Reservations in Dubai

 
We made our reservations for the 3 days in Dubai. We will be staying at the Dubai Marriott Harbor Hotel and Suites. The room has a full kitchen, dining room, living room, 2 bedrooms, and 2.5 bathes. It's 1722 sq. ft. I was amazed at the price. It's about $270 plus fees per night. We could have stayed at someplace less expensive but why not enjoy our time there. If there is a sandstorm we may have to stay in the room for some time and it will be nice to be comfortable. Hotel prices in Dubai range from $40 to $4000 a night so we are still on the low end. Since we made the reservation through the Marriott website we are supposed to get free WiFi as well. I also found out that I am a Marriott Rewards member. I opened an account in 1995. I found out when I tried to sign up online and the website stated I was probably already a member. I even have 40,000+ points. I was amazed. Will have to use those points sometime in the future.

The departure day is coming very soon!

Getting excited!

Visas Arrive

 
Our visas for entry to Egypt arrived from the Egyptian Embassy on Saturday. So with plane reservations and visas in hand we are ready to go. We have made reservations in at the Marriot by the marina in Dubai for  the time we will be there. Have yet to make arrangements for any tours we may do while there but we are researching. Using Lonely Planet and Trip Adviser mostly to look for tours and things to do in Dubai. If anyone has any suggestions we would appreciate some insight. More planning to come.
 

Getting Ready To Go

Our plane reservations are made and the four of us will be traveling at least part of the way together. Bonnie, Megan, and I will be leaving from Anchorage together and Melanie will be flying from Dubai to Cairo and back with us. Working on getting pictures to submit with the application for the Egyptian visas. My color printer for some reason no longer prints blue so had to go to Costco to get prints. I had the pictures cropped too much so will have to go back and do them over so they can be cut down to 2X2. Sometimes one wonders why they have such requirements for visas. We will be flying on Alaska Airlines and Emirates. The trip from Seattle to Dubai is 14 hours 45 minutes or so, a long time. But at least we don't have to be to the airport in Anchorage until about 9 AM the day we leave instead of taking the usual red-eye flight out. At least that part will be more pleasant. Much more to do in the next two and half months for the trip. Also need to get my retirement papers in order and turned in but that's another story for another day.

The Planning Process Begins Again

Once again we are planning a trip. This time we are going back to Egypt. One of my lovely exchange daughters is getting married and we will be joining her family and friends for this most joyous occasion in Cairo, Egypt. Our journey will take us to Port Said and a resort on the Red Sea, other locations are possible as well. Preparations will  begin in earnest when our daughter returns from London on December 12. The whole family would like to make this trip so we will put our heads together and come up with a plan between now and Christmas.

We will make a list of tasks that will surely include getting visas to enter Egypt, making plane reservations and finding out what special things we might need to bring with us. We are looking forward to spending time with our Egyptian family and friends that we made during our first trip there. Airfares have been rising so things will probably happen quickly.

Until next time, see you in the funny papers!

June 25 -- Back to the U. S. of A.

This was and early starting day. Everyone was up by 6 AM. The taxi to take us to the airport would arrive at 7 and we of course needed to be ready. We got things loaded up into the taxi and said our goodbyes to Melanie and we were off to the airport. The trip to Heathrow was uneventful. It's much more of a challenge to get you bags to the terminal if you have a lot of them and we did. Fortunately the trolleys were free so we loaded one up and off we went. I had checked in the night before so all we had to do was get our identities verified and we were then off to security.

All of us were either scanned after going through the metal detector or had our luggage searched. It was not big deal. The folks were very courteous and had a sense of humor about the whole thing and we didn't have to take our shoes off. Even with the delay it was much more pleasant that have TSA do the same thing in this country. I think the biggest difference is the attitude of the people doing the screening. Any way that got accomplished and we were off to get some breakfast.

We all expected breakfast at Heathrow to be very expensive but it turned out to be very reasonable and very tasty as well. The passenger waiting area was like as shopping mall with a large food court and plenty of bars. The gate assignment came up about 15 minutes before boarding time that had actually been delayed about 30 minutes due to late arrival of the aircraft. Got on board after going through another security procedure and we were ready to go. The pilot came on the intercom and said we would be delayed because the airport went into one runway operation. So we didn't push back and taxi for takeoff for about another 30 min.

The flight to Chicago was very pleasant. The flight attendants were very attentive. All-in-all it was a very pleasant flight even for being in the cheap seats.

Got the bus to Waukesha about an hour and a half after we cleared customs and retrieved our baggage. Seemed to take forever for the driver to get the bus loaded and we finally left the airport about 5 PM or so. Nice trip back to Waukesha but my butt was really sore from sitting all that time. With errands still to run and dinner to eat we finally got to bed between 9 and 9:30. We were all hoping for a good night's sleep.

June 24 -- Last Day in London

Another lazy morning to start the day. We did finally make it out of the house though at about 11:00 this morning. Melanie pointed us to the British Museum and she went to the London Eye to perform a task for me. She also had a couple of conference calls to take for work this afternoon. We walked around the Roman period of the Britain for about 45 minutes. We initially went there for a tour but the volunteer never showed up. So we decided to browse around the area until about 12:00 and then get back together. While I was browsing Mel called and said she had retrieved my property, woo hoo! I was quite elated with that. It took her about an hour to weave her spell on the unsuspecting security folk and others at the Eye.

Once we all met up again we decided to meet at 13:30 in the lobby near the main entrance. There is so much to look at in the museum that it would take days to get through it all. Everything I looked at was amazing. I can't believe the British stole all that stuff from around the world. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Bonnie went to look at the porcelain exhibit in the China section. She was impressed as well.

Melanie met up with us at 13:30 in the lobby. From here we went to get some lunch at Gail's Kitchen near the museum. Lunch was quite delicious and inexpensive, Melanie picked up the tab. Mel had another conference call to attend to so Ed, Kay, and I went to the corner coffee joint and had coffee and dessert. Bonnie joined us shortly after and said her and Mel were going to go shopping after the conference call was done. So we headed back to the house and left Melanie and Bonnie to go shopping. When we got back to the house we had a lazy time again. Soon we will be off to eat at the pub. Last dinner in London until next time.

It's now 19:30 and we are off to dinner at the Draft House. Our last burgers and beers or wine were very good and the company was marvelous. It seemed warmer this evening that it had been all day. An enjoyable dinner. Printed the boarding passes. Printed the bus tickets. Have the car coming at 0700 in the morning. Packing is nearly done. I think we are ready to go. The next entry will be from the United States of America.  Thanks for reading and there will be a couple of more entries with general observations and the results of our journey across the "pond".

June 23 -- The Day After

Another lazy day was had by all today. Bonnie, Kay, and I went to church this morning. Bonnie was welcomed warmly by a couple of the parishioners that she became acquainted with last winter. We stayed for a cup of coffee and a biscuit some chatting and then were off to the house.

When we got back we snacked for lunch on leftovers from the party. Surprisingly there were not that many to be had. There were just a couple of pieces of chicken, three or maybe four sausages, a little jello salad, and some potato salad. They all made a very nice lunch. We hardly left the house this day. It looks like everyone is pretty much ready to get on an airplane and go home.

Watched a few episodes of Dr. Who in the evening and then we were off to bed. This was indeed a very quiet day.