Cruise Exit Mayhem

Today in Dubai it was time to get off the boat. It didn't go well at all. For one thing our cruise masters insisted that we get off the boat super early. Maybe they did a bad job of staggering us but with Ernie and all of our luggage we needed an elevator. Well it was impossible to get on to one. Any that did arrive were already full. People were being pretty aggressive as well.. waiting in line is a bit of civilization that is not shared by many cultures. We hunted around less popular areas of the ship for hidden elevators. We found and even rode some that didn't go to the floor we needed. It took time and our bags were quite heavy. We walked through the main lobby and saw giant long lines of people waiting for the customer service desk. They made an announcement yesterday that if your account wasn't settled they wouldn't let you off the boat. I am a smart person who plans ahead so I went to the desk last night and settled our account.

When we finally arrived at the little hallway and room where you walk through security to leave the ship, it was packed with humanity. I saw what the problem with the elevators was: the doors would open but there was nowhere for people to move to get off. There was also a staircase full of bodies and their luggage pushing their way down into the crowd. Amongst the melee was a desk with a worker at it and a computer. People would try to leave but couldn't get past the gate when they had an outstanding bill. Then they'd be forced to push their way back to the desk to settle up. There was a lot of arguing and haggling at this desk from people disputing their bill. It was mayhem. One of the few Americans on the ship, embarrassingly from the Seattle area, and a man in a wheelchair were loudly arguing. She didn't want to pay and he was yelling at her to hurry up. 

Finally we pushed our way to the security gate. I beeped my card and walked through the gate unmolested to freedom. Lydia, though, scanned her card and got the buzz of shame. There was a problem with our account. We were supremely stressed and tired at this point and started getting loud. They mentioned something about $42 and I angrily opened my wallet and threw exact change on the security desk, probably flavored with some curse words. While arguing with the bouncers they revealed that it wasn't a debt we were being held prisoner for, it was a credit. They owed us money and wouldn't let us off the damn boat because of it. To make matters worse, they said the lady at the little desk down the hall didn't have the ability to deal with credits, and so we needed to go back up to the lobby we'd passed earlier with the huge line. Lydia has a penchant for losing her cool in poorly handled customer service situations and I am the good cop voice of reason who calms her down. In this instance though I thought our predicament was so ridiculous that her flipping out was the best course of action. There were a few "we're just doing our jobs" then the security manager finally said "just go". It was a deeply stupid display, especially considering that we got a check in the mail a few weeks later for the amount owed. Gee, wasn't that easier than a kidnapping and revolt?

The UAE is so oily they even have oil rigs on their coins.

Pretty much every country is nicer to families than the US.

My favorite brand of camel milk chocolate had a large display at the airport.

I forgot how fun inflight magazines are to flip through.

We took a bus from Dubai to Abu Dhabi and then a plane back to Doha, Qatar. It's funny because we were just in Doha but this time our experience was completely different. We stayed in a boutique hotel in vibrant Souq Waqif. It was sort of like if the market from Aladdin was a real place.

I had major Doha airport PTSD but no luggage was lost this time around.

We stayed at the Souq Waqif by Tivoli.

It was fun how lively it was in the market. The malls are populated but feel really artificial compared to this place.

We popped in to Halwa Al Saigal for some treats. Halwa seems to be a word that applies to many different types of sweets in different countries.

I don't know what kind this was but we ate it all.

Our hotel lobby was so cool.

Ernie's First Cruisey Christmas

I mentioned in an earlier cruise post how much attention the cruise staff paid to Ernie. Sometimes it was nice and made him smile, other times it was annoying and distracted him from his mission. But as the days went by and we gained more familiarity with certain crew members they started opening up more and revealing bits of their personal lives. They would tell us their own children's ages and one even mentioned that that day was their kid's birthday. We realized many of the worker ladies were mothers who probably don't see their children for months at a time. Especially now that today was Christmas I suddenly felt a lot more empathy for them and tolerated them wanting to occasionally give Ernie's chubby little cheeks a pinch.

These spinner toy things are quite the hit with the big man.

It was difficult to navigate the SS Ernie Wern through the main lobby of the ship today because there were so many families getting their photos taken everywhere.

We had an unlimited drinks package so I took it upon myself to try every drink available.

Today's excursion was to Sir Bani Yas island. I was interested because I'd read about the island being some royal retreat. We found it to be pretty lame though unfortunately. It felt like a cruise company's idea of a safari.

Big Ern did have some fun. This was a very rare instance that he rode in a vehicle without being strapped into a car seat. He's a big fan of wind in his face/hair  so he was loving that part as well as we started to pick up a little speed on our cruise arranged tour.

Many of the trees and plants had their own little sprinkler life support system and made me feel like this wasn't really the nature preserve we'd been led to believe and that none of this was supposed to be here.

One person in our group was caught by surprise by the lameness and kept asking why the animals were behind fences and that it was ruining her pictures.

We managed to get Christmas Day reservations at a restaurant on board the Dawn at a Brazilian steakhouse. It wasn't bad. They did the thing where they force feed you from giant meat hunks on a sword until you burst and die. There was an incident where I gave Ernie a mushroom and he chewed on it with his molarless gums forever but never made any progress. We had to pull it back out of his mouth with much difficulty.

Eating slices of roasted pineapple was a highlight of the meal.