Around the World With Uncle Moose: Days 1-2: Dubai

January 15: London to Dubai

We flew American Airlines to London and then caught a British Airways flight to Dubai. Dubai (the city) is the capital of Emirate of Dubai, which is one of the 7 Emirates that comprise the United Emirates.

The woman on the right does not exist (it's a hologram)

Our flight passed over Iraq and Iran. What could go wrong?

January 16: Dubai

We arrived in Dubai around midnight, and took a taxi to our hotel near the airport. Since we couldn't board the ship until about 6:00 that evening, we got tickets on one of those double-decker tourist buses and visited several spots in Dubai.

Here's a reference map:

Our first stop was in the "old town" of Dubai (lower left center of map). By "old", I mean dating from the 1950's. While there, we wandered through the Old Souk (market)

In the souk

Lots of gold shops

These are not inexpensive

After touring the souk, we got on the bus and went to the Dubai Mall, by some measures the largest mall in the world (next to the really tall building (Burj Khalifa) in the center of the map).

Inside the mall

There is a huge aquarium in the mall

A wing of the mall

A dinosaur discovered in Wyoming, and transferred to the mall

A 4-story waterfall with sculptures

Perhaps home ice for an Emirates Hockey League team (still in the mall)

Where the Stormtroopers shop

The Dubai Mall is part of a huge development that includes the Burj Khalifa (the world's tallest building) and several other shopping centers and office buildings. We had tickets to go to the top of the Burj Khalifa the next day, so today, we just wandered around the area.

Some of the other buildings in the area

The outside of the mall

After our tour of the Dubai Mall and surrounding area, we went to the port to board our ship, the MSC Lirica.

At the port

Our cabin

One of the pools on board

The children's pool

One of the ship's lounges

At the buffet

One of the attractions at the port was the Queen Elizabeth 2, which has been converted into a floating hotel.

Queen Elizabeth 2

January 17: Dubai

The ship was still docked in Dubai today, so we took a shuttle into town and then took the Dubai Metro and the double-decker bus to various sites.

In the "older" part of Dubai (buildings from the 1980's)

In the Dubai Metro

The Dubai Frame -- we didn't go in

The main road (Sheikh Zayed Road) is lined with skyscrapers, and has a lot of the views that Dubai is famous for. The ground floors of most of these buildings are filled with American chain stores and restaurants.

Along Sheikh Zayed Road

Some typical non-skyscraper housing in Dubai

We drove by the Burj Al Arab, supposedly the most luxurious hotel in the world. (It's the one shaped like a sailboat). We didn't go in today, because we had reservations for lunch there at the end of the cruise.

We eventually got to a mall (not the Dubai Mall), where we changed to another double-decker bus.

Food court in the mall--notice anything familiar?

The bus then took us by the Marina district (top right corner of the map), which is completely separate from the financial district on Sheik Zayed Road, but no less spectacular.

Marina District

One of these is the tallest residential building in the world

From the Marina, we went to Palm Jumeirah Island, a huge man-made island shaped like a palm tree (far right side of the map). It's mostly residential, with a few hotels and shopping centers.