Blogs from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Middle East - page 10

Geo: 25.116, 55.2007Stayed the night in Auckland at the Novotel Airport hotel, they very nicely gave us a late checkout until 6pm at no extra charge so we got to spend the day chilling out - our room is in the perfect position for people and plane watching. Spent an interesting half hour watching a family - mum, dad, baby, grandma and grandad trying to fit themselves, their bags and about 8 boxes, ranging in size from 60 inch tv to a standard square carton into their average size station wagon. Entertaining as hell, bags in, one box in, bags out, 3 boxes in, baby in, baby out...... repeat, repeat, same outcome, mum and dad gesturing and arguing, grandad has a turn, dad walking away, coming back, whole dance starts again, till finally he rings someone ... read more

Geo: 25.27, 55.33Fantasia docks back in Dubai a little after 8am today. Luckily we don't have to get off until tomorrow. True our coach pick up time is 4am on Saturday morning for our 7.30 flight to Manchester but we won't worry about that now.We have an excursion planned for this morning and so we shower breakfast and head down to the theatre. Tickets in hand we head outside to meet our coach and tour guide Miriam. She is slightly bonkers but a great guide nonetheless. We leave the port and head southwards to the Jumeriah area (Jumeriah means flame in Arabic). Our first stop is the worlds first 7 star hotel the Burj Al Arab with its iconic and world famous sail design. Miriam regales with details of its construction and other gems of information. ... read more

Saturday March 4 Today was the start of our first vacation together since October. I somehow managed to convince Jeroen that we should go to the Middle East, despite his fears of flying and of sticking out in a crowd. We had to get up early, as our train to the airport in Zurich departed at 8:30am. I got up at 6:00am so I wasn’t so rushed, and of course so I’d have a little time to spend with the cats before we left. Luckily we have great neighbors that would take care of them while we were away. I saw some students from school at the train station, getting on the same train to the airport. One of them was also on our flight to Dubai. It was about a six hour flight, and Jeroen ... read more

Geo: 25.27, 55.33The cruise terminal like the airport is modern and spacious and we are soon walking up the ramp to board Fantasia. We head to the Zanzibar Buffet on deck 14 for some breakfast as it is still only 9.30. We then have a few hour to kill before our cabin is ready at 1pm. Seems the whole ship had overnight flights as people are asleep everywhere. On sun loungers, chairs and various sofas through the ship. We find a quiet spot to snooze for an hour or so before heading to our cabin just before 1pm.We are cabin 12223 which is situated on the Incanto deck. The cabin is very similar to the cabin we had on Splendida except the balcony on this one is much larger and deeper. We unpack and again we ... read more

I didn’t know what to feel when I announced that I am going on a trip to Dubai over the Summer holidays. The truth is Dubai has never been anywhere near my travel radar, which is why I had no idea what to expect. So it’s a bit ironic (in a good way) that I come home declaring it as one of my favourite cities I’ve ever visited so far. And while that statement might come into question if I ever get to experience the Arabian summer, the Dubai during the cold season was certainly perfect! I’ve been thinking long and hard on how I would go about writing my Dubai travel blog posts. It took me a couple of months as you can see. We dropped by A LOT of places— and by dropped by ... read more