Raffles Dubai hotel room, the biggest room ever!

It is Dubai after 4 days at sea since 

we left our last port in Sri Lanka.

Sadly, our 21 day cruise on this magnificently elegant 

Queen Mary 2 came to an end in Dubai for us.

Local welcome performance at the cruise terminal, Dubai.

Disembarkation was smooth as planned.

We had breakfast in King's Court earlier than usual

and vacated the cabin around 8:30am so that

our friendly room attendant Noel can service the room.

Our disembarkation time was assigned for 9:30.

We, as platinum member, could use a lounge

 along with other grill passengers

until our final departure of the ship.

And the lounge was The Verandah restaurant.

We wanted to try the restaurant but have not had a chance as yet.

It offers premium degustation set menu with extra charges.

Supposed to be very nice.

Well, it will have to be a next time. ^^;

They prepared coffee and tea with selection of pastries but

we were still full from the breakfast.

I just had a cup of coffee while 

we were waiting for our turn to leave the ship.

Local guide was waiting for us 

at the exit of the terminal when we disembarked.

There were handful of Aussie fellow passengers

 on our transfer bus to the hotel.

We met and also had same tour

in Shanghai before we embarked the ship.

But we haven't been able to see each other much 

last 3 weeks as there are so many venues 

and facilities on board 

among 2,600 passengers.

So we were all busy chatting and catching up on the bus.

Raffels Dubai hotel where we stayed for two nights.

Loby entrance

We were still too early to check-in to the hotel.

A little bit of warm hospitality welcomes us with local tea and dates

while we were waiting for our room to be ready.

The receptionist did check-in us 

also escorted us to our room.

She boasts that their hotel room is the most spacious in Dubai.

It is more than 70 Sqm and it is huge.

Hotel verandah is also big 

with a view of the hotel pool

and shopping mall Wafi underneath of the dome.

Quiet hotel lobby when we returned.

We spent whole day on Hop on Hop off bus and a boat.

We did the most out of our package which includes

the cruise, hotels and tours in Shanghai & Dubai,

Transfers and air fares.

Cool beer seems to be very appropriate after a day in Dubai! ^^

Thank you to the hotel!

Hotel buffet breakfast next morning.

When Middle East meets China!

Food selection was large and they are all delicious!

Fresh mango juice and watermelon juice were really refreshing and different!

Definitely, this is one of our best hotels we have ever stayed!

Very happy!

Where are stilt fishermen? Galle, Sri Lanka

We are in Colombo, Sri Lanka after Penang, Malaysia.

I have never thought Sri Lanka would be so close from South Asia!

It only took 2 sea days!

This would be our 4th or 5th visit to the city

and we always have hired a taxi for half a day to look around.

So we decided to do something different this time.

And we saw Galle Tour out of many shore excursions offered from the cruise.

It was only 130Km from Colombo to Galle 

but it has taken more than 2 hours by tour coach.

But it was rather pleasant with views like the above along side the highway.

Rest stop on highway 

Tea farms scattered around mountain area.

Entering seaside of Galle.

Our tour guide looks like well over 70 was very enthusiastic

about the tour today and said that

Galle is a must visit place when in Sri Lanka!

A local market on a beach 

Seafood shop 

Famous (?) clock tower!

It was so humid and hot day,

 even sea breeze was not a help much

to climb up the small hill to the top of the fort.

Galle has the largest fort built by European in Asia.

Portuguese first then Dutch came here and fight

for exotic spices and tea centuries ago.

Needless to say about their emerald and saphire...

Highschool kids playing cricket 

This is so called museum but it was actually jewelry store.

Didn't someone tell us that there is no gem stones left in Sri Lanka

because they export them 100% to overseas?

He was posing and asking us to take photo of him.

The stones he is working on are moonstones.

I don't know much of gem stones but these are pretty!

Another famous (?) landmark in Galle.

Dutch church.

Well located hotel by the cliff with nice view

was our lunch stop.

It must have been very popular tour for the passengers!

There were three coaches with 120 people at lunch buffet.

I was hoping to have nice curry dish.

At least one.

But big disappointment as there was no authentic local dish presented.

One of the worst tourist food ever, as well!

There has been huge monsoon rain while we were at lunch

which lasted about 2 hours.

Sri Lankan tea products in fancy packages.

Tour guide promised to us to go to see stilt fishermen

in the afternoon if we have time left.

Sadly we had to satisfy ourselves with this photo 

hung in a hotel souvenir shop

as obviously we didn't have time to go to see them 

before hurry back to Colombo.

Back to Colombo.

Most of stores closed as their biggest national holiday is on tomorrow.

The day to be with their family in hometown.

All in all, we did enjoy the tour to Galle

even though there were few disappointments. ^^