Dubai

The ship arrived in port at about 11:30. We were cleared to get off at noon. There is a beautiful cruise terminal here now. When we were here in 2009 we disembarked into a tent. The new terminal is huge with stores and marble floors. There is supposed to be wifi but people were having trouble with it. The ship was supplying a shuttle to the Dubai Mall so we hopped on that and headed out. It took about 30 minutes to get there. 

The Dubai Mall claims to be the largest shopping and entertainment center in the world. And it is enormous. Our first task was to use the free wifi. I had my laptop, iPad and 2 phones with me, a lot to lug around. I first posted pictures to my blog. Hope it worked as it took almost an hour. We then walked around the mall a bit. There were beautiful stores with rugs and Arabian clothing. I wanted to use the wifi some more so ended up sitting for another hour while I upgraded apps and d/l magazines. Our friends decided to head back to the ship so we were on our own. 

We went to the aquarium and underwater zoo. It was quite large and had a few things we had never seen before like pineapple fish! They had an enormous crocodile as well as penguins. It was nice to see. We wanted to try some local food rather than Cheesecake Factory or IHOP. We ended up in a Lebanese restaurant. I ordered chicken kabobs. They were cooked on the same grill as all the lamb so had that lamb flavor. Mel was happy with the food, I ate a lot of bread. 

 After dinner we headed to the Dubai Fountain which is next to the tallest building in the world. It sprays water in time to music. Once we finally got there it only lasted about 5 minutes. Glad we were able to see it though. On the way we had stopped in a few stores. We especially like visiting grocery stores in other countries. This one had a "Pork Shop" for non-Muslims. That was interesting. We bought a few things to bring home like chocolate covered dates. It was hard to find any candy that was actually made here other than the dates and baklava. 

On the way from the fountain to the shuttle we passed every designer store imaginable. Some I had never seen before. It was an amazing mall, and interesting too. There were many women in burkas, men in Arabian garb. We also saw a lady in short shorts and spike heels, a bit of everything. It was a pretty easy day.