Bye bye Dubai

All too soon our short stopover in Dubai is over. The Burj Khalifa is an amazing structure. The viewing platform on the 124th floor provided spectacular views and the Dubai Mall fountain, playing half hourly of an evening, was a delight to watch. Yes, it's hot but it's the desert and its summer. My next visit here will take better account of the seasons. Ramadan meant that there were very people out and about during the day so we were spoilt for opportunity to see and do things without large crowds any where. A truly gob-smacking place to visit that has new developments going up everywhere and I'm sure I won't recognise the place in a couple of years, keeping in mind it really is just a huge sand pit that the Sheik had a vision for and simply made happen.
And so after a leisurely morning of breakfast and then re-packing we were picked up at 11am for our ride to the airport. As a slight aside dear reader, while I had a bit of time up my sleeve I attempted to add some photos to my Dubai Day 2 blog. As I'm still struggling to work out why some times the photo adding process works and often it doesn't I was trying to add photos of the views from 'At the Top' and the musical fountain only to find the whole day's blog disappear! Being the technophobe that I am, and muttering some profanities not usually uttered by genteel folk I shut the iPad down, and contemplated starting drinking before the sun had gone down over the yardarm anywhere in the world. However, instead I rose to the challenge got stuck back into the blog site and eventually found Dubai Day 2 hidden in the depths of an otherwise uncharted recess of the site as a draft and promptly hit 'publish'. Peace was restored in our time! However, don't expect lots of photos on the blog any more until I have sufficiently recovered from the trauma caused by this naughty little computer.
Now back to the matter at hand.
The airport is huge and Emirates even has its own terminal. We headed for a cuppa and cake and then eventually it was time to board our 2.30 flight. I had a spare seat next to me again which was just as well as the plane was quite cramped. Jo had a couple sitting next to her who are also doing an Insight coach tour so they may end up being on part of our tour although they are also going to Morocco. I was quite disappointed with Emirates as I had been expecting something better, however at least the movie choices were better than on the Qantas leg, but that's all I can say was better. We survived the almost 8 hour flight and even arrived 40 minutes early but that simply meant that our baggage didn't appear for some 40 minutes! But our lovely driver was there waiting for us and off we headed to our hotel in Madrid where we arrived at about 10 pm (we gained 2 hours so it was really midnight Dubai time).
The hotel is fine, but quite a come down from our 5 star Shangri La and is typical European with notea making facilities and flat as pancake pillows! However after a couple of necessary scotches to toast the start of our next adventure it was lights out at midnight and all is well with us.