In January 2011, we embarked on a portion of Cunard’s World Cruise. Most major cruise lines have a world cruise which leaves in the winter and returns about 110 days later having sailed around the world.
Not being up for that many days on a ship, we opted for a segment that started in New York City and ended in Cape town South Africa 30 days later. We sailed on the Queen Mary II which we had been on before.
We sailed down the east coast of North America stopping in Ft. Lauderdale. There we did a tour of the Everglades and in the port saw one of the new mega-ships that carries about 4,000 people.
Later we stopped in Barbados and then to South America stopping in a couple of Brazilian ports before stopping in Rio. Then on to Montevideo where we turned left and headed for the southern tip of Africa.
To get there, you sail for 4 days passing the most remote inhabited island in the world, Tristan Da Cunha. The Cunard ships are actually Royal Mail
carriers and we delivered some mail to the island before heading on to Cape Town. After arriving in Cape Town after 30 days at sea, Mary was ready for dry land.
We stayed in Cape Town for a couple of days and then flew to Abu Dhabi. Etihad Airlines had just started flying from Abu Dhabi to Chicago non-stop and offered a very attractive Business Class fare from Cape Town to Chicago that allowed you to stay in Abu Dhabi for a couple of days. We signed right up.
You don’t realize how large Africa is until you try to fly its entire length. In our case it took over 12 hours and we arrived in Abu Dhabi around 10 PM.
We had booked a standard room at the Emirates Palace which was relatively new but rather lavish. Our travel agent arranged for us to be upgraded to a suite the likes of which we had never seen.
The room was about 3,000 square feet with a dining room, living room, dressing rooms and a bathroom was that was at least 500 square feet with a hot tub you walked up marble steps to get to. The floor of the bathroom was sprinkled with flower petals and we had fresh flowers throughout.
When we arrived they told us our butler would arrive soon to take our dinner order. Sure enough, the butler arrived around 11 PM but we were too tired to eat much so just had some juice or something.
The next day Mary was not feeling well so she stayed in the hotel. I went for a bus tour around the city and took some pictures. The city not too many years earlier was only known as a pearl fishing town and had no gleaming office towers or anything like. The discovery of oil in the UAE had made all the sheiks rich and they decided to join the modern world in a big way.
They were building so many things in the city it was hard to count them all including Ferrari World an amusement park for Ferrari lovers. It is hard to imagine being there in the summer when the temperature is always over 100 degrees. We were there in February and it was nice…around 82.
The hotel had many restaurants; so many it was hard to decide but we ended up at a chinese one. It is odd to eat Chines food in an Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. Most of the men wore the long white robe that reaches the floor and most of the women wore and abaya that covered everything but the eyes.
The citizens of this emirate are less than 25% of the population with the others being the workers that make everything run.
We flew home to Chicago the next day on Etihad, about 15 hours. We were glad to get home but also glad to have had the chance to see Abu Dhabi.