27th & 28th March
AT SEA
Two days at sea cruising across the Arabian Sea and into the Gulf of Oman towards our next port of call Dubai. Thankfully the extreme heat dropped over the 2 days to a comfortable 25 degrees on the second day and even clouds in the afternoon! Lots of ships near India but they petered out a lot as we went into the gulf.
Our Captain has been keeping us up to date with the ships cat and now has it back again after it was held to ransom! He is still in search of the perpetrators who stole it !!!!
The 27th was our wedding anniversary so as well as lunch in the Taj the day before, we had a lovely meal in the select dining restaurant the Ocean Grill in the evening after drinks in our cabin. Watched The Four Tunes second show afterwards which, once again was great.
Our lovely little cabin steward called Bethan got off in Mumbai and we now have Xavier but haven’t seen him yet. He’s quite elusive!!

29th March
DUBAI
Opened the curtains to a low white mist hanging between the sky scrapers of Dubai and a hazy sun shinning through. Already docked was an Aida ship and following us in was MSC Splendida.
Immigration was a nightmare this time and took quite a while even though we were on a ships tour.
After finding our coach we headed off for a drive along the coast to see the famous hotel Burj Al Arab and as it’s a Friday most people are off work so the beaches were quite busy. We then went to the marina area which is still being developed where a huge Ferris wheel is being erected which will hold 45 pods each holding 50 people! We then whizzed along the 12 lane highway to the Dubai Mall where we gathered to go up to the top of the Burj Khalifa. To say it was a nightmare was an understatement. Our guide ended up with 2 coach loads of people so trying to guide 80 odd people through a very busy Mall was ridiculous. When we eventually got there we couldn’t go in as the time on our ticket said 12.30 and they got us there at 11.35. The guide told us to go and shop and come back in an hour which some people did but then he went to find out if we could go up earlier and came back and said we could! So some were off shopping and some went for a coffee and some got in the queue. To cut a long story short we eventually shot up 124 floors in under a minute at 12.50 and had to meet at the bottom again at 1.30 for our coach back! The queue to get back down was just as long as the queue to go up so only had about 10 minutes to take in the views !
Absolute shambles so a visit to the tours desk tomorrow I will be having.
Later in the day after lunch on board we met up with 2 of our friends to take the shuttle bus back to the mall to watch the water and lights show held at the base of the Burj Khalifa every evening. Once again it was packed but we saw it and the lights up the tower were quite spectacular. Had a coffee and cheesecake in The Cheesecake Factory then headed back to the ship at 10pm.

The following morning we woke to another Aida ship coming in and realised the other one had left some time last night.
We had a morning tour booked as the ship was due to depart at 12.30 so met Clare and Peter just before 9am to board the coach. First we visited the spice souk and the gold souk before having a boat ride along the old creek. We then headed for a new attraction called The Frame. It looks like a massive picture frame and you enter in one side which tells you about the old Dubai. You then go up 45 floors to the top where you can look one way and see old Dubai and the other side is new Dubai with its sky scrapers. The bridge between them has a wonderful glass floor which is opaque until you step on it then it turns clear. You then come down the other side to see how the future of Dubai will look like. Really well done and enjoyed the trip.
Back on board we sailed away on to our next stop tomorrow in Muscat.
Weather today has been one of Dubai’s very rare days where it was cloudy and windy with no humidity but excellent for sightseeing.