Alan & Dianne's Travels: Stage 6

Again, not much action yesterday, 13th February because we had an overnight flight to Dubai departing 12:35 am, so we thought it best to just relax on the beach, do a bit of shopping - Dianne bought a few dresses and I a pair of shorts - and reading books; we also managed to avoid alcohol all day thinking it won't help us cope with an overnight flight. We returned to the apartment late afternoon to finish packing have a shower and get changed; the taxi to the airport turned up at 7:30 pm and we arrived at the airport about 8:30 - far too early for a 12:35 am flight but we had economy tickets and wanted to upgrade, just for this leg of the journey and the only way of doing that was at check-in. So, when check-in opened we were the first in the queue and managed to upgrade to the only two seats left in business class! Great news because I was able to sleep/doze for about 6 hours.

So, we arrived at Dubai airport after a 7 hour flight meaning we landed at 04:30 am local time. We were met by the hotel car and soon after checking in, at the Dusit Thani hotel, we were in bed for a couple of hours to catch up some sleep. We woke in time for breakfast and, after an hour or two decided to go for a walk so set off for the Dubai Mall - picked up a few things, including a new camera bag, a bit late really, I could have done with it in Thailand!

As it was Valentine's day we decided to book a meal in one of my favourite restaurants, the PAX where they offered a set menu for the evening with a welcome glass of bubbly. The 5-course menu was impressive and included Waghu beef and lobster - so we had to have two bottles of wine, red and white! The red, a St Emilion, was also impressive. (We had already drunk a glass of white wine in the executive lounge before going to the restaurant so, that and the bubbly and the two bottles of wine meant we had far too much to drink; our rationale was we needed to sleep well!)