We arrived safely in Dubai

The check in at BA terminal 5 was quick and we had a nice meal in one of the restaurants prior to boarding the aircraft and we left pretty much on-time. The seat allocated to us was great, thanks to Sue ( a friend in BA) but we found the seats uncomfortable for sleeping in and six hours was enough for both of us. I guess we have been spoiled using Virgin and Air NZ business class compared to this BA World Traveller Plus whilst the Business class seats on the aircraft looked fine. Oh well next time. The cabin crew did not appear happy but when you consider what has happened to them and being let down badly by their Union its going to be tough for a while for them all.
The section we were in was nearly empty, only about 13 passengers in 48 seats (I think) but Business Class looked full
We arrived at the new modern Dubai Airport where you negotiate so many escalators that you begin to think that the guy who designed the airport had a large shareholding in Schindler. After walking what seems like 18 miles going up and down escalators we arrived at immigration which was very fast indeed. I suppose they believe that if you have made the long trek to immigration then you should stay but it is certainly a nice airport. We arrived about twenty minutes early and so had to wait for the car to meet us but we finally arrived at the Hotel and will have to wait about two hours for a room, so hence this blog which I am writing in the Hotel Lobby overlooking the Marina and also the palm trees next to the beach. We have had breakfast courtesy of the Hotel and would hope to be in the room at about 11.30 local time.
The drive from the airport through the new buildings and next to the brand new monorail system which seems to run for miles and no doubt we shall try it out before we leave here. When we first came to this Hotel some 15 years ago the road from the Airport was ,for the majority of the route, devoid of any buildings but now the road is lined by newly completed and quite a few unfinished buildings.
When signing on to this blog for some reason Blogger recognises that I am in the Middle East and directs me to that site which is all written in Arabic and so will have to sort this out when I am less tired.
The sun is shining and its about 30 degrees C and very little humidity. The Hotel is quite full with some people from Easter time but they will most likely leave this weekend as the kids have to go back to school.
We wnt to our room around 1130 and found that the rooms and cooridors have been completely updated since our last visit and they are very nice now. Whilst checking emails found out about the Volcano dust now covering part of Europe with many flights cancelled and it would appear that we left less than 12 hours after Heathrow was closed which was really lucky for us.
After we spent the second half of the day on the beach area with a light salad lunch and then in the evening went to the Sports Bar for a couple of glasses of wine and some local food, well Jennifer had Cottage Pie and Noel a Chinese noodle dish. On the way back through the Hotel gardens we noticed that they had started to set up a large function which we presume will be tomorrow-lets see how this develops