get 'spoiled' in here.

I've been to Dubai as well, visited the Burj Al Arab and went to the Wild Wadi (Dubai waterpark) and although they are good places for tourists, living their on a daily basis isn't as good as you would think.

I always fly Singapore Airlines and since my mom is a PPS member for SQ (meaning that you have to accumulate lots of points by just flying business class for business trips) we get free access to the lounge. I've flown in business class in Singapore Airlines as well from Manila to Singapore and compared to all the other airlines I've seen (united, lufthansa, jet star etc), they don't compare.

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Free food (of varying degree) and drinks are completely standard in any airport lounge outside the US. The general consensus amongst the frequent flyer community is that whilst SQ has a superb onboard product their lounges aren't really up to that standard.

Well of course...but btw which lounge do you think is the best then? Have you been to the new singapore airlines lounge? You have to try it sometime and tell me what you think, because I've been to the SQ lounge in Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, Madrid and they are nothing compared to the lounge here. Well of course that's expected since usually the local airline should have the best lounge in their home country.

Anyway, I've been to the Dubai Airport as well and Changi Airport still imo beats it. And from my experience, I didn't like India at all. That's all I have to say.

And i'm not that biased towards Singapore since i'm not Singaporean anyway, I just moved here a couple of years ago.

Sorry for making this off topic, now carry on with the new Skyscraper to be built in Dubai.

Let's see King Kong try and climb this bad boy.

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Originally posted by TranceOwnsLol I always fly Singapore Airlines and since my mom is a PPS member for SQ (meaning that you have to accumulate lots of points by just flying business class for business trips) we get free access to the lounge. I've flown in business class in Singapore Airlines as well from Manila to Singapore and compared to all the other airlines I've seen (united, lufthansa, jet star etc), they don't compare.

Well that's because United and Lufthansa both have pretty poor Business Class products too! United's lounges are consistently the worst I've used by any airline, even worse than US Airways.

United are putting a new flatbed seat in Business and First but it is only on a handful of aircraft. The current business seat is comfortable enough for dayflights but pretty nasty for overnights if you're used to flat bed seats like BA (my usual carrier) offer in Business.

The Lufthansa seat is a flat bed, but at an angle which is utterly pointless IMO. I've had no reason to fly it and have avoided it when necessary. My parents tried it en-route to South Africa and said it wasn't too good. They swapped to flying South African Airlines on the return and said it was far better.

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Originally posted by TranceOwnsLol Well of course...but btw which lounge do you think is the best then? Have you been to the new singapore airlines lounge? You have to try it sometime and tell me what you think, because I've been to the SQ lounge in Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, Madrid and they are nothing compared to the lounge here. Well of course that's expected since usually the local airline should have the best lounge in their home country.

A few of my favourites:
Qantas First lounge at Sydney (pictures)
BA Concorde Room at Terminal 5 London Heathrow (pictures)
JAL First Class lounge at Tokyo-Narita (pictures)

I'm hoping to try out the Virgin Clubhouse at LHR, or the Lufthansa First Class Terminal at FRA soon. My parents and a few friends have tried them and said they are pretty damn good...

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Originally posted by Brizzo "It's all gone Pete Tong" is actually a phrase in Europe, England I believe. Pretty sure that's where Pete Tong got his DJ name from as well.

The infamous Rojam ID. 14 years, 9 months and counting...

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Originally posted by fbgdavidson Did you ever do that trip out to Canada? I remembering a while back doing the pros and cons of the various airline options for you...which did you go for in the end?

I didn't get chance to yet. I was meant to be taking some winter stuff to my brother but he told my dad he could do without, so my dad took that as a "don't buy him a ticket" and until i've passed my course, im broke student however they are getting married in ontario next september so i will definitely be over then, although im probably gonna fly out to edmonton to help them out for a week beforehand, then get a westjet to hamilton or toronto and spend a couple of weeks there. Right now, canadian affair seem a reasonable company to look for, with flights from both Transat and Thomas Cook, but im def going premium economy. I did 4 hours in 31" legroom to gran canaria & ached like a mofo, dunno why cos im only 1.75m

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Originally posted by Ian I didn't get chance to yet. I was meant to be taking some winter stuff to my brother but he told my dad he could do without, so my dad took that as a "don't buy him a ticket" and until i've passed my course, im broke student however they are getting married in ontario next september so i will definitely be over then, although im probably gonna fly out to edmonton to help them out for a week beforehand, then get a westjet to hamilton or toronto and spend a couple of weeks there. Right now, canadian affair seem a reasonable company to look for, with flights from both Transat and Thomas Cook, but im def going premium economy. I did 4 hours in 31" legroom to gran canaria & ached like a mofo, dunno why cos im only 1.75m

Damn brothers

Well I've heard good things about the Canadian Affair/Thomas Cook flights. Apparently, and unusually for a charter, they have 35" pitch throughout economy so you might get lucky.

I can understand the need for premium economy, I'm 6ft and ended up on a ski charter a few years back from Lyon to Gatwick that was the legal minimum 28" pitch. Ow! I don't do economy longhaul

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Originally posted by Brizzo "It's all gone Pete Tong" is actually a phrase in Europe, England I believe. Pretty sure that's where Pete Tong got his DJ name from as well.

The infamous Rojam ID. 14 years, 9 months and counting...

how the fuck can you guys afford to fly first class?

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Originally posted by Vlad The one minus that Ive heard about Dubai is that theres very few females there.

How would that make a difference to your experience?

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Mix archive | Melbourne club guide

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Originally posted by Domesticated How would that make a difference to your experience?

LMFAO

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Originally posted by narcism how the fuck can you guys afford to fly first class?

I wonder the same thing. Especially with how often they do it.

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Originally posted by bas Dual exhaust tips on dual exhaust = QUAD EXHAUST = 300 gain in horsepower. Duh

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Originally posted by bas Undies with a dickhole aren't good for guys. Your balls can get caught in them. That's why I prefer to go over the gate instead of through the fence.