| Kippreport.com

Kipp rides the Dubai Metro

September 10, 2009 12:25 by Aarti Nagraj

The ride was great. The train was slower than we expected, and there were “operational problems” during the journey. But the overall experience was good.

Kipp started at the Khalid Bin Waleed underground station (popularly known as the BurJuman station), which was not as crowded as we expected. There were a lot of curious onlookers at the ticket counter, who didn’t seem  keen on using the metro, but were just trying to be part of the whole first day experience.

There were several counters to buy tickets, and the process is very simple. A single one-way ticket to Mall of The Emirates costs AED4.50, but buying a ticket for the first time costs AED2 extra.

The station looks huge, and in typical Dubai style, it has gaudy chandeliers. The walls have the traditional images of Dubai, like abras on the creek.  Directions to reach the train are clear and on the platform, there is a separate place for Gold class passengers to get onboard the metro.

Even as Kipp arrived at the platform, there were announcements that trains were delayed because of operational reasons. However, hardly two minutes later, our train zoomed in, and many confused passengers got onto the train.

As the train started, the notice board announced that our next destination would be Rashidiya (from where the train had started), and everyone was looking at each other and wondering what was going on. But soon two staff members came round and informed everyone that the system was having problems, and assured us that it was going to Mall of the Emirates.

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Tags: delay, Dubai metro, gold class, safety, stations, view