Dubai, UAE Friday

Got up at 6 this morning. Why? I have no idea. But we woke up, so we got up. Decided to go to the beach this morning. But on our way out we stopped to talk with the concierge. Christian Aoun was so very helpful. We got booked on a desert safari for late Friday afternoon. He also booked our tickets for the observation deck of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, for Saturday afternoon. He then proceeded to book us a car for Sunday morning to take us to the airport. I know he was only doing his job but he was very pleasant, ready with suggestions, and a quick wit. So with the day scheduled we were off to the beach. But wait, Christian provided us with towels and a bottle of water each to take with us. Nice thing to do for us. Thanks Marriott.

We took a taxi to the beach. Cost was about 15 Dirham. Rented a cabana for the day, have to do that even if you are only going to use it a couple of hours. It was also much less than renting 4 beach

chairs and we were all close together. Here's the three "bathing" beauties I was with. We lounged around for a number of hours at the beach, went wading (Melanie swam), had a drink or milk shake and enjoyed the morning just relaxing. We had lunch a  delightful Turkish restaurant called Tike. We ate outside even though it was hot. How hot was it? Just a cool 41C. That's 105F for the conversion challenged. But it would turn out that 41C was "cool" compared to temps later in the day.

We got picked up about 3:30 in the afternoon for our desert safari. There were already 2 ladies from Moscow in the Land Rover when we were picked up. The vehicle was very comfortable. It took a

long time to get to our destination and there was a lot of waiting here and there as we went. The best part of the safari was the dune bashing. Driving around in the dunes at relatively high speeds, up and down. sliding sideways down the dunes was great fun. Saw a couple of "cars" from other companies get stuck in the dunes. It would have been great to have a sound recording from inside the car. Bonnie's reactions to moving through the dunes would have told the whole story. We stopped a couple of times on the dunes and getting out of the car the sand was so hot that it "burned" your feet. (It's an excellent reason to rear socks with sandles.) The temp in the desert was about 47C, yup that's really hot. I highly recommend at least dune bashing for a desert excursion.

Melanie and Megan road a camel once we arrived at the "camp".  They seemed to enjoy it and now
 they can say they have done it. They also had four wheelers to ride but the area was very restricted and it was quite expensive. Get got "starters" when we went into the camp. They were tasty, chicken wing, dates, and some type of bread. The first entertainment was a dancer. He was on stage for probably 10-15 minutes and spun the whole time he was on the stage. I was so mesmerized with the dance that I completely forgot to take pictures. There is really no way to explain it that will do it justice. Part of the dance was done blindfolded, still spinning the whole time. Again I say amazing. I would have fallen down after the first 15 seconds or less.


Dinner was tasty but not exceptional. The best part was being seated with people from all over the world. Our dinner companions were German, Russian, Lebanese, and an American from New York. Seems that no one is really from the UAE even our driver was Pakistani. The international company at dinner made it really exceptional. The belly dancer that performed after dinner was really exceptional. She was very skilled and was very beautiful. Again my fascination with the dance made me forget about taking pictures, sorry. I would recommend the desert safari for an excursion to anyone. At about $100 per person it is well worth the money.

More to come.

We Arrive in Dubai

So we got here on schedule last evening. Melanie got in just a short time after we did. It seemed to take forever for Mel's bags to be delivered. But as we waited we saw that the carousel sign had both of our flights on it. Pretty amazing.It's hard to make out on the sign above out heads but it's there. We got a taxi to the hotel, the price was about 100 Dirham. When we

checked in at the hotel we got a room upgrade from a two bedroom suite to "two bedroom" apartment. Now they call it a two bedroom but there is an "extra room" with a roll-away bed in it they would be happy to make up for us. The place is huge there are only 4 "rooms" on our floor. We have a wonderful balcony with a lovely view of the marina.  All-in-all most excellent. The room is on the 31st floor of the hotel. The air conditioning in the room was set to "frigid" so we moved it up a bit to about 25C. It felt really cold in here when we arrived. Meg, Mel, and I went up to the lounge on the 52nd floor last night to get a bite to eat and have drink. The view from our balcony is just as nice as up there. Bonnie went to bed before we went up to the lounge and we got to bed about 12:30 AM this morning. The room is lovely, the hotel staff is very personable, the view is excellent, and we look forward to a wonderful day on Friday.

Final Preparations

 
Seems like this is really going to happen. Can check in for our flights now but don't know how many bags we will check yet. Most clothing is ready to go in the suitcases including a suit. Less than 24 hours and we will be off.

Trying to decide which desert tour take while we are in Dubai. All of them have ratings all over the board. Seems to depend mostly on your attitude and your driver. Guess we will just shoot from the hip on this one. Need to purchase tickets for the tallest building in the world as well. Tickets to the 124th floor are about $35, to the 148th is more. Is is worth it? Have no idea. But it is the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa . Tried to book a desert safari and our credit card posted a fraud alert so the reservation is made but not paid. Not sure how to handle this. There is really no point in booking it again and it's 3:30 AM there. Will wait until this evening and then call them to see what is up or maybe send them an email. Calling will probably be better. Hope to get it all straight by this evening. If not will wait until Thursday when we arrive in Dubai. Why do things have to be so complicated all the time? Will post the solution, hopefully soon.