Beyond The Maple Tree

We were worried that a 16-day cruise would be really long and start to get boring, but it passed super fast and before we knew it, the last days of our cruise were sadly upon us.

We arrived in Dubai around 2 PM and were greeted by a lovely landscape view of the Burj Khalifa towering over the skyline.

We hopped into a taxi to visit the tallest building in the world and surrounding attractions. Along the way, we saw some of Dubai's amazing architecture and were in awe seeing the large number of active sky-scraper construction projects underway.

At the Dubai Mall, we strolled through the surrounding areas and went inside to see some of the mall attractions like the Aquarium and the indoor waterfall. We grabbed a bite to eat while watching the world's largest light and sound show on the Burj Khalifa.

The next day we departed the boat and left our travel companions behind 😢 to continue their cruise to Singapore.

We strapped on our backpacks and went to explore “La Mer”, a new sea-side resort area close to the ship. It was really pretty, but crazy hot! We spent a couple of hours exploring and then headed back to the airport to made our way to London.. and back to reality.

We decided to join Jen’s parents on a 16-day cruise from Barcelona to Dubai on a new Royal Caribbean ship called the Spectrum of the Seas. This was a good way to spend some time with them and relax. The Spectrum was a brand new boat and our portion of the trip was considered the inaugural trip. The full journey was destined for Singapore where the boat would be stationed to serve the Asian market.

Although this was a long cruise, it only stopped at the following ports:

Barcelona
Civitavecchia (Rome)
Naples
Athens
Aquaba
Dubai

The rest of the time we kept busy with multiple activities. Here are a few that we enjoyed:

Progressive Trivia: Every day, we participated in a trivia contest that tested random knowledge. We learned a lot about South Africa (since that's where the trivia host was from), a lot about different phobias, and what random groups of animals are called. Did you know that a group of owls is called a parliament?

Flow Rider: Yay

iFly: No better way to dry out your gums

Fencing: This was their first attempt at having this activity on a ship, so the experience was pretty short, but it was fun to give it a try since neither of us had ever tried fencing before.. plus there is nothing like being equipped with a sword and saying, "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"

North Star: The North Star is a big bubble on top of the ship that gives you a bird's eye view of the ship. It seemed like a silly idea at first, but in the end, we were surprised at how impressive the view actually was.