bearette

Chiefs table continued

 

 

I usually don’t do the pay for restaurants, but we did have a wonderful time. The food was delicious, but at a full price of $85 I wouldn’t do it again. The service was wonderful and the food some of the best, but at the same time, personal preferences reigns over food and some of the items just weren’t that special for me.

 

 

Our server

 

At this point, food was over and the experience was done. We were on borrowed time as one of the phones had died and they had already been there for almost three hours. Plus I was feeling the effects of the wine pairing so we decided it was time to go to bed.

 

 

Another potty stop so I had to sit and wait.

 

 

 

 

 

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I see April and May cruises at that $500 price, but into summer they are keeping the prices high. I check Alaska for July, when it should be open and the prices were ridicilious.  My guess is they anticipate everyone using their FCC for those. If they keep kids out of school and they start having cruises again I'll do a cruise in June to use my FCC, though I may stay closer to home and do one out of Galveston or Florida instead of over seas like my cancelled one was.  I plan to help the economy by vacationing as soon as it is safe to do so.

A close up from my daughter’s plate

It was amazing




My son had the best reaction, but you can see my daughters reaction to the flavor of ice cream... it was espresso. So we got her a scope of vanilla, he brought my son one too.




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Sea day continued!

 

Pool fun!! We spent a few hours here soaking up the sun... and booking hotels now that the internet was working. We selected a Hotwire price only hotel ( you find out the hotel afterwards, but we were guaranteed one of two properties. We ended up with a Crown Plaza, in town not on Yas Island). Dubai we booked an AirBNB. Full disclaimer now Hotwire has been a nightmare to deal with while AirBnB has been wonderful. We even booked a desert safari through AirBNB- it was smaller scale than the others so we thought that would be safer.

 

 

Pool time- and new bathing suits

 

 

The slide was super slow and everyone would get stuck. That slowness didn’t stop the kids from repeated rides.

 

We also saw our friends from Costa Rica and learned they had booked a new ticket to Germany to connect with their other flight to help get them home, but were still having trouble canceling the Russia portion with Expedia. I assume this is from the people with trips in April and beyond flooding the lines. We experienced it first hand, the problem of getting through was real because everyone concerned about their future trips were calling so people in crisis could not get through. He was on hold and we saw him again an hour later and he told us after three hours on hold, they hung up.

 

 

We spoke with a couple from Sweden who didn’t have an internet package and said they were cut off from Family and any news there. They hoped they could make it home when the cruise returned and RCCL would not give them any internet for free.

 

I did wonder if they let people use the desktop computers, but we only tried once when they were down so we didn’t find out.

 

 

 

Time to go in

 

After showers the kids had about an hour in the kids club. It was deserted and no one else was there again.

 

I used that time to shower and get ready and so did the hubby. There was a diamond party at 5pm and we wanted to attend that. At ten until five he went to get a spot and I went to get the kids and do a quick change.

 

A quick change turned into World War 3 as they were over tired and neither wanted to get in their dress up close. As any parent who has dressed their kids for school can commiserate we were 20 minutes late and did not it make it for captains pictures. The soda we offered the kids wasn’t enough to keep them up either.

 

 

They only lasted a few minutes ...

 

 

...Then they slept through the whole diamond presentation.

 

 

This is were we learned most of the information about how many people stayed and left and what was going on in the world. Here they also told us the reason we couldn’t use the ship like a hotel again next week was because the government of Dubai said they couldn’t. The next day we found out all cruises for the next 30 days were also being cancelled, at this time Princess had already announced they would not cruise for 30 days this morning.

 

It was interesting, but as this is all old news now I won’t bore you with it. I found the notes about the cancellations so I’ll include them here.

 

here.

 

The out to sea letter

 

 

Cruise cancelled letter [emoji22]

 

We ended up staying and having another Bellini while talking to another couple who stopped to admire the sleeping kids. We ended up being the last to leave and decided we would all have a formal dinner together instead of taking the kids to the kids club.

 

I went to the bar first to get one of our free swipe drinks, two in my case as I had a daiquiri, and as I made my way to the bar I was hit up for the Chiefs table. I wasn’t really interested, but I was two drinks in and I will say, two drinks in for me is drunk. I don’t drink unless I am on vacation or a special occasion. I let him talk to me some more and I kind of laughed at the 40% they were offering. I said I have kids, too.

 

At this point hubby showed up with the kids. The chiefs table intrigued the hubby and he was getting into the spiel when my son announced he needed to use the restroom.

 

 

This break gave him the time he needed to “check with his manager” to offer us 50% off and on top of that the kids for one cover charge. I knew hubby wanted to try it so I said we would probably take it, hubby already agreed before hearing about the new price so I am glad I had arranged it already.

 

They sat us with two other couples in the bar area and then went to get us our champagne- coke with a cherry for the kids.

 

We were there last ditch effort to get someone else as the others “ had already left the ship”. I imagine there wasn’t many takers as it had room for 12, only 8 places were set and they had to scramble to get us a menu which came during the first course.

 

I had warned them my daughter won’t eat any fish and so they promised this would be adhered to and at the beginning he approved some items with me to replace the fish courses. To be honest I am not a fish fan either, but I figured a 7 course meal, I will be fine.

 

 

 

Cheers - the ladies are in their purchases from Global Village

 

The other couples were nice, but English was a struggle for the second couple. It didn’t matter as we mostly ate with few chit chat in between that was mostly limited to Coronavirus talk and how many cruises... they did not look thrilled with us being there with the kids but I will say they were excellent. When times got long we gave them our phones and my daughter brought her notebook so she was able to draw as well, in between courses.

 

It came with 5 different wine pairings, the champagne, and a martini with dessert... this isn’t going to end well for me.

 

He poured us Evian water (I thought this was a nice touch) and removed the wine glasses from the kids. He replaced them with a chocolate milk at my urging.

 

The first corse was scallops- I believe. It was gross and I fed it to my son. It had a vinaigrette sauce on it which I thought was gross and I love vinaigrette on my salad.

 

 

That is a lot of glasses. They gave my daughter a mozzarella and tomato salad with dressing which my husband sampled and said was delicious- that is my favorite salad, I should have asked for that.

 

The second course was much better. A smoked tomatoes soup. Bowls were scrapped for this including both of my kids. My kids hate soup but they both ate this.

 

 

Right before they poured the soup in

 

 

The whole table

 

During the first course our chief, a lady from Jamaica, came out and thanked us for coming and explained the dishes. She apologized for being late out on the first course and this followed the pattern for each course. She would come and explain it and our server would explain the wine before serving. I only had to quiet my kids twice during these discussions, so they got an A + from me for behavior. They both needed to have a bathroom break, but so did I as I was drinking a lot of Evian as well to keep me lucid so I can’t fault them for that as dinner ended up being almost three hours.

 

I was still sipping the champagne and I had long given up on my daiquiri.

 

 

You can also see the fancy bread basket. I had one to sober me up and it was soft in the middle and hard on the outside. Yummy.

 

 

 

A close up of the poured soup, you were supposed to swirl it before you ate it.

 

We all agreed the soup was the best.

 

 

Another fish dish- it was ok. It had a mango sauce I wasn’t really fond of. They substituted chicken for my daughter.

 

 

Another fish course. I believe it was Bass!? I really have no idea and I forgot to take the menus, plus our menus were printed the same courses 1-3 on the front and back so they weren’t really helpful. This was actually very tasty and I ate all of mine. My daughter was given a pasta and my son was very vocal about also wanting some. So I politely asked if there was any left for him. They only made one serving but they happily obliged him . He only ate one bite of his fish and pronounced it gross, but I think it was because he had pasta envy.

 

The pasta was so good we never got a picture- it was a cream sauce that was right up my kids alley.

 

 

Up next - dragon. Or as the rest of you know it filet.

 

I am a steak girl so this was the best thing I have ever eaten in a cruise ship. It melted in my mouth and the flavors were perfect. Buttery and creamy in all the right places and crispy where it should be on the onion rings.

 

 

Still drooling...

 

 

Our chief- photo was taken by my son

 

Now I am already barley hanging on to sobriety and they served a martini. I took one drink and then took it back to the room with me- though I ended up giving it to hubby so it didn’t make it that far.

 

The desert was the best, my son proclaimed it the next day.

 

 

Wondering what the heck it was

 

 

A close up

 

Now for the next stage I need to get some videos ready.

 

 

The notes were required for all the cruise lines by the government - read each of the other forums and there is a thread just like this. They had to do the letters to keep operating. They will stay as long as the virus is still around. Do it or don’t, but until this thing is over, you won’t cruise without it.


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You booked a brand new ship. It will be packed with people.


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Since I couldn’t get the other post edited- here is my quick fix

 

 

So here is the only picture we got on the outlet mall after Motiongate

 

 

It was very pretty inside

 

 

Now at the Mall of the Emirates, after our fumble with the metro ... we saw the snow

 

 

Ski Dubai.

 

We had issues getting a groupon to accept our credit card, and we had sticker shock at the cost of ski Dubai, though I heard it was expensive. Since it was already 9pm ( Mall was open until midnight) and we couldn’t get it to work we said forget it! The ice cream across from the entrance was an acceptable alternative, especially since they had a special for two scoops.

 

 

Gelato!

 

This mall looked more like my mall at home and was a big circle so it was easier to maneuver. They didn’t have as many young kid friendly activities, but we said a hotel near here would be convenient because it was in between the marina/ palm and Fountains/Dubai Mall, but also on the metro line. FYI for future trips.

 

After the ice cream that is when we decided we had had enough and returned back to the room.

 

 

 

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I speculate by the end of summer when schools are back in session, around August and September.  Right now in California schools are out until May 1, but rumors are it may be out the rest of the school year.  I think we will see cruising back in June but with limited itineraries, with it back to mostly normal travels by September.  I think the biggest predictor is when the U.S. takes off the do not travel level 4 warning.

15 hours ago, BermudaBound2014 said:

 

Sure, the question is would they do anything? Based on most reviews here, MSC did not respond positively to those that did complain about smoking on balcony.

 

It's not a deal breaker for me, but for those who may be extremely sensitive to smoke, you will likely find MSC ships much more smoker friendly than the competition.

That's a bummer, I have kids and can't stand the smell.  We know it kills us so they shouldn't be allowed to do to it anywhere.  I would be the person calling them ten times a day, in an hour even, to stop them, since it is against the rules.  Your rights aren' allowed to impede mine, which is kind of why we are in this mess now...

Too fun, what we all needed right now.

I never heard from the host and with other things going on - I hope you were able to figure it out.



This was our towel animal and all our messages about what was going on with the port. I woke up about 6am and we were still in port. I checked my last messages before putting my phone on airplane mode and going back to bed.


So it was time for another sea day so we slept in and hit the end of breakfast in the windjammer. The news we woke up to today was the lock down of Italy and the craziness of people trying to return to the USA from Europe.

We had been neglecting the kids club so we took the kids and they were the only kids there. After we dropped them off we went for coffee in the diamond lounge and then tried to coordinate our hotels in Abu Dhabi and Dubai since the cruise was cancelled.

I say tired because the internet was out immediately after purchasing it. Something I wasn’t aware of was Diamond no longer gets the faster internet for free and we had to pay $7 for the faster version. [emoji35] not cool with everything going on. I didn’t ask, but I talked to others who were not provided with free WiFi. We paid it because the free version wasn’t capable of running the websites. It couldn’t even download updates on my phone when I used it the next day for my free day. Frustrating.

It was already time to pick up the kids so we got them from the kids club and headed up to the golf and see if the wall was open.



Elevator ride up



It was open.

Does she make it? You have to watch the video to find out. She did have a large audience cheering her on.

They were closing soon so after 30 minutes of trying the other side we took a break.

We haven’t visited the kids pool area yet, so that needed to change.




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aHhh! I don’t know what happened to that last one! I tried to edit it but it wouldn’t let me anymore... can a host delete it and I can try again?


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I only took one picture because my son was in the show and I videotaped him! My first attempt at a video so let’s see if this works.

 

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After that we went through the shop and got the kids something

 

 

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They both got a Toothless dragon - his is in the bag.

 

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[/url]A family selfie before we left

 

 

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Some shots of the river area. We walked through to the other side and headed for the outlets.

 

If we ever go back I liked this area and would consider staying on site as it came with the theme park tickets. As I recall it was about $300 (US) a night when I looked. Since it is out by itself a car would be a good option if you stayed in town because you could also load up at the outlets and not have to carry items back. They were building a Legoland hotel and if it is like the one in California it would be a great option for a theme park trip.

 

 

I didn’t take any photos in the outlet, but it had some good prices. I just wasn’t interested in spending lots of money, plus I had three people who were not interested in shopping and can get better prices in the US. Daddy took them to Starbucks for water and a coffee and they had a large chess set they played with to entertain them while I looked around. It was a lot of high fashion stores so if you aren’t a size ten or under your options will be limited.

 

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We caught a cab outside and then headed back on the metro. It was under construction and I think our cab took us to a side you normally don’t enter on because we got into the train and I told my husband we hadn’t clocked in with the tickets. He didn’t see a machine to clock in the tickets so he said it must be fine. For the record it isn’t fine and when we decided to hit the mall of the Emirates last minute it blinked and wouldn’t let us exit. We got fined by paying 21 aed for my husband and I, though we should have only paid 5aed each- they took pity on us and didn’t charge us for the kids so we ended up only paying 1 aed more (5 x4). So don’t mess up and not scan in like us!

 

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For the record the WiFi here is amazingly fast

 

 

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Back to the metro we headed back to the ship.

 

 

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The closest metro stop in the Heritage area. We used Uber which we started using more to be able to use our card. Since there wasn’t much demand for cars the cost was turning out cheaper than a taxi, but I think that was only because of the virus keeping people from going out.

 

By now it was 10:30pm and we hadn’t had dinner. I went upstairs and got some pizza to bring back to the room and chocolate chip cookies.

 

On our bed was the official notice of our March 16 cruise being cancelled. [emoji22] Also, the ship was going out to see on Friday, it was now 11pm Thursday. If you wanted to stay in Dubai you had to exit the ship by 6am. We were tired so we decided a day at sea to relax sounded good. Plus it meant exiting the ship for good and we were not prepared to exit this late and find a hotel by 6am. Saturday we would return in the evening so we figured it would be two days at sea and we could take it easy, which after today sounded good. My phone said we clocked in more than 21,000 steps.

 

 

Continued...

 

After lunch it was time for How to Tame Your Dragon. This land was my favorite of all the themed lands. We all loved the coaster so much we rode it immediately again. This is the only line we waited in all day. It took about five minutes.

 

 

Overview of the land

 

 

The water play area. Don’t get wet! I don’t have your bathing suits!

 

Then we went back to Madagascar land, again she wasn’t tall enough for this roller coaster ride so she did one with me while my husband took my son. As an adult I wouldn’t recommend this dumbo type ride as it hit my knees, it was built for kids.

 

 

The kids liked it.

 

 

Everyone has to have a carousel

 

 

King Fu Panda land

 

 

Selfie while the kids rode a version of the tea cups

 

Picture spot

 

 

They got to be part of the show

 

 

He took pictures after the show

 

 

We had done every ride by this point and we saw there was a Kung Fu Show on the main entrance. So we headed over there to watch. We found a bench nearby and watched it from there. The only photo I took of the show.

 

 

 

 

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Thursday continued

 

 

The first view of Motiongate from the taxi

 

 

This is where we were dropped off.

 

Motiongate is part of the Dubai Parks and Resorts so three parks and a water park are all attached to a downtown Disney like area called Riverland with shopping, restaurants, and hotels. The other parks are Bollywood, Legoland and Legoland Waterpark. It was about noon by the time we got there, the park opened at 11am.

 

 

It was empty

 

 

We did a quick park stop though

 

 

We were in a hurry to get to the park so we just passed all the stores by - the entrance.

 

 

Tickets bought using the app we went right in

 

 

Inside the parks Main Street- see how empty.

 

 

We made a quick left and started with Lionsgate which had two rides themed like Hungergames- my daughter couldn’t ride this coaster and she wasn’t too upset by that so we took turns riding the coaster with our son and she rode the other ride twice.

 

 

As you enter the land- you could hear the whistle blow- literally as they pumped

In the music

 

 

Inside the other ride

 

 

And my brave boy on the coaster

 

There was a huge group that was screaming on the last rides so we opted to walk across instead of going counterclockwise to avoid the group.

 

I don’t want to ruin all the rides for you so I will just post some pictures of the land and you can experience it for yourself one day.

 

 

Who you going to call?

 

 

Hotel Transylvania

 

 

Not tall enough, but brother was- the huge smile is so she didn’t have to ride the big drop

 

 

Smurf village- they liked the coaster here and the play area. We made them wash their hands after they were finished playing. I think I was more excited about the Smurf’s, I loved them when I was a kid.

 

 

The indoor area

 

The indoor Dreamworks section was the best part. I’m glad we did it last because the best ride was here, the How to Tame Your Dragon Coaster

 

 

Entrance fountain

 

 

Part of Shriek’s swamp- also the best ride. We were impressed.

 

It was lunch time so we made a quick jaunt to kid friendly food- pizza again. Not bad it was about $25 us for four sodas, a coffee, and 8-slice whole pizza. It was in the Madagascar area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 11 Thursday

We were greeted with more Coronavirus news in Italy and the stockpiling going on in the USA and U.K. I am happy to report in the UAE no one was running to buy toilet paper.

While another exodus was happening on the ship we decided to head for some fun. We weren’t in Abu Dhabi, but Dubai had plenty of theme parks. We selected Motiongate as the reviews I read made it sound like the perfect combination of kid friendly and thrill rides. My daughter want talk enough for two rides, but my son was able to ride everything- 130 cm was the magic number.

To get there we used a combination of the metro and taxi to and from the metro which cost half the price a cab itself would have. I saw a mall shuttle as we exited, but my husband didn’t want to hear about it, but I realized later the shuttle went to the outlet mall- which was right next to the park, so we could have gone out there for free [emoji35]. A cab was 130/160 on Uber.

In any case as we made it to breakfast about 8:30 am in the dining room they were announcing that they had ordered buses to help shuttle people to the port, but they had yet to arrive. We were still at terminal two but farther down. It was walkable, about ten minutes they said, but I don’t think it would have taken us that long.

Sea day continued

 

The captain came on the PA periodically and gave us updates, but mostly his updates were we haven’t heard anything.

 

 

We decided it was time for some outdoor fun so we started with mini golf.

 

 

 

Four!

 

 

It was about noon and we were still in port.

 

 

We found the basket ball/soccer court and there were two boys playing. I didn’t want to post their picture, but you can see my daughter has a soccer ball and my son a basketball. They played with these kids for a while.

 

I also wanted to point out when my daughter joined in, the two boys didn’t want to play with her. She responded by playing anyway and stealing the soccer ball from them and attempting to score on the net within the first ten seconds. After that, the boys were willing to play with her. My kids play ice hockey and take golf lessons so they are no strangers to sports. In their defense they were probably a year older so it may not have been the girl thing, but her age that made them originally not want to play with her.

 

The rock wall was in this area so we had been talking it up to our kids. We always encourage them to try everything once and they had recently done one at a travel show so we thought they would love it. They did it but they were scared and had to make a few attempts. They did both manage to get to the kid bell in the middle, but they were too afraid to go for the top bell.

 

 

Ring the bell!

 

 

Almost to the bell- he made it. He also made a point to let us know he did it and wouldn’t be doing it again. We never could convince him to try again.

 

It was time for a break so we headed inside for a snack- ice cream.

 

Vanilla for my daughter, chocolate for my son, strawberry for me and vanilla for my husband- we are creatures of habit.

 

 

And yes that beer, while we continued our exploration of the ship.

 

 

What does a yellow flag mean?! According to my internet search “a ship's yellow flag, denoting the letter Q for ‘quarantine.’ When flown with another flag, it indicates disease on board; when flown alone, it indicates the absence of disease and signifies a request for customs clearance.” so they were requesting UAE to clear us.

 

My daughter though got a taste for the wall and wanted to attempt the big one. Being short it was a lot harder for her and she spent some time attempting it. My daughter and son trying got a lot of others attempting it as well so you can she she is alone at the beginning but by the time my son went there were many people joining in to attempt the wall. I was wearing flip flops so no socks so I couldn’t- I won’t lie my husband and I never attempted it either, though I have done it, poorly, in the past.

 

Now it was time for lunch- we barley made it to the windjammer before they closed.

 

We had bathing suits so we decided to hit the pool. The kids pool was closed so we went to the main pool. We talked a lot to a family form Costa Rica who were trying to figure out how wit get home as they originally were going through Russia and had planned on a few days there before catching a flight to Germany.

 

Earlier today the USA had announced a ban on most European flights and all the countries had started instituting other bans of their own, including a mandatory 14 day quarantine in Russia. I saw him the next day and he was still trying to get a hold of Expedia to change his flights using the ships WiFi to make a call from his phone. Every morning we woke up to more and more bad news such as Italy’s quarantine and Spain’s infestation. As I described it to my family, every day we went to bed and woke with worse news. As our flight was through Istanbul we didn’t have to worry as it wasn’t part of the ban so we carried on, though at this point no decision was being made about the March 16th Cruise.

 

 

 

It was getting late so we headed back for showers and happy hour in the diamond lounge. My kids couldn’t manage all the fun

 

 

Sleepy head- as we sat here they made the announcement - about 8pm - that the two people were cleared of the virus and recovering nicely. There were cheers and celebrations as they announced they were headed back to the dock. By 9pm they had made an announcement that you could disembark.

 

At this point the mass exodus began to take place. People who had flights booked out of Europe or who were skittish travelers (and rightly so in these circumstances) began bombarding guest services for their passports ( which had been collected at embarkation) and to close their accounts to leave. I found out later about 500 people left and 1,300 people stayed. For the next two days the line at guest services was already 30 people or more deep.

 

So we headed to dinner because we weren’t interested in Dubai night life and the kids couldn’t handle another late night.

 

Evidently they couldn’t even handle dinner.

 

 

My daughter never did eat- but I did take her fruit plate back to the room and she ate that before bed. My son woke up long enough to take ten bites and then fell back asleep.

 

 

Even ice cream wasn’t enticing enough.

 

Obviously it was bed time for us so we headed back to the room and decided to make plans for tomorrow.

 

As our flight was still scheduled to depart we decided we wouldn’t join the others in departing early. We basically had a free hotel and restaurant for the week so we decided we would take advantage of it. We had already incurred the expense of getting to Dubai so we thought we would roll with it and enjoy. We never expected to see more and more restrictive measures greet us in the morning.

 

 

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Abu Dhabi- wait what?! March 11 Wednesday

 

We woke up and I noted that Abu Dhabi looked a lot like Dubai- that’s because it was. We were in a new birth and had cars our our window and not the port so I didn’t notice we were back.

 

As we started walking to breakfast at 8am the captain made an announcement. It was major because it was in the rooms as well. I could tell you what it said, but the captain basically read from this paper that circulated the ship in several languages afterwards. The gist if you don’t want to read it was we were on our way to Abu Dhabi when the authorities called and told them they would not be allowed to dock as they were closing all the ports in the UAE. We had two sick passengers on board who were being tested for the virus. Until they had the results we would not be allowed back into Dubai. If the results came back negative we would be allowed to dock and use ship as a hotel. In addition, All Our Cost Of The Cruise Would Be Refunded.

 

 

It says onboard credit but it was given back- only the port fees were given as onboard credit and if you didn’t use them they were refunded. We did a good job supporting RCCL and spent most of it. You had to ask for the gratuities back, but since we decided to stay we left them as most of the people we interacted with were helpful and we thought deserved them.

 

The issue at this point was we didn’t know if we were just having a sea day or the beginning of a two week quarantine...

 

So off to breakfast where my son was devastated over missing Ferrari world. I know this wasn’t the most important thing, but when you are seven and had been looking forward to it, in his mind it was the worst news. We said we would try to make it there another day but didn’t know when- for-warning here that never happened and you will know why later. Good for him we are the adults so we were panicking on the inside about what would happen for the March 16 cruise and what the hell we would we do for 14 days in our cabin with them...not canceling was not looking so good right now. In the kids mind, their plans has changed but they could do some other fun things.

 

We decided to make the best of it and went to the Dinning room for breakfast-no reason to rush the buffet now.

 

 

Breakfast art- this was her notebook and yes that is the Burj Khalifa that she drew.

 

We decided to walk around the ship because at this point we hadn’t gone anywhere but the meal options. So off to explore. We would sail away later, but at this point we were still docked.

 

 

Hot Chocolate’s makes everything ok

 

 

The new port area - terminal 2

 

 

Race car themed Bar

 

 

Schooner Bar

 

 

A mean game of checkers in the Safari Club

 

 

More Safari club

 

 

Entrance to the Safari club

 

 

Daddy needed a coffee so to the Diamond Lounge.

 

We played pool but I didn’t take any pictures- I’ll see if I can find any from my hubby. It was in the Safari club though if you were looking to play.

 

 

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I wanted to start out with an edit to the section on taking the metro.


Metro
That thing was crowded. So crowded we let the first train go but here the second train wasn’t any better we pushed our way in like everyone else. We were literally sardines in a can and I am not exaggerating. My kids were whining and begging to sit but you couldn’t even see past the people to the chairs. If this bothers you then I recommend the Gold Class which is a little more. It was better in the off hours but between 8-10am it was crazy busy and in the evening when people got out of work.

Another option is the women and children car which we utilized later, men aren’t allowed so my husband would be on the regular side and I would be in the women and kid car next to him, to give us some breathing room!

That thing was incredibly clean. I could smell disinfectant on it when we would ride it. When we rode it to the end of the line we saw someone getting on and sanitizing it. I only took one picture of it so here it is...




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Thank you everyone for replying and following. I enjoy reading your comments.


Sharjah - we actually were at the travel show in LA and when talking to Turkish airlines they suggested Sharjah as an alternative. When we rebooked we checked both and the price for the flight time we liked was much better in Sharjah for the way home. It took about 35 minutes to get to Dubai from Sharjah, though keep in mind if we would have left at normal work hour times that could double.

I appreciate the cute kid comments. As I have dark hair they obviously didn’t take after their mom, but their ‘tude is all mine.


I usually like to arrive at night, but there wasn’t an option for me this time, everything had a long layover and last minute Emirates (nonstop) was out of my price range.


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As we hit the ground running we slept through sail away.

At dinner the line was pretty long so we opted to sit with others and we had a nice dinner with four other couples. We discussed our days in Dubai and our upcoming adventures. We enjoyed the conversation so much I had to run up to get the kids before the kids club closed.

Adventure Ocean
Now is a good time as any to talk about Adventure Ocean. There was almost no kids onboard. The worker told me there were 30 kids on board total. She said the Jewel doesn’t attract very many families. When we dropped them off there were two other boys there (in any age group, but they happened to be their age). I never once saw a teenager in the fuel area when we walked by to get the kids either. Due to the limited number of kids they never did the activities mentioned in the handouts. They did what my kids wanted to do so they played ball games, Mario Kart on the wii and color/ art activities. They did try to keep with the themes at the beginning, but by day three my kids were usually the only kids there.

They loved the kids club because they got to pick what to do and they catered to them.

Back to dinner... we brought the kids to the table for dinner and being on vacation... the kids had ice cream for dinner. I admit it, I didn’t give them anything else first because we were all tired and after they ate the ice cream- they did get pizza from the solarium to take back to the room. My kids basically ate pizza and a salad for every lunch or dinner on this trip so I wasn’t ensuring proper nutrition at every meal.

By then it was 11pm. There was a production show I had wanted to go see but since we talked and ate dessert through it we went to shower and go to bed.



The walk to the taxi area



Solarium - this was the nicest area and had I not had my kids I would have used it more. The theme of this area was amazing, but I didn’t take pictures because it had the nets because it was closed at night. This picture was taken because my daughter is obsessed with cheetahs and all big cats- so she took this photo.



The kids towel animal that greeted them in bed- they loved that it was wearing my daughters hat.



It was cuddly Simaba’s bed time too.




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The mall

 

I will start by saying a mom packing fail, as we drive to the airport I realized I forgot both of the kids bathing suits- I usually pack several too so no one has to wear a wet one. I took that as a sign I needed to shop in the mall.

 

We made our way to the aquarium and the H&M next door to check out the bathing suits. I didn’t want to carry them so I picked out the ones I wanted and made a mental note to come back. I also checked out the Gap and several other stores, but the H&M had the best prices, 59 and 69 aed for the kids suits versus 100aed or more at the Gap and other stores I checked.

 

Before we left I had heard about the Entertainer app which came with several two for one specials and deals for 95 aed. We made our money in the aquarium tickets alone and we were able to purchase two for one explorer tickets for all four of us, I believe the tickets were 295aed.

 

The explorer tickets came with some extras which were worth it for the kids.

 

 

 

The main tank

 

 

Look how big!

 

 

Then you get to walk through the tunnel/ aquarium.

 

 

After the main tank you go upstairs and visit the “zoo”. The main part of the aquarium.

 

 

 

The entrance to the zoo section

 

 

Displays

 

 

Behind the scenes tour

 

 

Feeding frenzy

 

 

The croc

 

 

Boat tour- this was at the beginning but we went back and did it at the end because the worker told us the line was long. This was a great ending as it was a ride on the top of the main tank with a glass bottom so you could see into the tank. We placed our phones down and made videos which the kids thought was amazing. This was the best part of the explorer experience. It also came with a small simulator, which the kids liked but was a bit cheesy that you did before joining your boat tour.

 

 

Picture of the glass bottom

 

It was about 12:30 now so we headed into the H&M to get the suits. While there I had my son hold the bag with the notebook- big mistake as he found some toys and abandoned the bag without my knowledge... we will come back for it later.

 

The only issue was they didn’t have any swim shirts in H&M so I ended up buying a more expensive soccer jersey- France as it kind of matched the shorts and he preferred it over the white one. It was still cheaper than the other stores.

 

 

A selfie spot to entertain the kids while I bought the suits

 

As we walked we came across my husbands

Achieles heel

 

 

Water for the kids and a coffee for daddy, plus a mug to add to our collection

 

We wanted to see the fountain show so we made a quick dash to the fountains. It was part way through this show I realized we didn’t have the bag and I had to run back with my son to get it.

 

 

 

The fountains before I took off.

 

 

It’s bright out here!

 

 

 

My husbands fancy photos while he waited for me to get the bag

 

 

 

She is holding my sunglasses

 

At this point we were done so while this area was on our list to explore later we decided it was time for a cab because I didn’t want to walk all the way back through the mall and there isn’t any easy way from the metro to the port.

 

It wasn’t the right area for a cab and after not wanting to pay 50 aed for a luxury car we walked up to the street and found a waiting cab. He was heaven in my eyes and we hopped right in! 36 aed and we were back at the port.

 

We barley made it for late lunch and hit the windjammer just before the muster drill.

 

Muster completed we decided to rest in our room, rest turned into a 3 hr nap. We had to force ourselves up and we took the kids to the kids club to get them going. My husband and I headed down to dinner.

 

 

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Day 2 Tuesday March 10

 

We had to return the car by 8:30 am ( I rented it 8:30- 8:30 so as no to incur a second days charge, though they let us pick it up early. )

 

We were having breakfast by 6:50 at the diamond lounge, though we were getting dirty looks for being there early as it didn’t open officially for breakfast until 7am. My husband has a physical need for coffee so we spend a lot of time in the lounge just to grab a coffee from the machine and we were out by 7:45am.

 

We made a stop for gas with a view of the Dubai Frame and then drove into town to return the car. We used Avis so the car had to be returned to an office right next to the financial district metro stop. It was super easy as we pulled up to the curb they came out to meet us. They did a quick look around the car and one guy took it around to their parking while another person checked us out. We were in and out in 10 minutes.

 

 

Breakfast bagel

 

 

Burj and mall

 

We were right by the metro so we just walked over and took the moving walkways to the other side to catch the metro to the mall and Burj Khalifa. It was only one stop so 3 aed each. My kids were the same price as an adult so we all bought a silver metro card- we used it throughly.

 

The night before we were laying in bed and decided to get our Burj Khalifa tickets. We needn’t have bothered as the mall and Burj were pretty empty. The mall didn’t open until 10am and our tickets were timed for 9:30am. The mall is a maze so we made several wrong turns before ending up in the right place.

 

A bathroom stop and then we were in the elevator. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

 

 

The mall

 

 

Are we going the right way?

 

 

We are up high

 

 

I was going to purchase one of these from the At The Top photographers but they wanted 300 aed! Highway robbery so this snap was all we got.

 

 

I think this was the only picture of all of us that wasn’t a selfie...

 

 

We didn’t break it, it was part of the interactive video. My kids and some adults around- loved this.

 

We had bought the VR experience with the tickets and while cool I would skip it unless you really love these things. The kids loved it, you were an agent and had to complete some challenges in the Burj and then “jump” off the building.

 

 

Selfie

 

By 10:30 ish we had felt like we saw enough. We checked out the items in the gift shop, but weren’t impressed with much. My daughter who had been very well behaved the whole time picked out a notebook and in the second smaller shop my husband saw a pencil with the Burj on it so he bought her that too. My son had to hold my hand in the shop... though he wasn’t that bad, he just didn’t come when I called him which in my book is a capital offense.

 

We decided it was time to go into the mall and entertain the kids.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Global village

 

Yes this is still day one, we were trying to acclimate to the time change.

 

The kids were nice and awake now. It was family day so the lady warned my husband he wouldn’t be allowed in if he was alone, but we were also there so 15aed to get in each. Spoiler- we stayed way longer than planned because we loved it. If you come plan to shop or you will be bored. There are some free shows but the highlight is the shopping. We stared left and hit every area until we got to the carnival section. The kids were losing steam so this woke them right up. We spent another two or so hours in the carnival.

 

 

Global village entrance

 

 

Iran entrance- it had a lot of nice details

 

 

Canals - beautiful areas and this had some water features the kids could play with - free!

 

 

Roller coaster

 

 

The kids first circus

 

 

And circus treats

 

 

 

Fountain show- Bellagio it wasn’t but nice

 

 

The little red riding hood themed show was really neat- my daughter likes werewolves after watching a Nickelodeon movie- she was one for Halloween- so we stopped to watch it.

 

It was getting late and while my son is obsessed with cars we can’t handle it anymore and decided to skip the car show and headed to the exit. We made a stop in Kuwait to buy a dress for my daughter and myself I had been eyeing- you’ll see us in them later.

 

 

The exit

 

 

Finally we made it back to the ship and it was about 11pm. We took showers in our two bathrooms (if I can afford it we will always do this it was so nice having two) and crashed hard.

 

Jet lag sucks and we were all starting to stir at 3-4 am but we forced ourselves back to bed until 7ish.

 

 

 

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Dubai port

 

The drive was really easy, but confusing as there was a lot of getting into that lane early and then going a kilometer before you can take the turn. My husband said this city was the easiest place to drive as the roads were nice and well marked, though we did have a turn or two where we had to go around because we missed it.

 

I had read a lot about not being able to park in the port, but that was untrue. We were berthed at terminal 3 and had plenty of parking. There were no checks for cars coming in and we were able to pull to the front and park. I never took a picture, but it was convenient.

 

We got our stuff, turned in everything but our backpacks to go to the room and made our way into the terminal.

 

It took longer than normal because they went through each of our passport pages one by one to make sure we didn’t have any of the banned areas stamped in our passports. There was a small area roped off were others were being secondary screened- whoo hoo that wasn’t us- and we made it on to the ship.

 

I could breath easy now. My son has a trend of getting sick or having an accident on vacation, eye infections, colds, stomach bugs, trips to the ER for stitches... he has done them all to me. I was waiting for him to manifest with a fever just to spite me... Thankfully this trip he was good- he just would not stop touching his face! Luckily I always carry wet wipes and hand sanitizer even before all the crazy virus talk so we were good.

 

 

If you look in the background of the elevator you can see the port area and the parking lot

 

Late lunch

 

We didn’t want to get too comfy because we had the car and wanted to head out to see the Miracle Garden and Global Village. We took off right away for the village. The kids had a power nap in the car, we filled up on coffee at lunch.

 

Miracle Garden

 

Differently a must do. The kids took a while to warm up and mostly whined into my side for 20 minutes and tried to sit on every bench we passed.

 

There was a lot of whistle blowing going on, don’t stand on the edges, don’t turn the swings chairs so fast, ... they were on people for getting close to the flowers. It wasn’t always us but it got annoying hearing the whistle blow constantly.

 

 

Nice shoes

 

 

Photo by my daughter

 

 

They loved this swing chair

 

 

More photos by my kids

 

 

More photos

 

Some good ones by my husband

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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