While most racing enthusiasts had a great time at Nad Al Sheba, many others complained at the long delays suffered. Following is a selection of readers' response on the Gulf News website:
How sad that the bulk of spectators were left queuing in the sun for hours before they could enter International Village? It was so bad - and no water was available - that before I keeled over from heat stroke we decided to go home! The tickets ordered online, we later found out, were to be collected from the parking spot we had just left on a shuttle bus, which happened to be the fifth one we waited for as they were always full up! And then to find that we had to go back to the kilometre-long queue - no thank you!
Christine Curtis, UAE
The horses were awesome and the show was fantastic. But the shuttle system that was totally chaotic. It was a stampede when the spectators were leaving. There were only two policemen and a few 'traffic marshals' who were doing anything but controlling the crowd. There were children, women, senior citizens, and a man on a wheelchair and then there were others who would just push and do anything to get on the bus. The marshals were unable to control them. It took about one hour for the people who were actually patiently waiting in a queue to get a ride in the bus, to reach the parking area. Hope it is better next year.
Sheetal Mantri, UAE
We arrived at 4.30pm, having queued for one hour to get into the car park. We went straight to the information desk where we were told that we would have to go to the 'remote car park' to collect our tickets. Why the collection point was not next to the entrance is beyond me. We then queued for over an hour in the baking sun with no refreshments to collect our tickets, as there were only two people handing them out to the thousands that had come to collect them. We then had to queue to get a bus back to the stadium. The driver did not know the way back to the stadium and had to wait for an escort. We finally arrived outside the venue at 7pm. The queue to get in was huge. Officials told us that the waiting time was approximately two hours. At that point we decided to head home, as we wouldn't have made it inside till 9pm despite having arrived at 4.30pm. It was a total waste of time and money.
Jenny, UAE
After three years of happily attending the Dubai World Cup and experiencing smooth and enjoyable evenings, I am saddened to say that our purchased e-tickets were not used. It was due to the lack of organisation at the venue. Having purchased our tickets online, nobody at the venue could accurately tell us where we had to go to pick up our actual tickets - the instructions were not written on the e-receipt. We arrived at gate three, and the people at the door had no idea where we had to go. The organisation was a disaster, and we left three hours into our ordeal without having even entered.
Walid Zabaneh, UAE
It was excruciatingly embarrassing to have to put my overseas guests through the shambles. We gave up after a two-hour traffic queue followed by a further two hours in a non-moving pedestrian queue. Organisation that poor is totally unforgivable.
John Hoyle, UAE
We arrived in the car park at around 3.30pm after fighting our way there in traffic. We then had to fight to get on to the shuttle buses, as the taxis couldn't drop off people at the gates. Once you got to the gates, you had to queue once again to get in. The line must have snaked for at least a kilometre.
Adam Loosely, UAE
