Jewel of the Seas March 9 2020 when coronavirus affects but not infects your cruise- review

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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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[bearette]

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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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.

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TMLAalum]

So nice to see your photos and to know your family is enjoying the cruise and each other.

Sadly, I fear our 8/23 Jewel cruise will be cancelled.

[bearette]

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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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.

 

 

[bearette]

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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[Biker19]

1 hour ago, bearette said:

can a host delete it and I can try again?

You can click on the Report post link in the upper right of that post and ask for that.

[midwestsunshine]

Loving your review. Didn’t know Dubai had all those places to visit. Your family is beautiful and will have many awesome memories. Can’t wait to hear...the rest of the story. 

[bearette]

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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[kernow]

Really enjoying the review, your son so reminds me of mine when he was that age (he's 25 now). He had the same white blonde hair, he's dirty blonde with a ginger beard now!

 

We've been to Dubai many times but never done the theme parks, maybe that's somewhere to visit next time.

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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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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.

 

 

[bearette]

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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[Cel_cruise]

Thank you so much for writing this review!
 

Im super excited to see the activities you did with the kids and reacted to the travel and the experiences!  Your family is rolling with the punches really well!

 

I was in Doha during this same week and flew home as planned on the 13th (turns out this was just in time as everything closed up behind me!!) - I was wondering what your cruise would be like the entire time as we often passed the closed port!!

 

Hope you and your family are surviving the social distancing days and staying healthy!  

[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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[sgmn]

Great review, so nice to hear from a family POV too, looking forward to hearing rest of your trip 

[bvm49]

Love reading your great review. We've been to Dubai 3 times but never did the theme parks - but then again we've never had kids with us.

We were due to board the Jewel of the Seas on April 8th - maybe one day we'll get to experience this ship.

Brian

[bearette]

On the way back to the room they had photographers so we decided to take some quick family pictures. They did a good job of hiding the chocolate stains.



Just the kids



A family shot


Then I was really done. I barely got the kids to bed and then put myself to bed. As my mom told me when she saw the pictures, just because the glass is there doesn’t mean you have to drink it.


While I was in the pictures I found the one we took yesterday when we disembarked to go to Motiongate. I remember saying “ oh hell yes we are taking a picture” when I saw them on the gangway. I didn’t like our boarding picture so this was to replace our gross embarkation photo.




The cruise to remember


Finally, I did break down and buy the 105 aed (about $25) photo they had when you first went into the Burj Khalifa- they had it at the exit-this bag with the photo and notebook was the one my son left behind. It was easy to prove it was mine when my picture was in it. I was annoyed when we bought it because they show it to you in a nice folder, but then gave it to me in the cheap folder as it was 300aed (that’s close to $75-$80) to have the nice folder. When I complained they gave me a one sided key chain. A nice gesture, but I wonder if they give it to everyone or if you spent a certain amount.



You can see the folder around the edges.

We had a nice lie in the next day, but I have kids so they only let us sleep so long...



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[bearette]

Saturday March 14

It started out as a sea day. The captain announced in the morning we would be back in Dubai around 2pm. This was also what they told us last night at the Diamond party.

Now bright eyed and bushy tailed after a full nights sleep, we had breakfast in the dining room. We got the kids cereal and donuts from the buffet while we ordered off the menu. This worked out nicely as the kids were settled first before our hot food came. We talked some to the table next to us, they were from the U.K. and they didn’t seem to be having as many lock downs as my family was describing from the US. Their schools were still open while I had learned my district and my kids were closed until April 1 (they are now closed until May 1).

It was an overcast and cooler day then it had been so we took the kids to the kids club. Again they were the only kids there. The attendant told me only 10 kids were left on the whole ship. Their soccer playing friends had also departed.

We headed up to use the coffee machine and the last of the internet -and sign up for my own free internet using my diamond discount- slow doesn’t even begin to cover it.



Our view of the mostly deserted pool while we had coffee

We wanted to check out the pictures so we went down to check them out and I purchased the photos I already shared.

We only had the kids in the club for an hour before he picked them up again. I met my husband back inside the main shops. We had done a quick visit on the first quarantine sea day and bought some of the 5 for $40 items. They had kid watches and since my kids just learned to tell time they were super excited about those. In some of the pictures you can see them strutting their unicorn and Nemo fish watches. It was also where the cheetah hat came from (My daughter is also obsessed with cheetahs) and gifts for people back home.

We wanted to attempt the rock wall, but it wasn’t open so we looked through the stores and at the end they were doing an art talk. My husband and the kids were there when I found them.

Then it was time to rest and we took a power nap in the room.


Wake up!

We arrived a bit early to Dubai, about 1:30pm. We were still resting and I attempted to wake my husband and kids, but none of them were having it. We slept until 2:30ish. I remember we made the tale end of lunch at Windjammer around 3pm.

My daughter really wanted to do the rock wall so we went to hit that before we left, but when we got there, it wasn’t open. [emoji17]We knew we would be out tomorrow so this was her last opportunity. We were annoyed they weren’t open, as the time in the handouts listed it as open now. We didn’t tell her it wouldn’t happen and said we would try tomorrow if they were open.

So we headed to the room to get items (water bottle, wallet and $$$) and use the restroom one more time before we headed out to see the old town area.



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[bearette]

March 14 continued

We got a late start, but we had been having long days so we thought we would take it easy today.

We got a cab and had it take us straight to the abra station, the one next to the Grand Souk. I wanted to go to the Souk, but I was overruled and we headed for the abra. We decided just to take it wherever it went. For the steal of 1 aed (you pay the driver, he comes around to collect the money right before it leaves). The kids enjoyed the ride and it was pretty from the water.


Boat!



Where we landed

We ended up at the end of the Textile Souk, but we didn’t know that at the time. We consulted the map at the pier and decided to follow the path suggested. We past a store and noticed it was stocked with toilet paper and paper towels. I should have taken a picture.

If Dubai has a seedy area this was it as we were hit up often to buy Apple products and designer items. It was annoying, but if you ignored them, most of them, left you alone. Just don’t make eye contact or respond a second time.


We weren’t even close to following the path so we missed the mosques, but we made it to the Gold Souk.



The entrance

I looked around, but my budget this trip didn’t include purchasing anything. I did find a nice necklace in 21k gold for $1800!


Dreaming...

We didn’t dally to long and ended up in the textile souk. We had fun there... and I spent more of my money.


We all got something but she took her dress off.


This guy knows how to sell because he even got daddy to buy something.

All my money spent we decided to get out of here...

But a photo of my handsome son joining in the local dress.


He got a lot of attention after this...

Back to the boats we caught another one back to the dock, paying attention that we got the correct one.


Great photo but they couldn’t sit there because they put some boxes there.



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[Coralc]

I imagine that would be great headgear to wear for yardwork. 

[bearette]

Continued...

 

Back on the other side of the creek

 

 

We headed over to the Grand Souk. I recommend you do your shopping here as they started bargaining a lot cheaper than the ones we bought from. I might have been able to save some money.

 

 

Since the prices were good I spent the rest of my money, I was running low on cash. The men kept stopping to talk to Kylan and “fix” his head covering. They all had a different style and if you notice in all my pictures he has a different wrapping because he was constantly stopped to fix him, which was a great way to get me in the store.

 

Grand souk

 

Mosque on our way back-not the best pic but you can see the new wrap style

 

We walked out through the city by the above mosque then backtracked along the water toward the metro, which is the closest to the port. We made our way past the ferries and I took a picture of the schedule when we noticed a ferry went all the way to the marina. They were hawking trips in the ferry as it was 6:15 and a ferry would be leaving soon. We wanted to head there tomorrow so we thought the ferry would be a scenic way to do it, though it was pricey at 25aed a piece, but that was only about $7 which was better then the scenic tour boat prices we saw the next day.

 

Ferry schedule

 

We made a mental note to catch the 11am tomorrow.

 

 

Waterfront just past the ferries

 

We headed past the hotel and up toward the museum. We talked about going in, but the kids were tired and not interested. I let the kids have my phone to take pictures so I didn’t get any of the door art display outside the museum which I thought was pretty.

 

They did get this fascinating picture.

 

Dubai cat- I have about ten versions of this on my phone

 

Photo by daughter- as you can see we were in a parking lot so we could called an Uber- we were running low on cash so wanted to use Uber

 

Street view near the metro

 

We caught the Uber illegally by the cabs and made our way back to the port.

 

My daughter took some decent photos from the car

 

 

Cruise ship- No idea which

 

Nice shot of the Burj

 

Blurry Queen Elizabeth

 

Back onboard the kids were not hungry, and neither were we, so we took them to the kids club. We could make the tail end of the happy hour so he dropped them off, but first I made a stop at the bar to get bottles of water for the room for later. We met up at the Diamond lounge and my hubby had beat me there. He got me the last chocolate covered strawberry, which are my favorite! When I went to grab a snack they had more so I grabbed a few more. Yummy!

 

Full of strawberries, we saw they had a movie running on deck and since it was warm out we decided to hit up the movie. It was Jumangi 2, which I hadn’t seen but my hubby had. It was 2/3 of the way through, but he caught me up and we watched the last half hour or so of the movie.

 

Selfie on deck

 

Chilling and watching the movie

 

Before long it was over and while we were super hungry we decided to check out dinner.

 

We got a table for two, but it was right up to the tables on either side of us, so we ended up talking to the couples on those tables, who were on desert, until they left. It was lobster night and he brought my husband two and offered more because they were not busy. Two was enough and I passed.

 

We were finished in time to get the kids from the kids club by 10pm. They were the only kids again so they got to play whatever they wanted so they said they had a great time.

 

We needed to get them feed so we headed to the solarium and on the way there they had restarted Jumangi 2 so we sat with the kids to watch. It was near the beginning. I made multiple trips for pizza, drinks, and cookies. I’m still mad since my husband ate my chocolate chip cookie and there weren’t any more! He owes me a cookie.

 

We didn’t last the whole movie , but maybe an hour. I need to watch the whole movie from the beginning...

 

We took the elevator back to the room.

 

Atrium view while waiting for the elevator

 

 

 

The Ship

 

You’ll notice Dubai not the ship was the star of this review. While we normally on Caribbean and Mexico cruises will do a lot of the shows, we didn’t make one this cruise. I like the musical shows and my husband the comedians, but we slept through the revue and I never saw a comedian... that I recall, but we could have been gone, too. There were a lot of singer tribute shows which we tend to dislike (which I think was a result of the itinerary change). We past several singers in the lounges and atrium, but since dancing is my husbands idea of a nightmare we never stopped to enjoy them. We only caught a few minutes of them here and there, such as waiting for the elevator. I will say I did notice they had entertainment, piano player or band, most of the evening in the lounges when we past through.

 

The ship itself was small so I don’t think I would like it for a transatlantic or other cruise with a lot of sea days, but for a week it had enough to keep us entertained. I did note two and a half sea days were enough to do all the actives on board we wanted.

 

The highlight of the ship really is the views. I spent a lot of time by the elevator coming and going and I enjoyed having an atrium or sea view every time we rode the elevator- we avoided the aft (or was it-forward, I think we used it two or three times) elevator bank because they were the standard elevators.

 

Our rooms were on deck 3 midship but closer to the midship elevators. Since we docked so

much in Dubai it was the perfect spot as we were 15 rooms away from the gangway. It made coming and going a breeze when I was carrying a lot of purchases...I have found the ocean view rooms are usually placed well for this.

 

Since we had two rooms we had plenty of space, but I didn’t like how the door was at the tail end of the room so when both were open they looked right into each other’s beds- you could see how that could be a problem. We closed one door at night, but always kept the kids open to solve that issue. We also gave the kids a password and told them they were not to open the door unless someone said the password. Also they could only open the door if I told them to. Even if they said they were police I told them they must know the password or they shouldn’t open the door. This worked well and I never had trouble with them opening the door. This trip was the first time we weren’t in the same room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[bearette]

March 15 Sunday

If it wasn’t obvious we went to bed after we feed the kids.

Now this day is when Coronavirus really began to effect true vacation. We started the day googling Coronavirus news in our area as the BBC said a lot about Europe and USA, but not the Middle East. This googling is what made us find out about two important items. One Abu Dhabi had closed all attractions such as theme parks, museums, and beaches. This closure included Ferrari world. [emoji22]

Secondly, the UAE has put in flight restrictions that started Tuesday that limited flights to several nearby countries, including our flight to Turkey. *insert four letter word here*. This forced our plans to immediate change. We decided a run on the airport or a three hour phone call was not on our agenda. Instead we headed to breakfast and looked up some more items, before realizing we had only one choice. We had to talk to the airline and go home tomorrow (Monday which happened to be the last day of the cruise).

The next item on our agenda was to head to the mall area where we saw there was a ticket office. We figured that would be less busy then the airport. We headed out, but I decided not to take our bathing suits as was our original plan. (Remember we wanted to head over to the marina and the beach using the ferry).


I didn’t take any ship pictures so I had to get one

We waited away from the taxis for an Uber, remember Uber was a lot cheaper than the taxis because of the extra 20aed fee.


Port and parking lot

We took the cab directly to the ticket office and that worked out great. It was busy, but we beat the rush and we were sorted on a new flight in 15 minutes. There was no change fee ( technically our flight was cancelled) and they were able to reticket us on the Dubai 8:30am flight the next day (as the Sharjah flight was busier he asked if we could do Dubai, we were fine with that was it let us sleep in longer and was a cheaper cab ride).

All sorted we headed toward the mall and began the sad process of cancelling hotels and tours. AirBnB was amazing and by the end of the day we had the refunds in process for our Dubai apartment and the Dessert tour we had scheduled for the next day. Hotwire we are still messing with, but to be fare it was a hot deal where you don’t know the hotel until after.

Without getting to detailed-Some issues with Hotwire included- the phone line not working at all while in Dubai, we just got a number not functioning message the several times we called, an email unanswered, and then once they set up an online form they said it wasn’t refundable. We had been communicating with the hotel and they stated they would return our money, but we had to go through Hotwire. A phone call the other day was in process, but they actually called the hotel, but due to the time change they were not open. My husband is an essential employee so the reservation is in his name so he has to call again when he isn’t working. Luckily it was cheap, but if they don’t refund I will not be using them again. They are my go to site for last minute hotels, but now I will be looking at direct more. Our credit card used to have insurance in it, but slowly all the benefits (BofA took over) have left so it is worthless benefits now. Travel Insurance is looking good now...

Car for our trip to Abu Dhabi cancelled, we decided to console ourselves with Kidzania for the kids and VR/ hysteria ( haunted maze) for the adults. That didn’t work out so well because when we got to kidzania, it was also part of the not as widely publicized ban in Dubai. Theme parks had closed this morning in Dubai as well, which was why we headed for the mall. *insert another four letter word*.

Now Hysteria, the maze was open so we decided to do that, minus the kids. It wasn’t busy, in fact the mall was virtually empty, it was about 10:30am now, so the worker offered to mind the kids while the adults went through. Gave the my phone and they happily played games while we were gone for 10 minutes. Normally I don’t think this would have happened but as I said there were no people in the mall.

The maze was ok, I do a lot of this stuff at home, Knotts Scary Farm and such,but since we had the entertainer app it was 2 for 1 which made it worth it. I liked how they did the rules, a legal requirement but done to the theme of a horror maze.

Finished we walked farther down and were sad to see more items, the mirror maze, VR and any fun item that contained people closed. I think they closed the maze right after us as well too by order of the government. I think some confusion allowed them to be open for a little while.

We found the Ferrari store and since we had promised my son Ferrari world we decided to let him pick out a car instead - long story short I put him on a sticker chart for behavior at school and he was earning the trip to Ferrari world, which is why it was such a big deal for us. He had earned it and if you are in the field of behavior/ education you know that anything promised must be followed through.


Closed ice rink


Maze- woo hoo! Still open!


Ferrari store

We were at a loss with what to do and still trying to deal with the hotel in Abu Dhabi and trying to figure out what was open. So we thought ice cream and a coffee would help and a visit to a toy store.


Gelato



Shopping

At this point we decided to head to the marina because we could look around a new area and check out if the beach was still open. There was talk of buying bathing suits but we didn’t, though I looked at a few. That turned out to be a bad idea- I should have brought or bought suits.


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