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.