Friday 22 August
Post breakfast trip to World Trade Centre Mall and Souk. Friday is the beginning of the weekend and with the local propensity toward night shopping we were not expecting crowds. How right we were. The Mall is another big one, but with numerically less, but more upmarket, shops than Marina Mall. Apart from us, the sales staff, and big numbers of cleaning and security staff, the place was empty.
Once again, big wide passages, spotlessly clean, many toilets and seats.No different at the adjacent very modern souk (and can you imagine a middle eastern market where the carpets are on display but no one is there to sell them - well here it is!!!!! Tonight both places will be packed.
Back to Jumeriah for time by the pool - got a 4pm checkout but not the 6pm I would have preferred. After check out, read the papers overlooking the pools and sea before a cab to airport.
Jumeriah was an excellent (read "grand" hotel), very well positioned, many, many smiling helpful staff and with excellent facilities. So much marble you could not imagine, a very big bedroom (bed more than 6 feet wide) and a bathroom half as big as the bedroom (and with full width floor to ceiling window).
Abu Dhabi is a great 2 or 3 night stopover at this time of the year but you have to enjoy the heat outside. I need to comment on the taxis as they are such a contrast to Melbourne. Each car is checked for cleanliness, inside and out before each shift, the drivers are finely uniformed (and checked out before shift), all taxis are metered and they are cheap ($22 for our 36km ride to the airport - but of course petrol is less than half our price). We used taxis every day as the city is very widely spread and walking any reasonable distance at this time of the year in the heat is not realistic.
I am on a 'winner" with Etihad auctions having been advised yesterday that I was successful with another Business Class bid (at the price I bid, there was a better than even chance). Not sure if other airlines do this, but all the "yield" managers will all be onto it soon - no more complimentary upgrades, big dollars for every seat upgrade!!! One of us thinks it well worthwhile, with personal attention from the time the taxi pulls up, no luggage to manage from the taxi, dedicated terminal entry, fast track immigration and security etc, etc, etc - and now writing this from the lounge. Not sure who the check in rep thought I was but he called me "Sir Norman" - perhaps Tony Abbot has been at work in our absence!!!
Home tomorrow.
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