Last chapter--Dubai

We had 3 days in Dubai, one with the ship and two on our own.  Day one took us on a tour of the city, mostly through the "modern" parts of town--less than 15 years old.  City is interesting as it is spread out with clusters of high rises here and there, often grouped by type of business.  We shopped at the modern souk with lovely shops and local artifacts.  Our purchase was a Dubai Starbucks mug!  Oh well.  The highlight of this trip was seeing the Burj Al Arab Hotel.  The beautiful building built to look like a sail.  You need reservations to get to the building so we were glad we were having high tea there.  The interior is quite contemporary with fountains, aquariums and is gold and royal blue in color.  It is triangular in shape on the inside.  High tea was on the 27th floor which was really the 54th as every floor is a duplex--202 suites smallest is 1800 sq feet, largest is 8400.  It is built on an island.  Tea was good but the view, architecture, and design were the special parts of the visit.

Last night on the ship, dinner in the main dining room, packing and saying goodbye to new friends.  Disembarkation was at 8:30 am and we were off on our own adventures.  Taxi to the hotel--upgraded to a two bedroom suite with a view of the city and the Dubai Creek.

Went to the mall of the Emirates to see the indoor ski slope--chair life, bobsledding, tobogganing all in the desert in a silver dome of sorts.  Real snow, they loan you the jacket, pants, skis et al....for a mere 200+ dollars.  The mall was huge, did we tell you this is the city known for shopping.  Roamed for a while and then went to the Gold Souk in the old part of Dubai.  On any given day there are 10 tons of gold on display in the windows.  Holy smokes.  We looked by came hope empty handed.  Sue was tempted but having turned over a new leaf....

Back to the hotel for a rest before hitting the attached shopping mall--festival city mall, the third largest in Dubai--over 370 stores and 90 restaurants built on the creek.  Every shop you can imagine is here in one or another of the malls.  Columbia to Prada. And if you walk out the other end of the mall you will find IKEA and an ACE hardware the size of a walmart store.

Today we had ressies to go up the Burj Khalifa tower.  Tallest building with longest single stage elevator with the fastest rise.  163 floors, we went to 124, the highest occupied floor is 154 with offices.  830 meters tall with 27 terraces.  It is a y shaped building.  Fairly clear day so the view was amazing.  The buildings below looked like models in our pictures.  Spent time in the mall--found the Harley store and the suitcase store so all is well.  Lunch at Potbelly and a short fountain show.  Back to the hotel for time to blog, shower and late check out before out 10 pm flight tonight.  It has been fun to share our trip with you.  While we loved to travel, Dorothy had it right, there is no place like home.

Nancy and Sue