We met up with Phil and Louise for a swim in the hotel pool before having lunch at McGettigan's, the hotel's Irish pub. Very authentic, even the waiters were genuine Irish! Simon and I were feeling very hungry and both had a big plate of Irish stew, which was definitely as good as the real thing! After lunch we were collected for our desert safari trip which we thought might be fun to do, especially for Simon who had never experienced the desert before. After an...

We woke feeling amazingly well considering the late night and got ourselves ready to go out and do it all over again. The four of us set off to meet another ex old Doha mate, Graeme, for lunch. Amanda hadn't seen him in around 35 years and that is quite some time really, when you think about it. We took a taxi to The Palm, Jumeirah which was a short distance away from where we were staying. The Palm is a man made island with luxury hotels, resort facilities, wa...

After a leisurely morning and another delicious breakfast we were back at the airport and on our way to Dubai, just an hour's flight away and an hour time change too. Amanda was looking forward to seeing Dubai after a gap of around 35 years. She knew that there had been many changes since then, but WOW! the reality was quite mind boggling. In the taxi on our way to the hotel we gazed in wonder at the plethora of space age buildings which confronted us on either s...

After a reasonably comfortable night we enjoyed a lovely buffet breakfast in a restaurant which was surprisingly well appointed, very modern and nice. The waiters were also very pleasant and we enjoyed our meal. With only one day to look around Doha we wanted to see as much as possible in the time available. We were going to get a taxi down to the Souk Waqif but the guy on the hotel desk told us that we were already in the old part of town and assured us that t...

We had scarcely fallen asleep when the alarm went off at 5am. Horrible!! We scurried around in a daze doing last minute packing etc and left for the airport just before 6.30am. The roads were very busy already and the M25 car park lived up to its name and we didn't reach Heathrow until about 8.30am, but it could easily have been worse. Having sailed through the formalities without any more than the usual amount of hassle we are now sitting in the BA Lounge enjoyi...