Day 80 – 24th March 2020, Dubai

Viking Daily 24 Mar

Another group of passengers left the ship last evening, for flights to North America and Europe, so our numbers continue to steadily reduce, but today is the last day that Emirates is operating. As of now, Judi and I are in a group of about 90 Canadians and Americans that have no flights scheduled, prior to Emirates shutting down their operation. Every available seat is booked.

Viking have arranged for a charter flight to get us home and we are scheduled to depart the ship this afternoon.

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Day 79 – 23rd March 2020, Dubai

Some of the 8 other cruise ships in DubaiThe 2019/20 Viking World Cruise is ending and disembarkation has started, with all of our Australian passengers departing in the middle of the night for flights home. In addition, a number of Europeans and North Americans also departed, with Viking filling every available seat on Emirate’s flights. Unfortunately, as we didn’t make the disembarkation list, we were unable to catch our flight this morning.

For those of us waiting for flights, we received another challenge, as Emirates announced they were shutting down flights effective midnight on 24th March, so only 2 days remaining. As per a couple of days ago, the local authorities have mandated we must depart Dubai with Emirates, which just happens to be owned by the Dubai Govt.

We spent the entire day, secured alongside the berth in Dubai.

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Day 78 – 22nd March 2020, Dubai

Dubai downtown from the ship

The Viking Sun docked in Dubai at 01:00, where the 2019/20 World Cruise is coming to a premature end. With termination of the World Cruise promulgated yesterday, life continued on board with the farewell performance from the ship’s crew and entertainment team.

Check out the photos for an unexpected Senior Officer on the guitar, as Beven sings during the Farewell Performance. Continue reading

Day 22 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Jun 12th 2015

Alongside Dubai – 00:00 to 13:00

Our first overnight port on this World Cruise, with I suspect many pax happy to experience the extended shore leave, especially after the few previous days at sea. It was actually rather pleasant getting back to the ship late last evening and finding it still alongside early this morning.

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Day 21 & 22 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Alongside Dubai – 07:00 (Jun 11th) to 13:00 (Jun 12th)

With our son and daughter-in-law living and working in Dubai, we didn’t participate in any tours, having spent a month here last year. As can be seen from the previous post’s photographs, the haze reduced the quality of any photographs taken outdoors over these 2 days. Therefore, I am including a small selection of photographs taken last year during a couple of days on the HoHo bus. Please enjoy.

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Day 21 – Dubai, United Arab Emirates – Jun 11th 2015

Alongside Dubai – 11:30 to 23:59

After an interesting sea passage from Colombo, skirting a tropical cyclone, arrival Dubai brings us to the end of the first segment of the World Cruise. About 300 pax depart the ship this morning and slightly more are joining, so we will depart with a yet again full ship, just a few new faces. While arrival was scheduled for 07:00, we experienced delays due to the cyclone and an engine overheating. Therefore, it was about 10:55 before we heard the pipe announcing the ship was secured and cleared by the local authorities.

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