Day 8
With all the planned sightseeing out of the way, we decided to have a somewhat leisurely day. We had a lie in and then headed downstairs for a leisurely breakfast. I had my usual assortment of hot dishes and hummous with bread. I also noticed that they offered watermelon juice so I made good use of this. Graham had toast with marmalade, but he also had a cooked breakfast that day.
After breakfast we had a bit of down time. I made good use of our nice bath tub and had a nice long soak. Once we had digested all the lovely breakfast, we headed down to the pool. We spent some time alternating swimming and chilling out on the loungers and enjoy being pampered. It was actually quite windy that day and once the sun had gone in, we were quite chilly. So we decided to spend a bit of time in the relaxation rooms.
This time round I was wearing one of my full-length swimsuits and I was still too cold to enjoy the heated tile lounger for any length of time. I spent a bit of time in the sauna, which was pleasant and then decided to head back out to the pool deck to see if Graham had had enough of the spa as well. I could not see him anywhere so I decided to head back towards the spa reception. I was just about to go back inside, when one of the pool attendant called out to me. Graham had left his swim gloves behind and he gave them to me. When I got back to the spa reception, they asked me if I wanted somebody to take a message to Graham. I told them that this was not necessary, but asked them to tell him that I had gone up to the room when he comes past.
I headed upstairs and had time for a nice warm shower before Graham came upstairs. He was slightly bemused. He said that he had realised that he had left behind his swimming gloves and had gone to retrieve them only to be told that “Madam has them”. He then went past the spa reception only to be told that “Madam had gone up to the room”. We often joke when we are on cruises that you cannot take a step without somebody noticing, but this was taking service to a new extreme.
We had decided to head over to the beach of the sister hotel to try out our snorkelling gear there. However, as it was the middle of the day and the beach at the Royal Meridien would get all the sun at that stage, we decided to wait a bit longer. We spend an hour reading and checking our emails before going downstairs to catch the shuttle bus over to the Royal Meridien. The shuttle bus dropped us off outside their spa. We had to sign in at the spa reception and we were equipped with towels there. There were also changing rooms that we could use.
Once we were changed, we headed straight to the beach. The sea was quite rough that day and we soon found out that waves and snorkelling do not go together. We put our snorkelling gear with our towels. Graham decided to go for a swim in the sea, but the conditions were a bit to rough for my liking. So I decided to head for one of the pools instead and asked Graham to come and find me when he had enough of the sea.
The pool was huge. It has a separate zero-entry paddling area for children and it also has a swim up bar. This amused me. There were dire warnings everywhere about not being allowed to swim if you had alcohol, which is fair enough. However, the swim up bar was doing a roaring trade in all kinds of alcoholic drinks. Some of the people at the bar most certainly had more than their fair share of alcohol. Up to this point I always liked the concept of a swim up bar, but this showed me that this is not just silly, but downright dangerous. I kept well clear of this area and swam on the opposite side of the pool. I was quite happy there. A little while later Graham came to get me. We went back to the beach area to get our stuff and then went to get changed.
When we had been over to the Royal Meridien earlier on during the holiday, I had spotted that they have a restaurant reservation desk there. As none of the restaurants in our hotel really appealed, we decided to check out the options at the Royal Meridien. There they had a huge selection of restaurants. We had narrowed it down to the Mexican restaurant, the Asian restaurant and the new Gary Rhodes steakhouse. In the end the decision was to some extend made for us due to the availability of reservations. So we ended up with a reservation for the Mexican restaurant for that night and a reservation for Rhodes Twenty 10 for the following night.
The Mexican restaurant is not in the main hotel building itself, but in its own building near the beach. We decided to check this out first before getting the shuttle bus back to our hotel. Fortunately we did not have to wait long for the shuttle. Once we got back to our room, we hung up our swimming stuff, got showered and changed. I had brought a couple of cocktail dresses and I was looking forward to get dressed up. Once we were ready, we went back downstairs to get the shuttle back over to the Royal Meridien.
Even though we had only about an hour from when we had left the Royal Meridien, we managed to get back with some time to spare. We slowly ambled down to the restaurant and we were seated as soon as we got there. We were quite surprised to find the restaurant virtually empty considering that we were told that there was no availability before 20:30. As soon as we were seated, we were introduced to our server. We were asked if we wanted some wine or champagne and declined. We ordered some fresh juices instead. I went with Mang juice and Graham had some pineaple juice. We were quite surprised when the restaurant manager approached or table shortly afterwards with a bottle of wine. He had got the tables mixed up.
Shortly afterwards, our server approached us with a big plate full of tortilla chips and two different types of salsa. They were meant for us and were very yummy. In the meantime, we had made up our mind what we wanted to eat. We decided to share some steak nachos for our starter. For his main course, Graham decided on Filet Mignon Mexicano, which was an Adobo marinated US Black Angus fillet with cherry tomatoes, potato gratin, crispy leeks, chille de arbol salsa, Mexican rice and black beans. I had chosen Mole Poblano, which was a pan-seared chicken breast with coriander rice, plantains and Mole sauce. I had asked to have this without the plantains and explained that I am allergic to bananas. I have never tried plantains and don’t know if I would react to them, but as they are part of the banana family, I do not want to risk it. Shortly afterwards the restaurant manager came back with the menu advising me that their Mole sauce is prepared with banana. So I decided to have the Filet Mignon as well. All the food was truly delicious. This was the best steak that I had ever eaten up to that point. However, this would change again very quickly. Unfortunately we did not have room for desserts, but Graham had some filter coffee and I had a double espresso.
After dinner, we headed back up towards the hotel. They offered to call us a golf cart, but we declined. We were so full that a little bit of a walk did us the world of good. We went outside to wait for the shuttle back to our hotel. While we were waiting, we were chatting to one of the doormen.
When we got back to the hotel, we decided to head up to Bar44, which is on the top floor of the hotel. I had heard that the views from there are a stunning, which they were. Unfortunately they still allow smoking in bars in Dubai and there was somebody next to us smoking a cigar. So we just had one drink and then we headed back to our room. Graham had a Lychee Mousse, which consisted of crushed lychees, grapefruit juice and coconut cream. I can’t remember the name of my cocktail, but it consisted of crushed raspberries, mint, limes, apple juice and a splash of ginger ale. They were both lovely. Once we had our drinks, we headed back to our room and went to bed.
i love the shots of the skyline from the beach. those rapids at the waterpark sound quite dangerous glad they took good care of you tho after the event. Dubai sounds really interesting with a wide range of things to do, i also love a bit of haggling shame about the counterfeit dealers tho. 
