Living in Dubai

[trot]

Cheers,

thanks everybody posting their thoughts about ek. The good as well as the negative ones. It helps us, who try to make an educated decision about joining the sand pit. But unfortunately most of the posts fail to answer the question being initially asked and wander off into moaning-land.

What I really need now is to get a couple of facts about the lifestyle in dubai.

What are the cost of living?
e.g.
- grocery shopping (eg. 2x, 3x or 4x more expensive)
- phone bills
- internet access
- joining a gym
- gas/petrol prices
- car prices (BMW3 series, or Passat wagon)
- cinema
- dvd/ video rental
- hair cutter
- going out for dinner
- etc…….

what is there to do for your wife and kids.?
May your wife work? If yes, what options.
Is there an university for the kids to attend?
What is there to do in your free time ( except catching up on sleep ).
Are expats restricted to certain things?
Do you feel you just live there to work?
Do you feel you are just confined to the housing area?
Do you feel safe?
Do you feel comfortable letting your kids drive around?
Do you feel comfortable letting your kids roam around downtown or shopping areas?
Do you get in contact with the locals, or is your social life mainly with other pilots in the community?
What about churches?

may be you guys can paste the above items and write your thoughts or values behind it, or if appropriate generalize the cost of living. I know the costs have sky rocketed, but I try to find out how far 1000 $ get me in dubai compared to europe and what my family is able to do socially and careerwise.

Thanks for the time answering the questions. I hope they will help others as well.
The 3 days during the selection program is certainly not long enough to get a feel about living in dubai.

Cheers,
trot

[Ahad Adump]

Been here a while, salary (incl housing) over 50g / month. (+/- 15000 USD) Live an avarage life style:
Living in own accom, house back home (rented out)
2 cars: 8 & 3 years old
2 kids
1 maid
Club membership
Golf and booze etc
So take it from my perspective or adjust as required.

Our groceries +/- 6000/mnth (1600 USD)

Phone: 900-home/ 800-2 mobiles (460 USD)

Internet: 250/mnth (68 USD) DSL. Etisalat very slow and very restricted. Sahm OK and you can look at ANYTHING, need to buy a home.
Gym 8000 to 17000 for family. (2100 to 4600 USD) Hotel gym, house wife orientated, no serious body building gyms unless you dress like porn star, speak Urdu or Arabic, use 50ml of decadron a week and moonlights as a doorman at some Deira club.

Petrol 6.25 a US gallon (1.7 USD/gal) I think.
Gas 45 per 40lbs cylinder refil. (12 USD)

BMW 330Ci Convertible, 2004, steel grey, with grey leather interior, automatic / steptronic transmission, black, automatic power hood, navigation system, 6 CD player, F.S.H., 30,000 km, Face Lift model, PKS, BMW Premium Sound system, Gulf specs., balance of dealer's warranty. Only Dhs 154,950/- or Dhs 3,486/- x 48 months.

BMW 330Ci, 2002, white, Gulf specification, 120,000 kms, Dhs 103,000/-.

BMW M3 Convertible, 2003, Individual, blue green, with cream leather interior, wooden trim, SMG transmission, DVD naviation, CD, power hood, c/w Hard Top, multifunctional steering wheel, FSH, Gulf specs. Only Dh 179,950/- or Dh 4,049/- x 48 months.

Volkswagen Passat, 1.8L, 1999, manual transmission, ABS brakes, full options, 6 CD changer, remote control entry, insured & registered up to 1 year, Dhs 20,000/-.

Volkswagen Passat, 1998 model, white colour, full options, steptronic transmission, 131,000 kms, agency maintained, Dhs 30,000/-.

Volkswagen Passat, 1998, black, 6 cylinder, full options, company maintained, for Dhs 25,000/-.


Cinema 200 for 4, with drinks & popcorn (55 USD)

DVD/video 10 a go can keep for few days (2.7 USD)

Hair cutter 15 to 100 for man/boy (4 to 27 USD) Cheap hair cutter makes you look like Lego man.
Girl cut & blow +/- 200 (54 USD)
Highlights +/- 500 (136 USD)

Dinner with wife at nice place, 2 starters, 2 mains, 2 Irish coffees, 2nd cheapest wine and 5 Stellas for dad. 800 (220 USD)

Dinner at reseonable place with kids, 2 starters, 2 mains, 2 burgers, 2 cokes, bottle of house plonk and 7 stellas for dad 600 (160 USD)

Anything your wife and kids do, it will cost.
Football weekly 500 for 3 mnths (136 USD)
Swimming weekly 600/3 mnths (160 USD)
Tennis weekly 600/3 mnths (160 USD)
Karate weekly 40/session (11 USD)

Yes your wife can work if you write a letter of permission.
Options, my wife HAS to work to balance the books.

American and Australian uni's. Other guys could help, my kids to dumb for that, so not researched.

As an expat you can do anything inside the law.
as an expat you can not overtake in the yellow lane.
as an expat you can only tint your windows 40 % max.
as an expat you can not show hand gestures to anyone.
as an expat your no. plate can have minimum 4 digits.
as an expat you can not go to newspapers to air your grief.
as an expat you must never talk about a union.

Yes, I feel I only live here to work.

No, not confined to housing area.

Thought I was safe until my home got burgalled a few days ago, garden furnture, ladder & bicycles gone.

No, not comfortable with kids downtown or shopping malls without supervision. To many stories of rape or boys beaten up.

Only contact with locals is at work. (good guys) Or when doing car registration and paying fines.

Try to avoid too many pilots in social live, conversation about work ALL THE TIME.

Yes there are churches, about 6 clustered together, hidden from view in a remote area behind Jebel Ali village. No road to churches, your 3 series is going to scrape it's belly getting there.

Some pilots formed their own church group at guys houses. Lost popularity when one wife apologised to husband, during prair, for having an afair. He then, during prair, confessed to shagging whores in BKK.

Now sit back and wait for condemnation and agreement on my figures. Then draw your plan. As a senior guy, my lifestyle is same as when I was an FO, thanks to INFLATION. Hope same doesn't happen to you. Good luck.

[max AB]

Ahad that's pretty close to the mark, I had to laugh at the second last paragraph, oh to have been a fly on the wall...... Trot there is a pilot's club, (150dhs/month per family) organised by pilot's, that gets you entry to a bunch of beach clubs/gyms so no need for expensive memberships unless you want something specific. What are you trying to compare cost of living to, Europe or USA?

[A300Man-2005]

Ahad,

One of the best posts I have EVER seen here on PPrune, although will be totally meaningless to those who have never been here in the Sandpit, and Dubai in particular.


Humorous. Spot-on accuracy and a pleasure to read.


A300Man

[4HolerPoler]

Great post Ahad - you're the man

4HP

[Desert Whine]

Yes well said Ahad except you forgot to mention at the cinemas that listening to the locals in front of you calling the locals behind you on their mobile phones is FREE OF CHARGE.

[bentwings]

Same same in Saudi except in Saudi you might get to visit a colleague in jail for two months who was at a dinner party attended by females other than his own family and where there was whisky being served when the religious police came calling.

A wonderful piece about the prayer group.

[fullforward]

My compliments, Ahad!!!!

[flyboy519]

Some pilots formed their own church group at guys houses. Lost populatity when one wife apologised to husband, during prair, for having an afair. He then, during prair, confessed to shagging whores in BKK.

Kind of reminds me of the story that was going around after the AirTransat A330 glider in the Azores. Turns out that a family was on the flight and when everything was going to S$&*, the husband, who thougt he was about to meet his maker, turned to his wife and told her he had been having an affair with her sister .... who was sitting on the other side of the wife.

Good call on life in Dubai.

[Jack D]

Aaah the power of prayer...Perhaps they were contemplating the book of Revelations.

It gave me a good laugh and the rest of the post was spot on.

[chandlers dad]

Bentwings,

One thing not mentioned is that every, and I mean EVERY telephone call in the whole bloody country is monitored.

They brought in the engineers from Siemans years ago and set up a computer system that scans every call and records them.

If any word or phrase is said that is on "the list" then a human listens to it. Then if anything is said that is "not correct" or suspect a policeman and mutawa at a minimum is dispatched to the house and life goes downhill from there.

I was married to a German lady for a long time while living in Saudi and she met another German at a health spa. We had dinner with the couple and since we were all speaking German they felt a bit more comfortable in what they talked about. He was one of the engineers on the project and said to never, ever say anything over any phone in Kingdom that you did not want to hear in a court.

Would hope that Dubai does not have this in place. Saudi is indeed a very different place to live. At least Dubai, Bahrain and Kuwait are a bit more progressive in some ways.

CD

[trot]

another question about life in dubai

fellas,

thanks for the replies to my recent post about living in dubai.

here a couple more about ek:

-is there a training bond for f/o's?
-how is the pay during training(already base salary or reduced training pay?)
-how is accomadation during training?
-will ek pay or finacially help with a move from europe to dubai?
-is the provided accomadation furnished or not?
-regarding housing, singles get an appartment, families a house. how are you considered, if not married,but would come with girlfriend and your kid?( so, you are a family, but just not married)
-is the schooling allowance sufficient to send your kid to a good school?
-if expat woman work in dubai, what jobs can they accept, or from your experience, what jobs do most wives take, and how much can they expect to earn?

thanks for the help

cheers trot

[bigilla]

-Training bond US$36000, pro rata for three years - if you leave after 1 year you pay $24000 etc.
-Full base salary during training
-Accomodation can be either your eventual fulltime villa/apartment, or if still not ready for occupation a temporary apartment
-EK allows a certain weight of cargo to be carried for free but not sure what the amount is. I think 500kg. Not sure if it's free on other carriers either
-Furniture - you either get furnished accomodation ( very basic - ikea type ) or you can take an allowance of about Dhs 30000 and buy /get your own.
-Living with girlfriend is frowned upon in the U.A.E. - many people do it but "undercover" (excuse the pun!!!!!) It would be impossible, i think to get a visa for girlfriend/child iy you're not married. You would be considered single and hence get an apartment.
-schooling allowance pays 90% of fees up to a limit. with the price of schooling nowadays expect to fork out about Dhs 10000 a year from your own pocket - that depends on which school you choose. Certain schools rae even more expensive. Extra curricular stuff (sport, music etc) is fairly expensive.
- expat ladies can work in Dubai. ( You'd need to be married - your girlfriend would need a rsidence visa before ahe can work and very few women manage to get jobs in Dubai under their own steam i.e. without their husband's visa sponsorship) Wide variety of jobs but secretarial jobs and similar tend to be taken by Asian ladies, who seem to get paid less, one of the "subtle" cases of racism here in Dubai. Salaries overall tend not to be as good as Europe but there are exceptions.
Please be advised that apart from the questions you made there are the other costs - food, entertainment etc and these can be substantial. Do your own detailed research. Ultimately thee's nothing better than coming over for a few days to get an idea.

[Cerberus]

expat ladies can work in Dubai. ( You'd need to be married - your girlfriend would need a residence visa before she can work and very few women manage to get jobs in Dubai under their own steam i.e. without their husband's visa sponsorship)

Not true! Start by looking at EK, none of the female hosties are on their husbands sponsorships and I know bunches of girls that are unmarried and pursueing careers in Dubai. ATC, Hotel Managers, Car Managers, DJs et al

[flyboy519]

As an expat you can do anything inside the law.

Ummmmm ....

Does that include a night at the Cyclone ?? ( or the York Hotel for that matter )

[BYMONEK]

Seaman

Have you heard of a wonderful idea called 'Letting'. It's a process whereby someone pays YOU to live in your house back home thus paying your mortgage for you and avoiding the hassle of having to send your OWN money home. This cushions the blow of having to 'survive' on only $5,000 a month and makes it less of a hardship!

p.s Cyclone not included but if you're into saving money, York is cheaper...........so i've heard......

[Andu]

Cerberus is correct, trot, females can get themselves a visa to work here if they can find a company willing to sponsor them. It's also true that many unmarried Westerners cohabit here. The local authorities treat the situation very much the way the military used to treat homosexuals - "if you don't tell us, we won’t ask.” But don’t kid yourself that they won’t know.

However, as a new joiner with EK, it's important that you understand that as far as EK will be concerned, if you ain’t churched, with legally notated documentation to prove it, your partner and her/your children simply will not exist. (And neither will any child you have that exceeds number three, but that’s another story.) Even if your girlfriend can find a sponsor, (usually an employer), to get a residence visa, she and the kids may be able to live with you, (the apartments are usually pretty roomy), but EK won’t cover them for education, medical or annual leave tickets home or subload travel. Without coverage in those three areas, expect to live a VERY frugal life even if coming as a DEC. On an FO’s salary, I’d say forget it, unless your girlfriend’s package is at least as good as yours. But if that’s the case, she’ll be working full time, and for most expats here, full time is just that – usually many hours of overtime (almost always unpaid), and a killing work schedule even without the overtime. I think I could safely say that the hours and the work load demanded by most companies here of managerial grade staff make what we EK pilots complain about pale into insignificance.

Some have already mentioned the traffic. It’s got to the point now where you have to make allowance for travelling time between points even quite close to each other. Maybe those of us who’ve been here a long time have forgotten how horrible the traffic is in major cities in the West. Dubai strives to outdo the West in most things, and in some ways has succeeded. Certainly over the last year or so, it has caught up with the worst examples of traffic gridlock you’re likely to see anywhere in the world, with the added ‘extra’ of young locals roaring past said gridlocks at near sonic speeds on the hard shoulder to cut in at the head of the queue, and depending on how many (or more accurately, how few) digits they have on their number plates, remaining virtually untouchable in doing so.

Back to the married/unmarried question: some others might correct me, but from friends I’ve known here, I think I could safely say that quite a few long term unmarried couples have trotted off to the registry office or the local parson immediately before coming here because they’ve seen that it was the only option.

I’d agree with the suggestion that a quick visit here, maybe a few days ahead of your interview, will answer many such questions far more clearly than any number of questions posted here or elsewhere on the Net. Don’t let the negative comments sway you, but if you have kids, be prepared to be living pretty close to the line, if not biting into your savings, for the first year or two – or three, until you get your command.

[bigilla]

Cerberus, fair enough. After some thought (very rare of me nowadays) I have to agree, although I still think it would be more difficult for her than it would be for a guy, unless she's qualified as something that is in great, immediate demand here in DXB.

Andu, waiting for a command for, one, two or maybe three years is somewhat unrealistic, don't you think? Unless Trot has accelerated command requirements that is.

cheers
Big Illa

[expatcdn]

life in dubai

dont take the company furniture.....the amount you get in cash...use it to buy furniture....you can get some really good stuff

[flyboy519]

expatcdn ....

That is true, there are some excellent furniture places here in dubai. But be warned, if you take the money, the first day you show up at your place, there will be NOTHING in your apartment ( no beds, no drapes, no kitchen stuff, nothing ). So, if you have a friend who is here, and you can bunk in with him, take the money and buy furniture here.

FB519