The Umrah questions thread

As the title says, I recently went for Umrah over the winter holidays and it was such a beautiful and eye-opening experience, but at the same time there were things that surprised me/were quite different to what I expected, especially compared to what I had previously heard myself from others online. For this reason, I figured I'd make a thread on here so that anyone who is planning on going soon can ask questions from someone who has had a very recent experience and Insha Allah I can share some insights/tips from my trip. Of course I do not claim to be an expert, and my experience may well differ from those of others but hopefully this can still benefit someone, even if it's just one person.
For context, in case it's relevant to any questions, I am a 19yo South Asian girl living in the UK and I went with my family for a week in December.

Also if anyone else has been recently please feel free to answer any questions and share your experiences as well so that others can benefit from as much information as possible :smile:

(P.S. Please refrain from posting on this thread if you are not Muslim as this thread is to help Muslims prepare for pilgrimage, not to start a debate. Any trolls or Islamophobic comments will be reported. Thank you.)