Some questions

Congratulations on your new job!

1) The company does not pay for pet shipping, it is on the employee. If your pet with carrier is under 18lbs (each airline has guidelines) you can carry them in the cabin with you - for a fee.
For larger pets, as long as you are not in the banned time of year because of temperature in the cargo hold/sitting on the tarmac, you can bring them as checked baggage when you come.

2) Furniture is rented about 3 months or until your shipment arrives. Rent is not alot. Don't know dryer rent but:
We rent a washer for $22/month (ours went belly up). Most people end up purchasing their own or bring them in their shipment. Washer and Dryers are available locally with minimal selection choices.
Two bedside tables are $3+/month for example.

3) Yes, if the cell phone is unlocked you can use it here.

We've been in Dhahran since summer. We were not able to bring our cat with us due to the summer heat embargo for pets either as "excess baggage" or as cargo. To fly her with us in the cabin on KLM, the KLM agent told me we could only do this in coach class, not business class. Flying with three kids, we were not excited about opportunity to go transAtlantic with three kids and a potentially yowly, smelly cat (if she freaked and had an accident in her carrier) in coach class. We considered breaking the family up and having just one of us sit in coach with the cat, but that was a no-go for us personally. Lufthansa told us that the cat could not fly in the cabin or as excess baggage, that for Dammam airport, all pets on their airline have to be flown in as manifested cargo. So like I said, we were not able to bring her with us when we came. Our cat is currently staying with family in the States, and we're planning to ship her solo as cargo in the spring, after the winter cold embargo is lifted. Getting an import permit for her will be a hassle though. I've been told we have to go to some obscure office in Dammam. Not looking forward to that errand.

Re: cell phones. There have been many comments about cell phones and using them in KSA. If you do a Google search with key words like Aramco, unlocked cell phone, etc., you'll likely bring up many posts. Our family's experience is that our unlocked Blackberry and Androids are NOT usable here, as we could not get a SIM card to work with them, and in fact, in a couple of the phone stores at the malls, the salesclerks turned their noses up at our Androids and said they didn't have anything to help us. We think it was a case of them wanting to sell us their own pricey models. Who knows. With the BB, the SIM card we were sold and were told would work, did not. We gave up and bought cheapie pay-as-you-go local phones for talk/text, and will use our smart phones only when back in the States (we kept our US plan).

We brought our two large dogs as cargo on KLM last Dec. Company doesn't do anything for you but it isn't hard to do just a lot of paperwork. PM if you need guidance on the process.

Thank you, azraeil. This is really helpful.
I brought the Palm Pixi Plus GSM with WebOS from amazon:
www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005BE ... 00_details

It runs on the 850/900/1800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE frequencies as well as AT&T's dual-band 3G network (850/1900 MHz; HSDPA/UMTS).

I do not need a fancy cell phone. This one will do the job for me.

Carolina,

I have a cat he's very edgy and file. I wonder which one is the airline to avoid. Also any Canadian experiences with cats to KSA? Thanks.

airlines to stay away... I can't let anything happen to my pet...

Hi Carolina,

Can you please pm me on airline to avoid to travel with pet? I have a yorkshire terrier extremely delicate and nervous type in unknown circumstances! Am waiting for a revised offer!

Regards,
Kol61