What Floor is it On - the 58th ? Yikes !

I love the serviced Hotel Apartment Jeff and I have lived in since we arrived in Dubai, but it time to move.
Some of my friends say, "are you crazy, you have everything done for you" - " you never have to lift a finger".  OK ,I agree, I am a little crazy to give all of this pampering up. More than anything, I really want my own place and need to be able to make it our own.

Apartment shopping in Dubai is not an easy task. It is literally a full time job and tries your every nerve.
If I even tried to explain some of the crazy rules of apartment leasing you would never understand, so I will not bore you with all of that. But I will say, that landlords would prefer to have their apartments sit empty then lower the price even the slightest and be realistic, in the ball park. The apartments will be left to sit empty for a year or more, until eventually someone will come along and pay the price they want. Makes no sense to me.

Question #1: Should we rent an apartment or a villa?
We choose apartment. Villa's are too big for only two people and if I had a villa I would want to fill it up with lots of "stuff" and furniture. I already have a house full of "stuff" in the US, I don't need another one.
I have lived in a house my whole married life. Lets do something different.

Question #2: Should we look for our new apartment on the sea side or desert side ?
Another hard decision but the sea side won. It is more expensive to live on the sea side and you don't get as big a place for the  money  but if you  get an apartment with a sea or marina view -stunning ! Another plus is having the beaches close. The sea side also puts you closer to the heart of Dubai, all the action.

Question #3 Is the new apartment close to Jeff's employment ?
We decided to stay close to Jeff's employment on the sea side. Traffic at 6:00 is ridiculous and if you are too far away or have to travel on Sheikh Zayed, getting home can be impossible.

The field is getting more narrow....and the winner is ...

We picked the Dubai Marina Area.

The first time we laid our eyes on the Dubai Marina area, we fell in love.

Above is a picture of some of the skyscrapers in the marina or "towers" as they are called in Dubai.
Our new home is the tallest in the picture - the Princess Tower. The Princess Tower also wears a crown.  How about that ? I am going to live in a tower that wears a crown everyday.

Our agent took us to the Princess Tower, newly opened and currently claims the official Guinness Book of  World Record as the tallest residential tower in the world. Wow, I am impressed and as you can see it is very tall.

The lobby was impressive and the number of elevators - there were many ! With 101 residential floors, they need a lot of elevators. Nimfa said, "we need the elevator that will take us to the 58th floor."

Did I hear her correctly, the 58th floor ? ! That is so high from ground level. Did I tell her I was a little nervous about heights? I must have forgotten to mention that little fact about me.

Here we go. The elevator was so fast, our ears popped as it rushed to the 58th floor.

I asked the agent - "if we have a fire, then what?" She replied so calmly , "you would take the stairs'. OK then, no problem , 58 flights of stairs, I can do that as I consider myself to be fairly fit. She continued, "the building is made of cement - it will burn slow". Oh , I thought , that really does not comfort me any better.

The apartment is charming, the kitchen has all new stainless steel appliances - no one as lived it this apartment before - the view is unbelievable. The view is of the sea and the Palm Jumeirah . As residents we have access to a function room on the 97th floor that we can use for parties, as well as countless other amenities. One of our favorite places in Dubai, the Marina, is a short 2 minute walk. Am I dreaming ? Pinch me now.

We will move in @ 1 week and could not be happier. I feel like we are living in the clouds - wait, I will be.  But will I ever have another chance to live on the 58th floor of the tallest residential building in the world? Probably not !

We now have a second bedroom, with a bathroom . Soon to be open for visitors...any takers? You now have a place to stay.