Time on my hands

Two days at sea with nothing specific to do, combined with silly AR things on my phone, gives you these.

Dubai to Thailand

This is why I don't blog. I forget! So here's a recap.

We headed out of Dubai very early Saturday morning to Singapore. We had first class tickets on Emirates and they were everything awesome you've ever heard about them. Fresh flowers, charming and attentive flight attendants, food on demand, a bar, jammies, and showers. Yes, actual showers. In giant airplane bathrooms. With heated floors. Taking a hot shower on an airplane after 24+ hours of travel is one of the highlights of my travelling adventures. Seriously.

Singapore is a little bit of a blur. We had less than 24 hours on our own. I used a nice chunk of Hilton points for the Executive Level at the Singapore Hilton and it was quite nice. Our room had quite a bit of street noise, even 20 floors up though. My impression of Singapore is that it's extremely clean (spitting gum on the sidewalk is illegal and punishable by caning) and the people we're genuinely friendly. We did manage to get out, get a little food, grab a little local cash, and see some of the extensive Christmas decorations in the city before we passed out.

Sunday we hung around the hotel til noon, taking advantage of the Executive club food and beverages (and the wifi). Then it was time to board the cruise ship! Everything went as it should and we were on. We booked a suite for this trip, which has a nice side bathroom and a balcony, both of which are great. We're grabbed some lunch, took a nap, and unpacked our bags. It should be noted that we're barely into the trip at this point and even our extra bag space is full. Emirates provided us with a bunch of goodies, all of which take up space. Celebrity gave us more goodies. I'm pondering how we're going to get all this stuff home. Enough about that though.

You'll note that to this point, this trip has been mostly devoid of adventure. Everything has gone to plan and, while fun, has not experienced any of our typical "big trip" excitement. That changed Sunday night, when I barfed all over the table at the restaurant on-board the ship. It was epic. Luckily we had two full days at sea to recover from that before we hit Thailand.

Next post: Thailand

Dinner in Dubai

It turned out that a 7 1/2 hour layover was the perfect length of time for a nice dinner at Ossiano in Dubai. That gave us just enough time to change into nice clothes, zip through the immigration fast track line (perk of flying in Business class), check our bags into the luggage holding area (for a reasonable fee), catch a cab to the restaurant (arriving 10 minutes before our reservation) , eat a leisurely dinner, catch a cab back to the airport, retrieve our luggage, zip through the first class check-in lane (no line), schlep through the airport to one of the first class lounges, change back into travel clothes, walk to the gate, and get on our plane.

Side note: we were going to try to Uber, but it was very unclear where the airport pickup was so we took a cab. When it was time to go back, they were in surge pricing and a cab was cheaper. And unfortunately, UberChopper was unavailable. Yes, chopper.

Anyway, Ossiano is an underwater restaurant, with a lovely view of the aquarium residents.

The restaurant had a chef's tasting menu, with small bites of many things. We opted for the mid-size version so we could have an extra appetizer. This was a really lovely restaurant. From the hostess to the water guy to the waitress to the assistant manager, everyone went out of their way to make sure the experience was great. They had asked in advance about allergies, which got them my standard "no walnuts". Every single person we encountered knew that and went out of their way to make sure I knew whatever was going in my mouth did not have any. I even ended up with special bread because their standard bread basket has a bread with walnuts and they were worried about cross contamination, so my bread never touched the basket.

And that was our trip to Dubai! Someday I'd like to see it in the daylight!

Off we go

Well, we made it to the airport without forgetting anything critical. It never occurred to me to weigh my carry-ons though, so that caused a minor delay in check-in while I figured out what I could part with for the next couple of days. I'm unaccustomed to parting with anything in my carry-on, so that was a challenge!

We also found that Emirates now participates in TSA pre-check, so that was nice. And another nice surprise was finding that our biz class seats come with access to The Club at SEA. It's fine as far as clubs go, but there's a dude on the phone in the first class area who wants to make sure everybody can hear him. 

Just over an hour now till we're off. I'm hoping we might get a nice view of the northern lights, but we don't have window seats and it's only at level 4 tonight, so we'll see.

Food on a plane

Emirates let us pick our seats today and view the dining menu for our upcoming flights. We managed to get seats next to each other on both flights! The menu did not disappoint either.

We get to check in less than 8 hours from now. Excitement is starting to build, along with a slight sense of "what are we forgetting to do?". Housesitter is all squared away, plenty of cat food and litter have been stockpiled, photos for the Vietnam visa have been acquired, travel notices on credit cards have been set. Really the only thing left to do is pack! 

How to plan an adventure

The planning for this adventure started almost 2 years ago! This month is our 20th anniversary (yay us!) and it happens to coincide with the hubby's 10-year work anniversary. This is significant because in honor of 10 years of service, his company chips in towards a vacation of the employee's choice. I travel a lot, which means I have a lot of Alaska Airlines frequent flyer miles and hotel points. Where to go? What to do? How to mash all this goodness together for an epic trip?

How about a cruise? To where? Maybe Asia?  That sounded like a great plan. A two week cruise to Asia in December, when the weather at home is frightful. That's a significant amount of travel to get there though and who wants to do that in coach? It turns out that with half a million (yes, that's 500,000) Alaska Airlines miles, you can fly Business Class on Emirates from Seattle to Dubai, then First Class from Dubai to Singapore, then Delta One from Hong Kong to Seattle at the end. And that layover in Dubai leaves you just enough time to have dinner at the the underwater restaurant, Ossiano.  Though getting dressed up after a 14.5 hour flight might be a challenge.

I'm told everybody should fly Emirates First Class at least once in their life, so this is our one shot. Yes, it's true that they have a shower in First Class.

The cruise itinerary is Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong. We used hotel points to add a night in Singapore before the cruise and a night in Hong Kong before we fly home.

I played around with Google Earth and made a little animation of our trip. Ignore the parts that show the boat route going over land. Animation is not my thing and straight lines are a lot easier than curved ones!

Asia anyone??

After much prodding, I've decided to blog about our upcoming trip to Asia. No promises that it will be an awesome blog, but I'm sure it will have it's moments. And if my trips stay true-to-form, it will feature at least one actual emergency or disaster.

Stay tuned for more!