A full day in Dubai today, the ship leaves at 10pm for Abu Dhabi.  There’s a convenient free shuttle from the ship to Dubai Mall, which is perfect for me as I have one scheduled activity today – an 11am reservation to visit the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, which is attached to the mall.

Traffic is quite bad in Dubai, it’s basically a thin 30 mile long strip of buildings, so rush hour congestion starts early and ends late.  It took us a good 40 minutes to reach the mall, more time to marvel at the incredible architecture here.  Almost all the buildings are new, and therefore very modern in design, each seemingly pushing the design envelope just a little further.  Unfortunately my bus window had terrible window tinting so I’ve no photos to show you from the ride but I assure you it made sitting in traffic rather bearable.

The Dubai Mall is one of the largest shopping malls in the world: 1300 stores, a skating rink, aquarium, waterfall, etc. and is absolutely gorgeous.  Probably the  most beautiful mall I’ve ever been in.  Every store and every restaurant was exquisitely designed, perfect window displays, clean, elegant, serene, exuding the sense of wealth and privilege.  Every brand and every chain was represented and all had that same atmosphere.  It was helped, I’m sure, by the fact that all the Christmas decorations were up and Michael Buble’s smooth crooning of Christmas carols was serenading the shoppers.  It was a pleasure to spend a few hours just wandering the many, many levels eyeing both the myriad of goods for sale and those shopping for them.

My visit to the Burj Khalifa was equally as impressive.  Basically a spindle into the sky rising to 2,716’ it has 163 floors, and observations decks on the 124th & 145th stories.  The elevator takes a full minute to ascend but there’s hardly any sense of movement at all.  I had to look at the little digital screen quickly changing from 18 > 19 > 20 before I realized we were even moving!  My ticket was for the lower viewing level, though at that height I’m not sure one could really tell the difference of 20 stories, and although it was a hazy day the views were of course amazing.  Everyone was pressed with their backs to the glass taking selfies, I guess they’ll look at the view later in their photographs?

Another tourist attraction at the mall is the fountain show set to music, just like the Bellagio hotel in Vegas.  I was able to catch both the 1p & 1:30p shows, one set to arabic music, the other to opera.  Very impressive.

By that time my phone measured I had walked 5 miles and I was really feeling it.  During my 11 days in the Maldives I did more swimming than walking and so my body was out of practice.  I caught the 2:30p shuttle back to the ship and had a late lunch at the buffet before spending the rest of the afternoon relaxing in my cabin.