Moving belongings/school books to the UAE

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uvwxyz
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 4:26 pm

Moving belongings/school books to the UAE

Post by uvwxyz »

Good morning/afternoon,
I am going to move from Europe to the UAE this summer and I am desperately looking for some information from teachers who did go through this. I read that it is advised not to ship any schools books as they can be held at the customs and worse case scenario, I will never see them again. Could you please advise on this and tell me which company you have used to move your belongings.
Thank you very much
PsyGuy
Posts: 10849
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

Response

Post by PsyGuy »

Bring your books as extra baggage, you dont want to ship anything even remotely controversial.
uvwxyz
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 4:26 pm

Re: Moving belongings/school books to the UAE

Post by uvwxyz »

I expected a lot more replies as I am sure I am not the only one in that situation ... so thank you very much PsyGuy for your answer. Very much appreciated
mamava
Posts: 320
Joined: Sat May 11, 2013 7:56 am

Re: Moving belongings/school books to the UAE

Post by mamava »

I would agree--ME customs can be picky and if they see something they don't like (or worse, something they're not familiar with), the shipment can get held and you pay until it's released. In your checked baggage, anything that gets a 2nd look will at most be taken from you. Often, you can talk and explain what it is and what you need it for and it will go through.

Books are heavy--we use one of our carryons since they don't get weighed and we can get about 45 pounds into one of them and then carry it on the plane with us. Only once did someone notice that the way we were pulling the bag indicated its weight, but they took it and made us check it instead of carrying it on--which was fine, since it didn't count as one of the officially checked bags.
vandsmith
Posts: 348
Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2014 12:16 am

Re: Moving belongings/school books to the UAE

Post by vandsmith »

i never had a problem with bringing "controversial" items in or out of the country but like others have said, you'll likely lose it. things that will be taken away include israeli stuff and anything that looks like you're going to distribute it in large quantities, e.g. bibles, missionary crap...

books could be flagged and certain sections redacted with black marker...but i never had this happen. chances are if they get through, and you use any controversial (read israeli or LGTBQ) stuff in class, you'll hear about it ASAP. the maps in the UAE are sold preloaded with a black mark where israel normal is, and any book used by schools is to be approved by the government/ministry before use...

may i suggest scanning whatever you want to bring over instead?

good luck!

v.
PsyGuy
Posts: 10849
Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2011 9:51 am
Location: Northern Europe

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Post by PsyGuy »

@uvwxyz

This has been asked and written about before. Either ship your books and risk losing them without any opportunity to explain or walk them across in baggage and at worst you loose an item instead of the whole shipment (which you will still pay for).
twoteachers
Posts: 120
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2014 9:15 pm

Re: Moving belongings/school books to the UAE

Post by twoteachers »

Do NOT ship anything you may need to start school with. You will get nothing until your Emirates ID gets through. I didn't get mine until October. They are very strict about what you can get and not get until your residency card comes through. I had no problems with what got shipped though. I used Asian Tigers.
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