UAE BAE!

We've made it to the UAE and have completed our first three days and they were very busy.  Make yourself comfortable as this is a very long post.  Our first port of call was Abu Dhabi on Sunday.  On the sail in, we passed a large construction project and the Louvre Museum.  What they have built and are still building in the UAE is impressive, but more on that later.

 We took an Oceania excursion whose main focus was a visit to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque.  The mosque was modeled after the Taj Mahal.  I've told Linda that now that we have visited this mosque, we no longer have to go to the Taj Mahal.  She's not buying it!  You enter the mosque through a mall!

The mosque is indeed grand.  Here is just a sampling of the photos we took. You can see that women have to be completely covered.

On the way back to the ship, we made a couple of stops along the waterfront.

Anyone who has been to Nassau in the Bahamas might recognize the Atlantis-like hotel.  More on that later.

When we returned to the ship, we were treated to a drone light show put on by the Louvre.

On our after dinner walk, we got good views of the skyline at night.

Monday was Emirate number 2, Dubai.  I was up on deck walking as the sun rose over the incredible skyline.

We booked a full day excursion through Get Your Guide and it turned out to be a private excursion with our guide, Mahmoud.  We started out at 9:00 am with a drive through what he described as the Manhattan of Dubai.  He told us that none of those buildings were there just 15 years ago, it was just desert.  Incredible.

We continued the drive to Palm Island, the largest man-made island in the world.

Our first stop was at another Atlantis Hotel where we got to visit the aquarium inside.

The hotel was nicely decorated with many shops, of course.  But, wait till later!

Continuing on, the next stop was the largest man-made harbor in the world.  According to Mahmoud, it seems that everything in Dubai is the largest in the world.

 As we traveled on, we also found that they have the world's largest billboards in Dubai.

Next was a Jumeirah Beach stop with views of the 5-star Burj Al Arab hotel.

And on it went!  Next up was a water taxi across to visit 2 souks, the Spice Souk and the Gold Souk.

After the water taxi ride back, we headed for the Burj Khalifa which, in addition to the world's largest tower, there is the world's largest mall.  At that point, Mahmoud gave us tickets for the tower and left us.  Another driver would be bringing us back to the ship.  We had 2:00 pm tickets for the elevator.  However it took an hour in line until we reached the viewing platform on the 124th floor.

And here's a view from the top of the world's largest mall.

After the tower visit, we had a couple of hours to check out all 1400 shops in the mall.  And, believe it or not, we visited every one of them - NOT!  And, can you believe, there was not a single lingerie store and no place to get an alcoholic drink.  Then it was time for the big culminating event of the tour - the fountains outside of the mall.

After that, we were picked up to be driven back to the ship.  It was a big contrast from the ride in the morning when there was little traffic.  At 6:30 pm it was still rush hour.  Apparently many people who work in Dubai live in Sharjah which is less expensive.  As a result, the highway looked like the 405 in LA.

We got back to the ship at about 7:30.  It was a rewarding but exhausting day.  And, as usual, the after dinner walk provided more lovely night time views.

Today, Tuesday, we had no pre-plans.  So, we took it easy in the morning as guests were disembarking and new guests were boarding.  We decided to visit the Dubai Miracle Garden, reputed to be the world's largest natural flower garden, of course.  I imagine there are other gardens that would dispute that claim.  In any event, the garden was, indeed, a miracle.  Judge for yourself:

As some of you know, my final project before retiring from Honeywell was securing a contract for a new technology component on the A380 airplane.  In the Miracle Garden they have a full size floral model of the A380.

Before leaving, we could not resist displaying our affection!

The Miracle Garden was another example of the amazing things that they have built in the UAE in such a short time.  I guess it proves that almost anything is possible if you have unlimited money and unlimited cheap labor.

This cruise promises to be very different from the last one.  The ship has gone from about 350 guests to about 900 guests.  It will surely feel very crowded on board.

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry