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April 29, 2018: A Day in the "Rose City"- Petra, Jordan |
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April 21, 2018: A Day Tour of Dubai (UAE) |
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Return to the Index for 2018 |
A lot is going on today. We have awoken on the last official day of the first cruise. Had we only taken that cruise, we would be leaving the ship today. As it is, we are staying on board, although we had to pack our things to allow the ship to transfer them to a different stateroom (more on that below). None of our party have booked excursions today; we are each doing our own thing. Fred and I will take the Dubai Mall shuttle back to "Downtown Dubai" just to walk around and see some of the things that we did not have time to see yesterday, returning to the ship in late afternoon ahead of our 7PM departure.
Getting Into Dubai
Since we didn't have a shore excursion today, we had to look for another way into town; and someone suggested the free shuttle to the Dubai Mall. It runs fairly frequently, so by ten in the morning we'd gotten off the ship and were passing by the horse sculpture in the center of the cruise terminal and heading to the pickup point outside.
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We took a number of candid shots through the tinted windows of the bus, including the Emirates Towers near the mall. Here are some of them:
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The shuttle arrived at the lower level on the northeast side of the Mall by Financial Center Road. We had been into the Mall via the lower level last night, so today we came up the stairs to the upper level and out into the open.
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Of course, we could see the Burj Khalifa- probably better this morning than late yesterday afternoon, and in the picture at the immediate right you can see it rising over the Dubai Mall.
In the picture at the far right, you can see the two residence towers to the north. The golden oval building is the "Address Dubai Mall Residences and Hotel" which pretty much describes it. The residences range from studios to 3-bedroom suites (or a few penthouse suites, if you are so of a mind), and the hotel rooms from singles to double suites. Beyond "upscale", the hotel rooms go for $300 a night at up, and even the smallest residences are a million-plus. This building is connected directly to the Mall.
The other tower is the "Address Boulevard"- in the immediate vicinity taller than everything save the Burj Khalifa. As near as I can discover, this Address property is solely a hotel; I cannot find that there are residences for sale. Accommodations here also range upwards from about $300 on up, but in this case the "up" is about $2000 a night. But that's Dubai for you- it is beautiful and brand spanking new, but all that newness and moderninity comes at a price.
Reflecting on these stats, I guess they are no different (and maybe even a little less) than comparable accommodations in New York or London. Thing is, though, that New York and London have a lot to offer vacationers and sightseers; Dubai doesn't have much apart from its beaches (and of course its architectural achievements). But other than that, its just a big city in the middle of a desert.
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Dubai Mall
The first thing we did when we arrived was to head into the Mall- more to cool of than out of any need to see it first. But we thought we would walk through it for a while, perhaps have some lunch (which we did, at The Cheesecake Factory), and just get the flavor of the place.
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Twice delayed, Dubai Mall opened in November 2008 with about 1000 retailers, marking the world's second largest-ever mall opening in retail history behind West Edmonton (Canada) Mall. At over 13 million square feet (more than the land area of 50 regulation football fields), the Dubai Mall has an internal floor area of 5.9 million square feet, of which 4 million of them are leasable.
Like most modern malls, Dubai Mall is as much a "destination" as a shopping venue. It has the Address Dubai Mall 250-room luxury hotel, 22 movie screens, 120 restaurants and cafes, an aquarium, amusement venues, and so on. It is telling that Northpark Mall here in Dallas has only 225 stores but 9,000 parking spaces, while the Dubai Mall has four times the number of stores but only 14,000 parking spaces.
Inside, we discovered much more about the Mall than we'd learned last night. For example, we learned that in most areas of the mall there are three shopping levels, while in sizeable areas there are four and five levels (and at one place on the north side, six).
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Construction has actually begun, but oddly enough the exact height is a closely-guarded secret. What is certain is that it will be higher than the Burj Khalifa; so will that building lose its record-holding titles? Well, yes, and no. Apparently, the Dubai Creek Tower will not be an occupied building; there will be no offices or residences or a hotel. It will be, in effect, an observation structure- like the Eiffel Tower, except over three times taller.
I might insert a personal note here that our visit to the Burj Khalifa initiated a good deal of research on tall buildings. There are so many kinds of structures that there are numerous categories of "tallness", and a single structure is not likely to be first in all of them. When you and I think of a tall building, our mental image is floors occupied by offices or residences or hotel rooms- not mechanical floors, spires, or antennae. All of this may, in a couple of more years, become less of an issue, as there is currently under construction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, an actual occupied building that will hit one kilometer in height for the first time. It will become, at a stroke, the tallest structure of any kind on the planet (although, if history serves, someone with either more testosterone or more money will undoubtedly try for a full mile).
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Here are some of the pictures we took from the outside as we passed by it in the mall:
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Still, the aquarium is one of the world's largest, and it is also one of Dubai's most-visited tourist attractions (possibly influenced by the fact that it is inside the world's most visited building).
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We continued past the aquarium, just absorbing the crowds and the (very) upscale shops. I was actually looking for a set of very small noise-cancelling headphones like the one's Greg lent me to use while in the gym, but could only find over-the-ear models.
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We walked through the mall to the lake entrance, went outside for a while, then went back into the mall for lunch. After lunch, we walked through it some more to get to the northeast entrance and Financial Center Road, and finally back through it to the shuttle bus. It was pretty amazing, but basically just a mall. I did take a few pictures of some interesting aspects (and yes, in 2014 Emaar purchased a 155-million-year-old dinosaur skeleton unearthed in the United States and installed it in one of the central rotunda intersections), and those pictures are at right.
Dubai Architecture: Sheikh Zayed & Financial Center Roads
One of the things I wanted to do while we were on our own in downtown Dubai was to walk north of Dubai Mall to the major intersection between Sheikh Zayed and Financial Center Roads. I wasn't sure how far I'd be able to walk on the upper level of either of these thoroughfares- as they are, after all, expressways. But I wanted to give it a try.
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I also took a picture looking across Financial Center Road of Fred and the northern Dubai skyline. We walked northwest a bit, and I stopped to make a movie looking at the area north of the mall where I wanted to walk:
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We continued walking all the way to the north corner of the mall. There, we found a kind of pool between the Mall and the outdoor seating area of one of the restaurants in the Address Dubai Mall hotel. What was interesting was the there was a waterfall a waterfall coming down the side of the Mall building into the pool; it was one of those with a relatively thin layer of water spread across a large surface. Very nice.
As my movie showed, when we got to the north corner of the Mall and the Address Dubai Mall, I saw that I could cross the street and walk up what appeared to be a sidewalk along the exit ramp from the interchange. I hoped that the sidewalk would continue on up to Financial Center Road itself, and would enable me to walk out onto the overpass over Sheikh Zayed Road. From there, I hoped, I might be able to get an iconic picture, like the ones you've seen, of the skyscrapers lining either side of that road. Fred was dubious about walking up and out onto the overpass with me, so I asked him if he would wait in a shaded area by the restaurant while I took 30 minutes at most to see how far I could get. I was pleased that he was amenable, and so I headed off to see what I could see.
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Burj Khalifa Lake
Coming out of the Mall to Burj Khalifa Lake, the light was a lot better today (although the air was a little less clear). Our idea this afternoon was just to walk around and see what we could see. First, we went to the bridge we'd cross yesterday at the southeast side of the lake to get this panoramic view of the lake and the bottom fifth of the Burj Khalifa on the other side:
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Of course, one of the most obvious sights when you are anywhere out by Burj Khalifa Lake is the Burj Khalifa itself. We took a great many pictures of this, currently the tallest building in the world.
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One last view was this excellent picture that Fred took of the upper half of the Burj Khalifa. Count three setbacks down from the top, and you'll be at the 124th floor where we got our pictures yesterday. From the bridge, we walked back over to the Mall, and then walked towards the Burj Khalifa to explore the northwest side of the lake. Looking back, we got yet another great view of yet another "Address" hotel- the Address Downtown. Like its sisters on the other side of the Mall, the Address Dubai Mall and the Address Boulevard, this hotel/residence provides 70 floors of luxury hotel rooms and residences.
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It should be obvious by now that Dubai is a great place to be if you have money. Lots of it. I can't imagine that if we'd flown in here on our own, staying anywhere close to the action and having decent meals would have easily run $400 a day- much more than we usually like to spend. And that would be for the simplest, smallest accommodations. Upscale travelers could easily spend three times that.
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One standout view from here is the row of residences (and a hotel or two) on the southwest side of the lake:
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On the direct opposite side of the lake from us (the southeast side in the aerial view) were two sites we'd seen and photographed yesterday- the Palace Hotel on one one "peninsula" and the Souk Al Bahar just across the bridge from the Mall on another. Here are a few good pictures (one of the hotel and two of the souk):
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Places like this are great for panoramic views, and between us we must have taken ten of them. This is the best of the lot:
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As we walked around past the Burj Khalifa, we passed something odd- a grouping of seesaws. They had a name: "Wave-Field" and they were created by sound artist Mitchell Akiyama. This award-winning installation has travelled to thirteen cities across North America and Europe. Each illuminated see-saw has a unique set of musical tones. When played together they reate a dynamic acoustic field. The speed and rhythm of the see-saw's motion determines the light intensity and triggers a series o fmusical notes.
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At right are some of the many pictures we took along this part of the walk. From the Opera House, we turned to head back towards the Mall, and as we passed by the Burj Khalifa, I made one final movie looking up the side of that impressive structure. You can use the player at left to watch it.
When we got to the Mall, we had to decide when to go back to the ship. The free shuttle left on the hour, and, knowing that the ship was to depart at 7PM, we did not want to cut it close. So it was a choice between 4PM and 5PM. Since we'd done pretty much what we wanted to, and since there really wasn't time to wander further afield, we headed back through the Mall to catch the 4PM shuttle back to the port.
Our Return to the Mariner of the Seas
On the way back to the cruise ship port, we passed much of the same scenery that we'd passed in both directions three times now. So I didn't take that many pictures. I did make a couple of good movies, though.
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All day today I had wanted to get the iconic picture looking east along Sheikh Zayed Road at the rows of skyscrapers on each side. But I hadn't had that chance until now- with this movie. (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) |
From Financial Center Road the bus turned north to parallel Sheikh Zayed, and I had a chance to film the skyline going past. Most of what you are seeing is less than 30 years old. (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls) |
We continued back to the port, following the same serpentine route as before (because the cargo operations have not yet been moved to the new cargo port.
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At the port, I walked over to the rows of imported cars that had piqued my interest. Take a look at a few of these pictures, and I think you will see what I found to be pretty amazing about them (laser ruler, anyone?):
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Either that, or only the most anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive car parkers are employed here! We happened to run into Greg in the Cruise Terminal, and we walked back to the Mariner of the Seas together.
Leaving Dubai: Our Second Cruise Begins
Right at 7PM the ship began to move slowly away from the dock. I was out on deck, trying to take a movie, but it was dark and hard to see, so I returned to the cabin.
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Leaving the cruise port brought our two-day stay in Dubai to an end, but it was the beginning of our second cruise. Actually, while Fred and I were in town today, the ship staff moved our things to our new stateroom, and when we came back it took us maybe a half hour to get everything unpacked again.
Tonight we will meet most of the guys in the dining room to talk about the upcoming second cruise. We have two major shore excursions planned- one six days hence in Jordan to go visit the Rose City of Petra, and the other in the port for Jerusalem for an excursion into that historic city.
In addition to those stops, we are looking forward to our transit of the Suez Canal as well as a stop on the Isle of Crete in Greece. So all that is coming up on this cruise to Barcelona. Today is April 22nd, and we will dock in Barcelona on the morning of May 7th.
You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.
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April 29, 2018: A Day in the "Rose City"- Petra, Jordan |
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April 21, 2018: A Day Tour of Dubai (UAE) |
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Return to the Index for 2018 |
