November 17 -- Off to Dubai

Got up this morning around 8:00. Bonnie did her exercises. That’s generally her morning routine. While she was doing that I go myself ready to go so she would have the facilities when she was ready. We watched the news until about 10:30 then went on a historical tour of the Camlin.

The hotel has really and interesting history since is opening in 1926. Turns out the original owner “borrowed” the money from the bank he was president of and the tail gets more sordid as the story goes. The tail was interesting and a tour of the older parts of the building was fun. It was originally constructed as an all suite hotel with monthly rates available. At some point all of the kitchens were walled up and it became a regular hotel with a dinner room and bar on the top floor. The kitchens were uncovered again when Worldmark bought the property in 1996. The renovation cost quite a lot more than was initially anticipated. However, the Camlin has turned out to be one of the favorite properties of the owners.

After the tour we checked out an had them store our luggage while we went to eat and made another trip to the drug store. We picked up our luggage at about 1:30 and off to the airport we went. Got checked in at Emirates. They checked our bag right through to Ashgabat so we didn’t have to mess with it in Dubai, that was very nice. Boarded our flight at 4 and were off to Dubai and another adventure.

Flying from Seattle to Dubai was a really long trip, 15 hours. The flight was very nice. The food was very good. The entertainment system on Emirates is really amazing and helps the time go by quickly. Even so 15 hours on the same airplane is a long time. Entry into Dubai is easy and quick. There is no visa required for U.S. residents and you just have to go through passport control for entry.