Dubai, UAE

Posted on by Lea Ann Reynolds

The Financial district of Dubai

We will be back in Dubai many times until we leave January 2nd for Bali. We’ll have so many photo opportunities but we decided to take a small tour to see what was around and to get off the ship for awhile. 

Our first stop after passing many enormously tall buildings in the Financial district, was a mall with indoor Snow Skiing. It was really cool if you enjoy skiing. It had the chairlifts and even an area where kids can slide down a toboggan style set up. 


Our next stop was at the Burj Khalifa and Mall. Its beauty as the worlds tallest building is unbelievable. The technology that went into the light show was amazing. Would you believe they are building another one that is even taller than this one? 


A new museum in construction phase.

We really enjoyed watching the water fountains dancing and cannot wait until New Years Eve to see the fireworks at this very location. To step back in time, in the 1930’s the main source of income for Dubai was fishing. Later, oil helped accelerate the development of the city. Today, less than 5% of the income is from oil. 

It is now from a combination of trade, tourism, aviation, real estate and financial services. in the beginning, pearling was a profitable industry until the Great Depression of 1929 and the invention of cultured pearls caused a depression of its own in the Persian Gulf. Many residents of Dubai lived in poverty that once lived in royalty. 

In the mid 1960’s oil was discovered, and the city’s population increased by 300% between 1968-1975 due to the influx of foreign workers moving to the country. The gulf war of 1990 had a negative financial effect on the city, as depositors withdrew their money and traders withdrew their trade. 


But the city recovered and thrived. During the Gulf war and the Shia unrest, both Kuwait and Bahrain moved their businesses to Dubai. In return, Dubai provided refueling bases to allied forces during these wars. The Sheikh Rashid put in place his infrastructure development plan for pumping and transporting oil from Dubai. 


Oil accounted for 24% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 1990 but decreased to 7% by 2004. Guess others found out the secret! In 1971, The United Arab Emirates was formed and by 1973 adopted its own uniform currency known as the dirham. 

Train Station


The UAE consists of 7 countries, Dubai, Abu Dhabi,  Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al-Quwain, Fujairah, and Ras Al-Khaimah and similar to the Shengen zone in Europe, they can travel between these countries without a visa. 


Dubai is continuing to grow as is evident by all the construction everywhere. They are preparing for the Expo2020 so more hotels and more shopping centers are being built.



Holiday decorations are everywhere!

We have booked a boat ride to take us to see the fireworks display and ring in the new year near the Burj Khalifa. We are really looking forward to that event.



Burj Khalifa at night!

While on a cruise, we usually visit the “nextcruise” staff to see what they have to offer. And, of course we can’t resist. We booked three more cruises today for 2021. We added Buenos Aires to Antarctica, a trip through Argentina and Chile and another to Peru from Buenos Aires. Another 45 days of cruising! We definitely love cruising! 


Antarctica sounds so exciting as well as the strait of Magellan and Chilean Fjords! We changed our itinerary up and took off South Africa in 2021. We will add it back at some point but the cost of traveling was not in our budget so it will have to wait. 

Jumeirah Dubai hotel

Once I have the itinerary rebuilt, I’ll post it with the updates. We still have about 30-40 days to fill in some gaps so will need to find a place with low cost of living to make up for the cruises!

As we continue on our next cruise hopefully it will be as good as this one.

May God bless you always!

Chuck & Lea Ann

Leave a comment