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In Dubai…

We landed in Dubai a little before 8:00pm local time on Sunday—an overnight flight back into night. We basically lost a morning en route. The flight itself was long (just over 13 hours), but it was actually fairly tolerable, even in coach. And, for me, I’m always filled more by a sense of wonder at it all (“hey, we’re over Baghdad!”) than by discontent with the mild frustrations.

Dubai’s airport is gleaming… as nice as any I’ve seen anywhere. It’s clearly a transport hub to the world with connections and flights to all manner of ‘exotic’ locations. For example, the American guy next to us on the airplane was on his way to Afghanistan for work. Clearly, many of the other passengers were flying on to parts of eastern Africa, the Middle East, or southern/central Asia. Indeed, the arrivals hall looked a bit like the United Nations on “casual Friday.” We spent an hour or so on line at passport control. No issues with entrance for us—just stamp, stamp, and done.

After breezing through customs, I used the ATM to collect local currency. We stopped by Marriott’s welcome desk, collected free bottles of cold water, and were told it would be fastest/cheapest to get to the Dubai Marina via taxi. So, we shuffled to the taxi area and were directed to the official tan/pink ‘lady’s taxi’ service, since Libby was with me. That’s right. They offer dedicated taxis for women, driven by women (also in tan/pink outfits), and fully equipped with car seats (good had Emerson been with us). Frankly, this was probably the most clean, best smelling, and safest feeling taxi I’ve experienced. Amazing.

Given that it was night, we couldn’t see too much of the city during the ride in from the airport, just lots of well-lit skyscrapers, shopping malls, and other retail establishments. Aside from the combination of Arabic / English language signage, the scene was very familiar with highly recognizable British, Canadian, and American brands on every street.

We arrived at our hotel, the Marriott Dubai Harbour Hotel and Suites, within 30 minutes. The taxi ride was cheap: about $20. We were quickly checked-in and ushered up to our 2-bedroom suite on the 29th floor. Oh wow! It’s monstrously big: living room, dining room, fully equipped kitchen(!), two bedrooms, three bathrooms (two en suite, one for our guests), laundry room, etc.—all tastefully appointed.

Our hotel suite's living room

Our hotel suite's living room

It being almost 11pm by this point, we quickly headed out to walk along the marina and find a place to eat. We ended up grabbing dinner at a Johnny Rockets (yes, that Johnny Rockets, which we’ve never tried at home) since it was close at hand and still open. But, that’s sort of emblematic of our impressions of Dubai in the first 12 hours of our visit. It’s a cultural mash-up: a blend of the East and West, the common and sophisticated, and the modern and traditional.

Libby and the Dubai Marina Skyline

Libby and the Dubai Marina Skyline

I’ll leave you with this scene. On the way back to our hotel, we passed by this upscale café where two obviously affluent guys—both dressed in kandoura (the white gown local men wear)—were sitting outside smoking shishas (water pipes filled with flavored tobacco) and playing ‘cards’ on their networked iPads. All of this was set against a backdrop of palm tree lined paths and gleaming towers. That’s Dubai in a nutshell.

What an amazing place…

We fell asleep around 1am.

Today’s box score: +1 continent (Asia), +1 country (Dubai, UAE)

In Atlanta…

Next stop: Dubai!

We’re traveling light on this trip. Carry-on luggage only:

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Despite rushing around at the last minute to get ready, we managed to get to out of the house and this far relatively stress free. Whew! It feels good to be underway. Here’s Libby ‘living the good life’ in Tampa’s Delta Sky Club:

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I checked upgrade potential a few days ago and BusinessElite seems to be completely sold out. Oh well. I’m not surprised. I have to imagine this is a business flyer dominated route. But, we shall see. Frankly, I’m just grateful for the free bump to ‘Economy Comfort’ — 4″ and 50% more recline makes a world of difference.

Next post will probably be from Dubai, either on Sunday or Monday in the US (as I’m not sure what the web access situation will be like).

Everything’s amazing…

A friend shared this video with me a few years back. I thought it appropriate given the amazing Boeing 777-200LR that we’ll be flying on today. While a 15 hour flight will doubtlessly suck, the capacity of modern travel really is amazing… this is a great (and funny) reminder!

At almost this time next week, we should be touching down in Dubai after our non-stop, overnight flight from Atlanta. Here’s roughly what the route looks like:

Atlanta to Dubai — Map

Also, here’s a link to an article on the world’s longest flights in coach. Dubai to Atlanta (longer due to wind direction) is only(!) the 26th longest regularly scheduled, commercial flight in the world at this time. It has a scheduled flight time of 15 hours 45 minutes. Plus, we’ll be a bit more lucky with Delta’s Premium Economy seats.

We’re busy making final (ok, let’s be honest, just…) preparations.

Stay tuned…

Shortly after our recent trip on Royal Caribbean aboard Navigator of the Seas, I paid a visit to the RCI web site to look at some itineraries for late 2012 / early 2013. While on the site, I also pulled up our planned itinerary for this summer aboard Mariner only to find out that two of the five (40%) of our ports of call had been changed! Tunis, Tunisia had been replaced with Valencia, Spain. And, Corsica was substituted with Cannes. Given our 157×50 goal, this made the cruise far less worthwhile – frankly neither worth the time nor money involved.

Unfortunately, I’d just finished booking our nonrefundable airfare ($750 for the family) from London to Rome a couple of weeks before. So, I called Royal Caribbean to find out 1) what the deal was and 2) what they planned to do about it I immediately called for assistance / explanation. Unfortunately, neither the ‘cruise planner’ nor the ‘resolution desk’ could provide details on the when/why/how of the change. However, I was told that because this was a ‘change of itinerary’ and not a ‘redeployment’ Royal Caribbean was unwilling to do anything to cover my loss.

It’s worth noting that legally—by terms of their contract—Royal Caribbean has a right to change its itineraries at any time for any reason and that passengers (read: customers) have no recourse (read: aren’t entitled to compensation). Thus, to be fair, Royal Caribbean is/was entirely within its legal rights to f**k me over. Of course, that doesn’t mean that their decision to do so is either 1) morally right or 2) ‘good’ customer service.

You see, I agree that there are ‘legitimate’ reasons for why cruise lines ought to be able to change itineraries on short- or long-term notice without penalty (i.e., health, safety, weather, etc. – as we experienced this past February when our Antarctic visit aboard Celebrity Infinity was effectively scraped due to weather and for which I registered no complaints… as ‘things’ happen). However, I’m fairly certain (at least the timeline of geo-political events would suggest) that the decision to make this change had mostly to do with improving the salability and profitability of RCI’s product offering.

Anyway, back to the story — pissed off, I asked to speak to a supervisor/manager at Royal Caribbean’s ‘resolution desk.’ I was told that I’d have to wait for a callback. In the meantime, I wrote a comment to RCI’s CEO on his blog in response to a recent post of his about ‘brand loyalty’ (which, to my amazement and RCI’s credit was actually posted!). After a handful of phone calls with the resolution desk manager, RCI ultimately agreed to provide us (solely as a gesture of ‘goodwill’) with $200 in onboard credit for our upcoming cruise, as well as some sort of wine/cheese platter thing (let’s call that worth an extra $50).

This still left me holding the AMEX bill for $500. Thanks Royal Caribbean!

Happily, after some research and persistence, I was able to get Cheaptickets.com (I must say, I was impressed by their customer service) to get Alitalia to refund the unused taxes on our tickets: worth ~$390. So, now I’m only out $110. Of course, I also won’t be spending thousands of dollars on the cruise with Royal Caribbean. And our new itinerary (including five new countries: Luxembourg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, and Poland), which will involve renting a car in much lower-cost Germany rather than Italy (the rate differences are crazy!) and using some hotel points (like my seemingly lifetime supply of Radisson points!), will actually end up being a good deal cheaper than the cruise too. So, net-net, I’m a winner.

Thus, our travel lemons have been squeezed into lemonade!

That said, I’m still–if not ticked off at–at least disappointed in RCI, who I feel has betrayed our trust. I think that we’ll stick with them for Dubai (though, I’m exploring strictly independent travel options there too). However, while I won’t swear them off indefinitely (as I have American Airlines for the past 18 years), we will not be rushing back to sail with them again soon. And, I offer this story as a caveat emptor to my fellow travelers.

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