Dubai IS all that! pt 1

It’s Friday and we’re somewhere in the Arabian Sea headed toward India. I’m a little under the weather (sore throat, drainage etc). Yesterday my throat started getting a little scratchy and became even more pronounced during the night. It felt the same as when I had covid in early March, so I took myself down to the onboard clinic this morning to get tested. Good news – it’s not covid! I had planned to attend an onboard talk on Japan at 11 a.m. this morning and visit a “Sing Out Loud” rehearsal at 1 p.m. with thoughts of possibly joining the group. Instead, I had lunch in our room and took a nice long nap this afternoon. I don’t feel like getting dressed or putting on makeup so I’ll likely order room service for dinner. What will I do when we return home and I have to go back to cooking, cleaning and doing my own laundry?? Hee hee

I want to talk about on our time in Dubai and Fujairah before we reach India where we have excursions booked 3 days in a row. Between the heat and the walking, we anticipate being beyond zonked!

Dubai – everything you’ve ever heard about it is true – and then some! And let me just say up front that there is NO way you can “do” Dubai in just 2 days!! I don’t know who planned our itinerary, but one couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of such a place in only 2 days. We should have had a minimum of 3 full days there and then skipped Fujairah altogether.  

Here are a few photos I snapped while walking through the cruise terminal. Not great, but maybe will give you an idea of how nice the terminal was. 

Welcome to Dubai

 

passport control

shopping in cruise port terminal

inside modern cruise terminal

upscale souvenir shop in terminal

Dubai Frame

Dubai is a young city – 20-25 years old. Located on the southeast coast of the Persian Gulf, it has a population of 3,008,000, making it the most populated city in the United Arab Emirates. 85% of its population is made up of expats from other countries, mostly India and Pakistan. There are more than twice as many men as women in Dubai. The majority are men because the most available jobs are in the male-dominated construction industry. Most of the expats come for work and can’t receive permanent residency or citizenship even after years in Dubai.

Dubai’s official language is Arabic. Everything about Dubai screams WEALTH!! Almost everything you can think of in Dubai could be prefaced with “the World’s Largest (fill in the blank).”  The city attracts millions of tourists each year due to its ultramodern architecture, luxury shopping and nightlife.

The skyline from ground level is something to behold. Unfortunately I couldn’t get decent photos when riding down the freeway. But....some shipmates went to the top of the Needle of Dubai, the world's highest building and snapped some photos of its unbelievable skyline.

 

 

Here are a few fun facts about Dubai.

*World’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa (at 2,722 feet) 148th-floor observation deck at 1821 feet

*World’s only 7-star hotel in the world (Burj al Arab)

*World’s largest mall - retail area of 5,400,000 sq ft with more than 1200 shops.

*World’s largest indoor aquarium (inside world’s largest mall) with an acrylic panel that is 108 feet wide, 27 feet high and 29.5 inches thick.

*World’s longest automated (driverless) metro line. Combine the red line (32.37 miles) and the green line (13.98 miles) and you’ve got a Guinness World Record. It serves an estimated 180,000 passengers each day.

*World’ largest manmade island, the Palm Jumeirah (its foundation being 7 million tons of rocks blasted from the nearby Hajar Mountain)

*Camel and horse racing are High Value Sports with massive cash prizes going to winners. Small robots are used as jockeys.

* Average rainfall is 3.5-3.7 inches per year

* Dubai is one among the 7 Emirates that make up the United Arab (all the Emirates have kings as the supreme leaders known as Sheik)

* Only non-Muslims of 21+ years can drink alcohol, and then only in licensed premises; it is illegal to drink in public spaces. Intoxication can lead to a jail term or deportation

* you can get arrested for taking photos of the locals without consent or posing in front of a government building (yikes!)

* Dubai has one of the lowest crime rates in the world at 1%, mostly due to the harsh penalties for even small offenses

*Modern police force with latest crime detection and prevention technologies

*Police drive Ferraris, Lamborghinis, McLarens, Rolls-Royces and Bugattis

* You can order a gold cappuccino in the Sahn Eddar Lounge of the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel. The gold coffee is made of 24-carat gold blended into espresso made from 100% Arabian coffee beans (they have other "gold-enhanced" drinks and foods as well).