Our flight home wasn't until midnight, so we had pretty much a full day for our last day in Dubai. We took full advantage, spending the morning at the beach, then spent some time wandering the Marina District and relaxing.
The night before, I spent some time with my camera and tripod, and did some night shots from the balcony of the area around the Marina and Jumeirah Beach.
A view from the public beach, out front of our hotel.
The one thing we didn't do a lot of on this trip was swim in the ocean. So we decided to take the morning and spend it at the beach. We had a pretty good check out at 2 p.m., so we had some time before we needed to be back and sort that out.
Just off the beach, our front of our hotel they were build a new ferris wheel. It's supposed ot be the biggest in the world when it's complete.
We were up at a reasonable time, and walked over to Tim Horton's for breakfast. We had grabbed towels and a beach mat from the hotel before we left, so we were able to head over to the beach straight after breakfast.
The view from our balcony of the beach, and the Palm out in the distance.
From our balcony, you had a clear view out to the Atlantis hotel - when it was clear.
The waves were bigger today, which made for a lot of fun in the water. It was a warm, sunny day with no clouds, and while the water wasn't super warm, it was warm enough that you didn't feel the need to get out. We spent a few hours swimming and bodysurfing the waves - so much fun!
The skyline from the beach.
Eventually we had to call it and head back to the hotel. The hotel has a really nice infinity pool on the third floor that we never got a chance to use, so we made a quick stop and swan in the pool for a bit before heading up to the room to get showered, changed and packed.
The pool at the hotel was nice. We didn't get to use it much, but it had a great view over the beach and the Palm.
One of the crazy things about the Marina district is that they do skydiving from right over the beach. They take off and land on a small runway down at the end of the beach, and the skydivers come down right above it all, landing on this small strip of land.
It was almost exactly 2 p.m. by the time we got checked out and dropped our luggage with the front desk. We figured we needed to head to the airport at about 8 p.m., so we still had a good six hours ahead of us. We walked back out onto the beach walk, and had a leisurely lunch at one of the restaurants.
From there, we wandered out to their version of the seawall that circles the Marina District. We walked around for awhile, enjoying the views and checking out the different buildings. We considered doing a boat tour, and walked over towards the mall where the boat departs from. It ended up being a bit more expensive than we really wanted, and so decided against it.
Looking out at the buildings in the Marina District, from the seawall near the Marina Mall.
Fromt here we walked back towards home, and hopped on the tram to take it a little further out to explore, and try and find a good spot to watch out last sunset. We ended up back by the Infinity Building, which gave us a good view of what ended up being Justine's favourite building in Dubai.
Unfortunately, we couldn't get back to the beach at that part of the city, and so we were scrambling to get back before the sun set. We eventually made it back to a familiar spot, but while we saw the sunset, unfortunately the area there just doesn't provide a great back drop for the sunset.
We walked back along the beach, as the sun set on our last day in Dubai. We stopped at one of the cafes along the beach and had a glass of lemon mint juice (our new favourite), and relaxed for a while. From there, we wandered along and found a Moroccan restaurant for dinner. It had a great spot over the beach walk, and we had a great meal and watched the people go by for a couple of hours.
Our favourite (non-alcoholic) beverage - lemon mint juice.
Our last night on the beach in Dubai. Looking out on the walking path, from the restaurant.
Eventually it was time to go, and we headed back to our hotel to grab our luggage. We had decided to take the Metro to the airport, so we walked over to the tram, and were on our way. It took about an hour to get to the airport, and while the place was a bit nuts, the chaos was well organized and we were through in a reasonable amount of time. We were able to get into the lounge at the airport, which was great. We chilled for a bit, before getting on the plane for the long trip back home.