A WEDDING, a flood, and a Dubai princess: Erone Fitzpatrick has quite the story to tell.

In her first AFLW off season, while rehabilitating a torn ACL, Fitzpatrick had a strange old experience on the other side of the world.

The plan was to always stay in Australia that off season. Fitzpatrick had committed to her AFLW career and, ACL or not, was going to immerse herself in the culture and continue her footy education.

But her sister Chloe was getting married back in Ireland for which Fitzpatrick, and other sister Àine needed to briefly return home. They were joined by Àine's partner Ken, and Fitzpatrick's close friend Laurna.

Flights were booked – 14 hours to Dubai, then eight to Dublin – and everything was going smoothly. But it didn't take long for a snag in the plan to present itself.

"We got to Melbourne Airport, and lucky we had our bridesmaids' dresses in our carry on, it was actually my sister's boyfriend who was like 'you should put your bridesmaids' dresses in your carry on, just in case, you never know what could happen', and thank god we did," Fitzpatrick told AFL.com.au.

"When we landed in Dubai, we were like, 'Huh?' It was a ghost town, but like, there were people laid out sleeping but there were no airport staff. We asked some of the people who were lying there, and they said they'd been there for two days, so we started panicking.

"I was like, 'I can't sleep on the floor', and we were getting ahead of ourselves."

Fitzpatrick realised that some food would help their calm heads return, ready to come up with a plan so as to make the wedding on time.

But at that time, they had no clue why flights were grounded.

"Walking around the airport there were people lying on cardboard boxes, it looked like a disaster relief zone, it was crazy, it was so bizarre, every seat was taken up, people were just scattered," Fitzpatrick explained.

"We found out it was a flood by talking to people around the airport, and it wasn't that planes couldn't take off, but they just couldn't get the staff to the airport because everyone was trapped in their houses. We learned all of this in the space of four or five hours."

In fact, the United Arab Emirates had just experienced its heaviest rainfall in 75 years and, among other implications, 1244 flights were cancelled. One of those being Fitzpatrick's connecting flight to Dublin.

"Eventually we were told we were going to have to queue up for a new flight and we were in that line for about eight hours, and as we got about three people from the front my sister's boyfriend just said 'oh, I think my aunt knows the princess of Dubai'," Fitzpatrick recalled with an incredulous tone.

"I looked at him and I was like 'Are you serious? You're just sharing that now?' We'd been there for about 12 hours, and it took him that long to remember. So, he texted his aunt to see if she could get us in contact and we stayed in the line. We were about three people from the front, the end was near, we had some hope finally."

In a strange turn of events, Ken was right. His aunt, Elaine, worked alongside the Princess in London and they had become friends in that time, with Elaine catching up with the Princess whenever she had a layover in Dubai.

And the Princess came through.

"Within half an hour we had our details for a connecting flight and a text back from the Princess' assistant, so everything was like 'Hallelujah'," Fitzpatrick said.

"She said, 'Be ready in 10 minutes, we're coming to pick you up', so we were like 'Oh my god yay' and then we looked at ourselves and said, 'We can't go meet her like this'."

They hadn't changed or showered in more than 24 hours – the 14 hours on the plane, and 12 hours waiting at the airport. But it didn't matter. The assistant picked the quartet up and took them to a slick hotel with a view of the city like no other.

"This was posh, and you know me, I'm not posh. I was like 'what's going on? How did we get here? This is just crazy'," Fitzpatrick laughed.

"We got to have a shower and a nap, then she picked us up again to go for dinner, but on the way, she stopped at a shopping centre to buy us clothes because we had nothing but what we were wearing and the dresses."

The generosity didn't end there, Dinner was all paid for and a stopover at a souvenir store on the way back to the hotel to get some gifts for their families was on the agenda.

"Then in the morning, she picked us up again to take us back to the airport for our flight that we'd been rebooked on with about 50 bottles of water, she kept telling us to stay hydrated. She stayed at the airport until we texted her from on the plane to make sure we were okay," Fitzpatrick said.

While they never ended up meeting the Princess herself – she was heavily pregnant and about to give birth to her first child – they were well looked after in her stead.

They eventually made it to Ireland with a day to spare before the wedding. Luckily, the decision to keep the dresses in the carry-on proved the right one, with Laurna's luggage not arriving with them on the Emerald Isle. Just another layer to the strange trip.

And while it was less than ideal to arrive to a flooded Dubai on a timeclock to make her sister's wedding, it ended up being a fun story to share.

"A bad thing had turned into actually a cool experience," Fitzpatrick chuckled.