Dubai and Oman

I know that every time I visit a new place I saw “wow!”, but really Dubai… WOW! It was unlike any place I have ever been.  The best I can describe it is a flawless, Disney universe.  Everything is clean.  Everything is new.  Everything is perfect.  Everything is larger than life, over the top.  There is so much money in this city and you can see it everywhere.  I think I had even more of an effect on me because of the places in Egypt that we had visited most recently. 

We were docked in Dubai overnight and got a new set of passengers.  Although about 1,000 of the guests that got on the ship October 26^th in Barcelona are staying with us all the way until December 9^th when we get to Sydney, Australia.  I spent the day in Dubai with Isaiah, Kevin (two of the male dancers) and Josh (the Sound tech AV).  We took a cab to the Dubai Mall which is one of the largest malls in the world.  One of the first signs we saw when we got inside was for an ice rink, then a sign for a waterfall and then for an aquarium!  I thought, these definitely can’t all be in the mall, but I was mistaken.  I guess I underestimated Dubai.  The mall turned out to be HUGE!  We spent a good part of the day there and still didn’t see even a third of it.  But we did find the waterfall, the ice rink, the aquarium/underwater zoo and even a store called “Andrew’s Ties”. 

Jessica outside the Dubai Mall

The 3+ story Waterfall in the Mall

Ice Rink in a mall?!

We made reservations to visit the top of the Burj Khalifa, which is also accessible from the Dubai Mall, so around 1pm we made our way over there.  We waited in a bit of a line to go through security and make our way to the elevator that takes you to the observation deck on the 124^th floor.  The Burj Khalifa is currently the tallest building in the world.  It can be seen from 95km away.  It has something like 200 floors and is 2716 feet tall. While taking the elevator up, my ears popped about 6 times to adjust to the rapidly changing elevation.  And boy, was it high up.  We could see the desert, the water and port, the perfect buildings, the Burj al Arab (the only seven star hotel in the world which is shaped like the sail of a boat), and the World Islands.  It was a bit hazy so we weren’t able to see the Palm Jumeirah, but we saw the direction it was in.  The view was pretty awesome, much different than the Empire State Building or the Top of the Rock in NYC, because of the complete desert surrounding the city. 

Elevator to the Top

View out over Dubai and the port

Josh, Isaiah, Kevin and Jessica At the Top!

Dubai and the fountains below

Burj Khalifa…tallest building, tallest girl!

Next we decided that we wanted to go to the Aquarium and Underwater Zoo in the mall.  It starts with you walking through a tunnel in this huge fish tank, which has the largest single sheet of glass/plastic in the world (according to the Guinness World Record).  There were sharks and fish swimming right over you! In the zoo, we saw more beautiful fish, huge crabs, penguins and even snakes.

The Underwater Tunnel

“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming”

Clockwise: Jessica, Josh, Isaiah, Kevin in the Zoo

Jessica with the “Finding Nemo” fish tank

For dinner we went to another area to meet one of Isaiah’s friends who now lives in Dubai.  It was this beautiful restaurant called The Meat Co. in what felt exactly like Disney.  There are man-made rivers with boats that bring you to your resort, lights on palm trees and the service was excellent.  The restaurant was also closer to the Burj al Arab, the sail hotel, so we got to see it a little closer up.  After dinner we had to rush back to the ship to do our Welcome Aboard Show, but then were able to come back out for extremely expensive drinks later that night.  It was an amazing, out-of-this-world day. 

Sunset over Dubai

The Burj al Arab and Isaiah, Jessica and Kevin after dinner

L – R: Kevin, Isaiah, Jessica, Isaiah, Maarten, Jessica, Andrii

Our next Port of Call was Muscat, Oman. I didn’t even know that there was a country called Oman!  Maarten and I spent the day together shopping in the Souk, climbing up to a fort and drinking really good fresh fruit juice.  I had a Lemon Mint juice and Maarten had a Mango Pineapple juice.  They were the highlight of the day!

Overwhelmed by the incense smell in the Souk

Beautiful stained glass at the entrance of the Souk with Jessica

Muscat Harbor from the Fort

Delicious fruit juice

I only have 7 more Ports of Call before my contract is finished and it is starting to hit me.  Yikes.  But I’m not going to think about that now!  I still have 7 places to explore!

Maarten and Me after my 2^nd to last “Ghostlight” night