Dubai Sunrise

Today we had to get up a 3:00am because we had booked a desert sunrise 4 wheel drive trip.

We met our guide as planned along with a German couple off our ship, then picked up two more people at a hotel. The vehicle was a large 7 seater however got cozy with all adults on board!

We drove for about an hour, leaving the state of Dubai and entering into [name]. The highway was 6 lanes wide (each direction) in some parts, and 10 lanes wide in others! It was dark the whole way and with little traffic, we made good time.

We took a side road off the highway, and drove for about 5 minutes. This rode was one lane each way and some sections were very sandy.

Suddenly our driver asked us to hold on, and he veered off the road into the desert. Within seconds we had left civilisation behind, and were driving over sand dunes in the darkness.

We parked up in a flat area and were soon joined by a few other vehicles from the same company.

Here they laid out blankets and cushions for us all to sit on, very comfortable, and offered us a light breakfast of coffee (which did not taste like coffee thankfully), dates, fruits, and juices.

We all sat quietly and enjoyed watching the sun rise, a very peaceful occasion.

A falconer joined us to show us a falcon up close, and we were able to hold it. I was amazed how little it weighed.

He explained how falcons hunt, and how they use them for sport, and how they care for them. Did you know falcons travel in planes with people, and have their own passport?

The falcon was then let loose to fly around us and "hunt" by him swinging meat on a long piece of rope. The bird would swoop down at around 80 km/h and almost touch the ground as it went for the lure. As the desert was silent, we would hear the birds wings in the air. A most incredible demonstration. Eventually the bird was allowed to catch the food and then sait happily on the falconer's hand eating.

Next we had free time to wander around the desert. The sand was incredibly fine and soft and as I walked up a dune my shoes will up with sand but it felt like water. Here from up high I saw critters in the sand, but was able to take in a 360 degree view of the desert dunes.

Here's Helen enjoying the morning.

Once it was time to leave, we were unexpectedly taken for a drive over the dunes. It started out slow, then suddenly we were driving at steep angles (both sideways and up/down). It was very scary at times, we all were concerned the vehicle would roll over but the driver knew what he was doing. Besides, the vehicle had a roll cage inside.

Helen took a video and here's a few stills from that.

This was incredibly fun and after 20 minutes of driving, everyone was left with an adrenaline buzz. Luckily nobody got car sick but some of us were getting close!

The drive back was slow, when we re-joined the highway we had peak-hour traffic to contend with. Many people live outside Dubai and drive in to work every day. Hence why the highway is 10 lanes wide.

We returned to the ship about 8:00am, having had a most fun morning. By now most people were leaving the ship heading off on their excursions.

We stayed on the ship, had a swim and generally relaxed, and then sailed just after midday.

Farewall Dubai, we enjoyed the visit.

Dubai by Day

Today, having only one hours sleep due to broken air-conditioning in our room overnight, the alarm went off and could not be ignored. We were expected to front up at 7:30am upstairs and get a new ship pass card for our second cruise itinerary and have our photos taken again.

With formalities complete, we went back to the Big Bus and started our day adventure. We firstly shuttled to Dubai Mall, taking a different route to yesterday as we picked up another bus driver for the same company on the way. Once at Dubai Mall, we changed on to a different bus.

The route we took went out towards Jumeirah Beach and the 7-Star Burj Al Arab hotel and the sprawling Souk Madinat, what appeared to me a massive shopping centre. We didn't get off at these destinations, I just snapped photos on the way past, but instead we went to Mall of the Emirates.

Here the mall was nice and quiet, not crowded, and most importantly air-conditioned!

We spent a couple of hours here looking around, found some lunch, and visited a huge supermarket (actually called a hypermarket) where we stocked up on bottled water and a few cans of drink to put in our cabin fridge. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Helen ended up lugging a bag of heavy bottles around for the rest of the day.

Only in Dubai do we see people carrying snowboards and ski boots through the mall. This is because of the indoor ski slope in the mall. We caught a glimpse of this through a viewing window.

The mall also has a large amusement arcade, containing some traditional games along with high-tech video games.

During the couple of hours we were here, the mall became very crowded and navigating our way became more difficult than when we arrived. We then returned to our bus, where we had to wait about 10 minutes in the 30 degree heat before the bus arrived. From here, we returned to Dubai Mall to hop on another bus to visit Old Dubai.

This bus route took us around the Dubai Creek and the old town. This entire area felt more authentic and interesting than Dubai's skyscrapers and freeways but was certainly not as clean in parts.

Here we saw boats being used to transport all manner of goods from food to kitchen appliances.

We also took a walk through the Arabian Old Souk, with shops full of spices, aromatics, skarves and more. Every shop salesman harrassed us to stop and shop in their stall. Constant call-outs of "come look in my shop", "where are you from?" and "hey big boss!" got tiring after a while. It's their culture, but very off-putting to us and even stopping to browse was difficult.

Once back outside, we saw various boats taking people across the creek for 1 Durham, as well as larger boats taking people up and down the creek.

Back on the bus, we passed by a large construction site. Here we saw how Dubai has become what it is. Many ex-patriots, mainly from the likes of India and Pakistan, working in the blistering heat. Also their transport buses are very basic with no air-conditioning. Sometimes we forget how fortunate we are.

We also saw air-conditioned bus stops, very common across Dubai.

Eventually our tour returned to Dubai Mall again. Here we had a choice of waiting to see the fountain show, which would require waiting an hour or more, or returning to the ship for a swim. We decided to take the swim! We are on holiday after all. So we promptly got a shuttle bus back to the ship.

Here's our ship, Spectrum of the Seas, as usual can't fit all of her in one photo as she's too big.

We took in some entertainment on board and got an early night, ready for an early start tomorrow.

Dubai by Night

Today we sailed into Dubai around 2pm. As this was the end of one cruise itinerary, and the start of another, we had specific procedures to follow including getting our passports returned so we could clear immigration. Apart from having to wait a couple of hours, which we passed by watching TV, this was a painless procedure and leaving the ship to enter Dubai took all of about 10 minutes with no queuing.

The sort 100 metre walk from ship to cruise terminal was hot, with afternoon sun blazing and temperature over 30 degrees. Once inside the terminal, we briefly connected to free WiFi, then we headed out for our first Dubai adventure.

We had booked the Big Bus (hop-on, hop-off) and tonight we had planned to do their night tour which started at Dubai Mall. We expected to have to find our own way there, using the free mall shuttle which there was a long line for. As it turned out, Big Bus had a shuttle also, so we activated our tickets and jumped on board.

The ride through Port Rashid is interesting. We passed the Queen Elizabeth 2 hotel, which is the old cruise ship now permanently based here and refurbished as a hotel, with the old life boats lined up on land as an interesting feature in the otherwise industrial landscape.

We also saw thousands of new cars lined up, freshly delivered by sea and ready to be sold in UAE.

Certainly here we got a different perspective than arriving in Dubai by plane.

The drive to the Dubai Mall was slow, as traffic was very heavy. We had front row seats upstairs in an air-conditioned section so this was a great start to our evening.

Once at Dubai Mall, we learned how to catch the night bus. We had about 1.5 hours to spare. We used this time to wander through the mall in amazement of its size, and also how busy it was.

We eventually found our way to the food court, our first opportunity to eat land-based food in 5 days. The food court was enormous, featuring every possible name brand you can imagine plus many, many more. There were seats everywhere but very busy. After much wandering around and hovering over people, we nabbed a table and then one at a time went to found something to eat.

The mall WiFi was free to use, and fast. I had my laptop in my backpack with the express purpose of doing some blog updates, so used this opportunity to upload the previous few blogs. This took about an hour after which we meandered back to the night bus.

We intentionally arrived at the night bus 30 minutes early, as seats were strictly limited and first-come, first served. This required sitting out in the heat, although by now it was dark outside. Lucky we arrived when we did, soon the line was long and many missed out.

The bus was very late leaving, around 7:45pm by the time we were moving. The tour book about 2 hours and drove around all the main sites of Dubai. We were sitting upstairs in an open top, again front row, so no air-conditioning but a great view. At night, everything is lit up and sparkles in the night air. We saw many exotic cars such as Bently, Rolls Royce and Ferrari. Friday night traffic was very heavy, especially around the city centre. Here are a few photos from a night time perspective.

Air-conditioned walkways between buildings...

Heavy traffic...

Al Kazim Towers...

Tunnels under The Palm...

Atlantis The Palm hotel...

Monorail station...

Bently car dealership...

The Dubai Frame, which you can go inside and walk along the glass floor 150m up...

We were returned to ship by bus, another bonus as we expected to have to catch a taxi so late at night. We went to bed late to find the air-conditioning in our cabin was not cooling properly. Well actually I had reported it twice that morning to maintenance but nobody had been to fix it. We didn't sleep a wink until 3:00am when I walked down to Guest Services to complain. They got come poor maintenance person out of bed, but he did improve it and we ended up only getting one hour sleep. The joys of a new ship!

Sea Days

We have spent the last five days at sea, on our way from Aqaba to Dubai. This is a long way to go!

We passed through pirate territories which was interesting. For 3 nights, many outside lights were turned off and we had to keep the curtains closed in our cabins. The ship was essentially in blackout. Also we were not allowed outside on the lower decks. We raced along at a steady 22.1 knots.

On the first day in pirate territory, while we were having breakfast, we passed by a very run down looking blue ship, unusally close to us. Next thing we slowed to a stop. A large rubber dinghy approached us with many men and equipment on board. It came alongside then quickly left and returned to the blue ship with only two men remaining. We can only assume we had picked up some "security" people from this brief rendevous.

Needless to say, we didn't see any "Pirates of the Caribbean" and otherwise about our business. It has been five relaxing days of sleeping, swimming, dining, watching lives shows including comedians, magicians, singers, dancers and more.

Here are a few random photos from around the ship during this time.

Showgirls...

Piano man, he moves around the ship playing his mobile piano, which he wheels around, including in the glass elevators...

Bar singers...

Music acts...

Taking a ride in the North Star, a gondola located near the bow, that lifts us high above the ship giving us sweeping 360 degrees views of both the ship and the ocean...

Selfies...

An aeriel view of the captain's table right in the centre of the main dining room, ready for dinner (I wonder why we were not invited to attend !?!?!??)

Towel art, left on our bed most nights when we return to the cabin after seeing a show...

Sweeties (let's face it, they are more photogenic than savouries as well as nicer to eat!)...

The Captain explaining stuff to us on the TV...

Bionic bar, where robots can mix you a drink (for a cost, of course!)

Next stop, Dubai. There we have two nights in port, however due to immigration requirements we have learned we will have less time ashore than anticipated.