Day 2 - The terrible, horrible, no good very bad day

Our big event today was an evening desert safari that didn’t start until 3pm, so we had the whole morning to relax.  We had breakfast, a workout and then Damon & I met up for an awesome couples’ massage.  Interestingly, culture dictated that we had to be with same sex masseurs, but there was no problem with each of us lying mostly naked under a blanket with the respective other sex masseur standing 3 feet away.  Post massage, we had a few hours to kill, so we hung out by the pool and had a quick lunch before showering and getting ready for our safari.

The safari people were supposed to pick us up at 3pm, and when they hadn't arrived by 3:15, I looked up our reservation to confirm.  And this is was the beginning of the downward spiral of our awesome boondoggle.  The reason this blog is so late to publish is because I wasn't going to write about the rest of our trip, but Damon convinced me that when we record our memories and experiences, they are not always perfect and we should remember everything – the good, the bad, the ugly.  So, what happened?

When I looked at our reservation to confirm details, we realized that I had accidentally booked the trip on the wrong day (yesterday) so we had, in fact completely missed the safari.  I called the tour company to see if we could get a taxi to meet them somewhere, and if not, could we re-book for the next day.  They said no.  I begged and pleaded with the woman on the phone and even the concierge got on the phone and tried to help, but they had our money and considered us no shows and they would not budge.  There would be no refund and they were unwilling to apply all/part of our payment if we chose to reschedule for the next day.  The were so inflexible that we could not justify re-booking with them and so $200 and all of our plans for the day flew out the window. 

In addition to kicking myself over the wasted money and the missed trip, I was frustrated that we had lost an entire day (remember, I am a non-spontaneous super planner).  Now we had to decide whether to re-book the safari or stick with our original plan to spend the day at the Atlantis water park, which we had really been looking forward to.  I completely understand that to anyone reading this, it sounds pretty lame - what is the big deal - we missed a tour.  It has been a few weeks since this all happened and as I sit here typing, I honestly can't understand why I was so upset.  In hindsight, I'm open to the possibility that in my jet-lagged over tired state, my reaction was disproportionate to the situation at hand, but at the time, the disappointment in ruining 1/3 of our trip was very real.  The whole situation was just infuriating to me, mostly because it was entirely my fault, and there was nothing I could do or say to get back our lost time.  Side note – my computer does not adjust time zones, so when I had booked our tickets in the previous morning for “tomorrow”, with the 10-hour time difference my computer was a day behind, thus my error in booking the wrong day.  

When you are tired and angry and frustrated, even a loving spouse cannot fix it.  And we started to fight and get annoyed with each other making the situation worse.  We had no idea how to spend the evening since most daytime activities were closed, so in an attempt to salvage the evening, we took a (non-luxury) taxi to an area called “The Marina” to have dinner – one of the items on my back-up activity list.

Our moods lifted when we got there.  It was a beautiful night and the Marina was quite pretty.  The architecture of the skyscrapers around the marina is extraordinary - each building is uniquely designed with detail that looks both old and new at the same time.

Most of the development in Dubai happened after 2000 making the skyline and most of the skyscrapers less than 15 years old and it is still growing.  There is construction everywhere.

Cranes on top of every building

Some cool looking buildings...

This was viewed from the Burj - there is a swimming pool up high between the two towers

Not sure what this was, but another "futuristic" looking building that will probably look ridiculous in 20 years

Another thing we noticed - the word "Emaar" is displayed on tens (maybe hundreds) of buildings around Dubai.  We googled it and learned that Emaar is one of the largest real estate developers in the UAE and is known for large scale projects, including the Burj.  Their name is prominently displayed on their buildings and you see those buildings everywhere.  

Emaar on four buildings - to the right (out of picture) there were at least 4-5 more

We took a short walk on the famous Jumeirah Beach where we walked by some camels - probably a normal occurrence...

Famous sail building in the far background, upper right. 

We walked around the Marina while the sun set and at one point heard loud music piped outdoors, which was a call to prayer for a beautiful Mosque that was also nestled in the skyscrapers in the Marina.  I didn't see anyone praying.

There were tons of restaurants on the water and we found a Mediterranean menu, feasted on hummus and way too much ridiculously delicious pita bread, kebabs, etc. before heading back to our hotel.

The emotional toll of the day (which I cannot accurately convey in writing) took a lot out of us and by 9pm, Damon was asleep.  I had finally gotten back to a normal mood, and then part two of the crap day started.  In case you think that a missed safari is all that went wrong, there is much more to come.  

We were flying home the following night on Air Canada (sucks).  Our flight was at 11:55pm. Air Canada (sucks) allows you to prepay for seats or wait until 24-hours prior to flight so you can select the exact same seats for no charge.  I kept an eye on the seats in the days leading up to our flight and the seats remained mostly open within a few days of travel, so we opted to take our chances as we have done on other international trips with no issues.  Despite being tired and a little drained, I stayed awake, so at 11:56pm, I was on the Air Canada (sucks) website for first crack at seat selection.  Unfortunately, the website chose not to cooperate.  In addition to trying to book on the website and the app, we spent an hour on hold on the phone with Air Canada (sucks) customer support trying to book seats, but no one ever answered.   We finally gave up totally frustrated and went to sleep. 

In case you didn't pick up on it I'm not a fan of Air Canada.