Just a partial posting, I will be adding photos and updating this post.
After briefly considering attending the Formula One race in São Paulo, Brazil the first weekend of November only to discover it the racetrack in Brazil was quite far from downtown and transportation would be difficult, I decided to attend the season finale of the Formula One season at the picturesque Yas Island Marina circuit race in Abu Dhabi, UAE, which was being held November 12-14, 2010. Airfare was relatively reasonable as American Airlines has a code share agreement with Etihad (the national airline of UAE) that services Abu Dhabi. I was also able to obtain disabled access seating for the race for all three days even though the event was sold out.
Overall I had a good time. In hindsight I wish I had stayed an extra day or two to really see the city, as we spent virtually all of our time during the day out at the racetrack were on our way to and from the racetrack. The racetrack is a good 30 to 45 minute drive from the city center and there's not much to see other than ongoing construction and a lot of desert as you'll see in some of my video. Had I stayed an extra day or two I would've been able to explore a bit more of the city and really appreciate a bit more of the local culture. We did absolutely zero shopping -- only about 30 minutes at the airport on our out -- missing out on being able to pick up some unique local goodies, as well as the scenery of the mall environments such as the Marina Mall. The Marina Mall is really supposed to be very nice, modern, and accessible.
Although we did discover that the public buses are wheelchair accessible and we would have been able to take a public bus from our hotel down to the Marina Mall, as you'll see later in my trip report this particular weekend was not the ideal time to stick around for a day or two in a wheelchair. In a nutshell, wheelchair transportation was nonexistent!
Day 1
November 9, 2010
Miami-Dallas-Paris
Rather than flying directly from Miami to Paris I chose to fly through dollars to collect extra frequent flier miles. We flew American flight 1517 from Miami to Dallas that was an uneventful 2 1/2 hour 757 flight in domestic first class. We connected to American flight 48 from Dallas to Paris, an overnight flight in business class on a 767 with a flight time of about 9 1/2 hours. The food was pretty good, however, I read so many trip reports about people having wonderful experiences in first class on various world renowned airlines that I always must remind myself and everyone else no matter how good the food is at the time, it still airline food! I "listened" to a movie if I remember correctly (mainly because I cover myself completely with a blanket when I fly so I don't see very much), and although I doubt I slept very much I just tried to get some rest. It was pretty cold and foggy when we arrived in Paris, as can be seen from the pictures, and we had to hustle as our connecting flight was already boarding.
Day 2
November 10, 2010
Paris to Abu Dhabi, Etihad Airways Flight 32 (American Airlines codeshare)
At the gate in the Paris airport we met a very nice man named Phillipe Streiff, also in a wheelchair, who happened to be a former Formula One driver that was injured in a Formula One racing accident in Brazil in 1989. He is a very nice man and we spoke at length about his racing past and about the upcoming race. We rode together in the wheelchair lift truck from the terminal out to the aircraft that was parked at a remote stand at the Paris airport. All those things went well in the end, the French sure do make things much more complicated than they need to be. They would not allow any assistants on the special wheelchair lift truck which meant that nobody could be prepared to enter the aircraft by transferring onto the small aisle chair prior to us arriving at the aircraft. So first Phillipe boarded the aircraft with assistance, then an old lady in front of me, then finally Alex came on the lift truck to transfer me onto the aisle chair. Quite time-consuming, however, nobody put any pressure on us to try to hurry which helped. The plane was already completely boarded and packed prior to me getting on and seats that we had been assigned couldn't have possibly been any further back in the plane! I think we were in row 45 out of maybe 50 rows. I had called ahead of time, however, the Etihad representatives with whom I spoke said that they do not have a policy of pre-assigning any special seating for disabled passengers. I thought that was quite odd, as it not only would've made things easier for me, but would probably save the airline some time and hassle as well. Oh well.
The flight down from Paris to Abu Dhabi wasn't bad at all. About six hours following a very strange flight path that can be seen in one of the photos that I've posted. The logical route would have been directly over Iraq, but as you can see I guess there must be some sort of insurance reasons why commercial flights, no matter what their registration, tend to stay away from a war zone. I must say that the meal that was served on board was one of the tastiest meals I've ever had on an airplane. Some type of curry chicken which was very delicious! Etihad has been voted by several surveys as being the best airline in the world and I was certainly not disappointed. The seats in coach were a bit cramped, however, they were quite comfortable and the in-flight entertainment was very good and diverse. All of the flight attendants seemed to come from different corners of the earth. They are all very attractive and I think I heard them mention that the cabin staff spoke at least 15 different languages! What I thought was interesting was that the pilot made all of his announcements in both Arabic and English, but not in French. On the return, however, the pilot made all of his announcements in French and English, but not in Arabic. Interesting.
Only a little bit late, we landed in Abu Dhabi at about 8 o'clock in the evening. I had heard many nice things about the Abu Dhabi airport and was looking forward to getting a good look at the nice new modern facilities as well as the opulence that I had heard of and seen pictures of. However, as soon as we pulled into the gate that's when things went downhill fast! We were told that because the gate that we arrived at did not have an elevator that they could not bring my wheelchair up to the door of the aircraft. The captain himself was on his cell phone making sure that he knew exactly what was going on with my chair and offered to come with us personally to make sure I got my chair -- an offer that we foolishly did not take advantage of. We were told that my wheelchair would be waiting in the baggage claim area after immigration. While this is uncommon, it's certainly not unheard of and I've had to clean my wheelchair in baggage claim in other cities around the world as well. Going through immigration was quite simple, however, when we got to baggage claim there was no sign of my wheelchair. Although I "knew" that my wheelchair had made the plane and was probably just lost somewhere between the plane and baggage claim, what I didn't know is that our bags had missed the connection in Paris. That was really an unpleasant shock. As much traveling as I've done that was the first time that I've arrived somewhere without my bags and was absolutely astounded with the attitude of the baggage claim employees. Just a casual "sorry sir your bag didn't make the connection in Paris, we've arranged for it to be on that morning flight." No offer of any compensation nor a meaningful apology. Simply that the morning flight arrived at about 7 AM and that they would send our bags to our hotel sometime after noon. Are you kidding me? At least five hours to deliver bags to a so-called "priority" passenger? Although Etihad has a wonderful on board product, their customer relations on the ground has a lot to be improved upon.
Then, after nearly an hour they located my wheelchair back in the transit area of the baggage processing area -- very very frustrating. When my wheelchair finally came out we had to do a bit of reassembly and we did not get out of the baggage claim area till well after 10 o'clock at night.
Lack of Accessible Transportation
Then I thought he would simply catch an accessible bus into the city. Wrong! Another adventure awaited us. We went to the information booth run by the Abu Dhabi Airport Company that is in charge of running everything at the airport. I asked where to go to find the wheelchair accessible bus headed into downtown and was greeted with a puzzled look. Apparently, the information that I received both by e-mail and by reading the Abu Dhabi tourism website praising their accessible transportation wasn't quite accurate -- a situation that I've run into many times throughout the world. We met some very nice people that really did try as hard as possible to locate a wheelchair accessible Van or wheelchair accessible transportation of any type, but to no avail. So, after having coffee at Starbucks with my new friend Tareq (one of the men working with be Abu Dhabi Airport Company) and waiting until after midnight, one of the men finally volunteered to drive us from the airport to our hotel. This was probably the most kind and generous offer that we've received throughout the world and was truly appreciated. To have someone that we've known for less than an hour (who was coincidentally dressed in a traditional white Arab gown and headdress) pull his Ford Explorer up to the curb of the airport and together with five or six other men lift me from my wheelchair into the front seat of his Explorer, and then load my wheelchair (which weighs approximately 250 pounds/100 kg) into the back of a nice new Ford Explorer was absolutely incredible. As frustrated as I was that the airport and city lacked accessible transportation into the city, I was amazed at the friendliness and hospitality that these men were going through to get us to our hotel. The drive from the Abu Dhabi airport into the main business district where the hotel was located was about 45 minutes. It was nice for me to sit in a "normal" car which I haven't done in many years so that I could actually see as much as possible, unfortunately it was the middle of the night and there wasn't much to see! I cannot stress enough how kind our host was, as we had a very nice conversation during our drive from the airport into downtown regarding the whole of Abu Dhabi, including the topics that are usually off-limits such as religion and politics, the status of local construction, and the relation between the Emiratis (“locals”) and everyone else "foreigners." It was great to have such an in-depth orientation to Abu Dhabi and the UAE from a local resident (even though he wasn't a "local", but he was an Arab -- many of the unique distinctions over there) so soon after our arrival.
We arrived at the Crowne Plaza Hotel about 1 AM, got unloaded from the Ford Explorer, found our way up to the check-in desk at the hotel and got our room and key fairly quickly. We reminded the check-in and Bell desk to continue to check with the airline throughout the morning regarding our missing bags. As it was only one in the morning and I would be able to get eight or nine hours of rest in bed, I was pretty unhappy that we were being "forced" to sleep in because we didn't have our bags, rather than getting a nice early start and exploring the city on our first day.
Here are some helpful Internet links:
Abu Dhabi tourism – www.visitabudhabi.ae
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