A Day of Water

Our final full day in Dubai and we had nothing planned.  Except to have fun, of course.  So, I let the girls set the itinerary.  They talked between themselves for a bit and then brought me their proposal - first we would head to the beach, rinse off and play in the showers for a bit before hitting the pool.  We would stay there until we were hungry and then go get ice cream/smoothies with our last tokens.  Once we finished desert we would head to our favorite lunch spot to dine al fresco.  When our bellies were full be would get ready to go to the Dubai Mall so we could spend some time at the Aquarium (do you sense a water theme to their day?).  We would finish the day off with dinner at someplace that the girls picked (I did reserve veto power) and head back to the hotel in time for bed.  Sounded like a great plan to me, so we made it happen!

We picked up our towels and headed out...

The beach flags flying said that we had to watch for jelly fish.  We didn't see any but made sure to watch where we stepped. 

Looking for jellyfish...

And then not caring so much about it and splashing to her hearts content.

And MadHatter preferred the sand today...

 We gathered our things and wakled past this...

 And headed to the showers to rinse the sand off...

 

OK - and play a bit...

Clean and hungry - it was time to spend our last tokens...

 We cleaned up and headed out.  The girls were ready for a bit more water...This time watching others play in it while they stayed dry.  The Dubai Aquarium, like many things in Dubai, is over the top and still so very incredible.  It has the World's Largest walk through tunnel holding 10 million liters of water, over 140 different species and measures 51 meteres in length.  Impressive to say the least.

 We spent some time oooohhhing and aaaahhhhing at the things that kept floating by over our heads (or under our feet) and then walked up two flights to see what else the aquarium has in store for us.  Which was a lot of cute creatures...including my own.

We then got a special tour in a glass bottomed boat.  We floated above the tunnel to watch the from above this time...

And then we called it a tour.  And headed next door to the RainForest Cafe to have dinner.  Girls choice.  And since the Hallmark store (Hallmark!) had made me a bit homesick, I didn't have the heart to veto them.

We soaked in a bit more of Dubai and the heat and of our waning days of vacation.  And then cabbed it back to the resort.  We went to sleep dreading our early wake up call but knowing that we had made memories that would last us a lifetime.

Bashing the Dubai Desert

After a day of sun, sand and surf (with a side trip to the top of the world) - click here for the recap - we slept late and woke slowly.  Because we once again had a morning and afternoon of leisure ahead of us before heading out on safari.  Rough life, I know.

We finally got up to get ready and as I grabbed everyone's suits I noticed that mine had white stuff all over it...And then I looked closely...

It had a ridge of salt that the sea had left behind!  The girls suits had been rinsed when we got back to the room but I didn't think of doing mine because I hadn't gotten all the way in the water, I had just sat down on the edge of the sand.  Obviously, I should have rinsed it.

We headed out and crossed the pool bridge...

And right through the resort and out to the gulf.  This time, I got in and we splashed and played and let the fish nibble on our toes.  Stinkerbell even caught a starfish, but let it go when she thought it a bit too prickly for her taste.

It was so salty that floating was easy...

After a few hours, we decided it was refreshment time.  This time, we got Orange Smoothies...

And then got cleaned up.  We had some friends to meet and some Dune Bashing to do.

We were picked up about 3:30 and driven about an hour outside of Dubai, where we met up with a caravan of other jeeps.  In one of those jeeps were our wonderful friends G and S and their two boys.  It was a bit of a weird feeling - two california expats, living in Prague and meeting up by coincidence in the Middle East.  But I wasn't going to complain; I was going to enjoy.  And enjoy we did.

I was excited about our adventure.  We were going to have a traditional dinner out in the desert with a show and a camel ride and henna tattoos and hookahs and...and...and...The only part I was a bit apprehensive about was the dune bashing.  Simply put you load yourself into a jeep, the driver lets some air out of the tires and you take off at great speeds climbing the sand dunes and then dropping back down them.  At times, you feel like the car is going to flip.  At others, you think that just your stomach is.  It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.  But I wasn't worried about me - I love roller coasters - I was worried about Stinkerbell.  She hates them...Listen to the video below, see how it turned out...

The views out my window were incredible...

After about 30 minutes, we hit the camel crossing and we all got out to look and play...

He's smiling at me!

We conquered it!

The sun was almost down so we got back in the jeeps and headed to camp...

First thing - Camel rides...

Yep, even G and I got on.

And then we tried our hand at sand surfing...

(It wasn't as easy as it looks)

It was almost show time so we found our spot and settled in.

He was really good.  But I think the girls were a bit confused by what they were seeing...

So, I took Stinkerbell to get her Henna tattoo (MadHatter declined)

A bit of dinner and it was time for the belly dancer...

After her show, we contemplated the Hookah

But ultimately decided to try on head wraps...

and when you end up with this type of cute you know you made the better decision.

And at that, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel where we fell into an extremely sandy sleep. (not kidding, it was everywhere).