Westysclan World Cruise 2023

Today’s plan was to explore the rest of Dubai by Hop On, Hop Off (HOHO) bus. There are 2 circuits – the red and the blue. Both start at the Dubai Mall. The red circuit does the older part of town while the blue does the newer parts of town. We were picked up at the cruise terminal and taken into Dubai Mall. Our plan was to do the red circuit in the morning and the blue in the afternoon.

Our trip started well. We decided to make stop 5, the dhow ride on the Dubai Creek our first hop off point as it only ran at 11am, 1pm and 3pm. We got there a bit early so had a wander through the shops and buildings. They looked quite ‘rustic’ but we figured, like everything else in Dubai are not really that old, as the foundations in the water did not look like they had been there very long.

The Dhow ride was a bit of a disappointment. It went 20 minutes one way then we turned around and retraced our route. There was also no commentary. I did enjoy watching the locals being transported across the creek on these though!

After the ride finished we had a short walk back to the bus stop where we all tried to huddle in the little bit of shade available. The buses are timetabled to come approximately every 40 minutes. Some gave up waiting and hailed taxis. Interestingly the regular bus stops are enclosed and air-conditioned, but not the tourist stops. After 25 minutes the bus arrived. We had just reached the top deck to take our seats when an elderly gent that was on our cruise fainted with heat exhaustion. His well intentioned wife poured water into his mouth, so Mark quickly got another male passenger to help him lift the still unconscious man into the bus aisle and into the recovery position to clear his airway. He came around quite quickly after that but was obviously not in a good way. He was a Queenslander and terribly embarrassed that the heat had gotten the better of him. His wife’s plan was to take him back to the Dubai Mall and let him sit in the air-conditioning for a bit (“We are from Hervey Bay and used to the heat!”) before resuming her sightseeing. Mark and I decided to forego the rest of the red route stops and convince her to take him straight back to the ship. Once he started vomiting, she could tell this was the best thing to do. Back at the Mall the bus company helped us secure a taxi and we got him from bus to taxi and back to the cruise terminal where I was able to alert the cruise ship staff who then collected him with a wheelchair.

Since we were back at the ship we decided to eat and rehydrate before refilling our water bottles and heading out again. No time to return to the red route and see the cultural village and souks (Mark was disappointed – not!), but enough time to do the full blue route if we didn’t get off.

While taking in the unique and staggering architecture of Dubai was interesting, we finished the day with numb bus bums and, despite bus air-conditioning and only having done about 10000 steps, saturated by our own perspiration. Like Singapore, Dubai is an impressively clean city – no graffiti, no posters, no litter.

Back at the ship it was time once again to refuel, rehydrate and attempt to cool down in the warm bath like water of the pool while we waited for sail away. I have to say our view from our berth was particularly spectacular at night time.