Monday – What was I saying about 5 Stars we joined a queue 38 minutes long for breakfast. We purposely went down late thinking all the kids would have finished, wrong again. Fortunately once we did get seated it wasn’t so bad and we ate well. Margaret was feeling a bit sick so we didn’t go too far until 3:30 when we were picked up for our Dessert Rose adventure. We were picked up in a flash white Toyota Land Cruiser, they already had two British couples on board and we headed out to a gas station somewhere to meet up with around 15 or more other similar vehicles. When they were all assembled we head off into the dessert where they let a bit of air out of the tyres and we did some crazy driving on the sand dunes. Stop off at a small camel and goat camp and eventually got to a camp site in the sand somewhere. They had a dance floor in the middle and low tables with cushions around the outside, not good for my old body, most uncomfortable. I went for a ski on a snow board down one of the hills. When I came off you got covered in sand which stuck to you as you had sweat on your body and then as well as being uncomfortable you felt like a bit of sandpaper. They had a young lady do a belly dance, boy she had some muscle control. They put on a dinner which was really good, I tried a bit of almost everything and enjoyed it all. They also had what I think was hash smoking for those that wanted to participate. It was really pleasant out and the coolest we had been (discounting Air Con) in UAE. We were dropped home just after 10. It was a great evening and a lot of fun. The English couples we were with had picked up their 9 day stay at the Intercontinental including all meals and drinks (including cocktails) for 980 pound each.

Tuesday – No queue for breakfast today, they had got themselves organised and apparently had three restaurants open for breakfast. I think today is the last day of their holiday. Our plan for today is to walk down to the central souk (market) and then head over to the heritage village that was closed when we stopped on our day over. A complete failure. We had probably a half hour walk in 38 degree heat and had been expecting to find an outdoor local market with local crafts and produce. This was not to be, we found a separate fish market, veggie market, shoe market, gold and silver market and a clothes and other odds and sods market. This was all really disappointing but I guess with the heat you might have expected everything to be inside with Air Conditioning. So we did have a bit of a look around, brought some shoes and then hailed a taxi that dropped us off at the Heritage Village. Oops closed again apparently for these special holidays. We quickly grabbed another cab as it was stifling hot and headed to the nearby Marina Mall for the air conditioning. Pretty impressive place, grabbed an iced coffee thing from Gloria Jean which was really good, I had never had one before. There were some fun looking stuff for the kids like the big bounce land with trampolines, flying foxes and more. There was a Sponge Bob stage show and over in another corner we found all these sideshow type stuff for kids. We stayed there for tea and had some Chinese. Probably got home about nine o’clock.

Wednesday – Well they stuffed up breakfast again and we were back in a queue. Only for about ten minutes this time but not quite what you would expect. We had thought of driving to Dubai today but gave it away as there wasn’t much there that really interested us and everyone was suggesting the risk of driving and getting caught doing something that would get you pulled up by the local constabulary was high. We headed out to Yas Island where they had Ferrari World and what was supposedly the flashest mall in Abu Dhabi.
Yes the mall was flash with all the top name brand shops over three floors, a big cinema complex, activities for kids including an impressive miniature type carnival set-up. Margaret brought me a new watch for Father’s day, well really because she loves me. We found the mall was connected internally to Ferrari World which we looked at but didn’t pay the expensive fee to get in.

We had dinner at this Lebanese restaurant in the Ferrari World complex which left a lot to be desired. A pity that our last real meal on holiday was so bad after all the fantastic food we have been having. It took us a bit to find the correct exit to grab a cab and head home.

Last day of our holiday, tomorrow we are heading home.