I stayed in the excellent Sheraton Corniche in Abu Dhabi and I feel it is among the best hotels I have ever stayed at: although I didn’t get the chance to use the facilities at the hotel beyond the basic, I took a walk around the swimming pool complex and it is brilliant. They haven’t gone for a simple rectangular affair or for the Olympic size look and feel. They have gone for a mixture that suits the serious swimmer, the paddler and the child. Having said that, the serious swimmer looking to do 100 lengths before they open their eyes in the morning would be disappointed. But for the family and someone just looking to recharge their gills and fins, perfect.
I did my four days’ worth of work and left to spend the last night of my current trip to the Emirates in Dubai. The taxi driver was good until we got to around 20 miles out of Dubai city centre and then we hit the traffic. A door to door journey from one hotel to the other should have taken 90 to 105 minutes according to the distance and the speeds we were able to clock up. We were on target for that until those last 20 miles. Instead of arriving around 7 pm, then, I actually checked in just before 9 pm. One thing that puzzled me was the number of people going INTO the city. Normally, people LEAVE a city in the evening to go home so who, apart from people like me, are these people who feel the need to get in my way in the evening?
I was heading for a hotel I had never stayed at before in a part of the city I had not been to before. The taxi driver’s English wasn’t that good so we couldn’t communicate that well and he didn’t know Dubai at all either. We made no headway and speaking to someone at the hotel in Arabic didn’t help: he just didn’t know the city. We got to within a gnat’s nadger of the hotel but then a one way system cut in to make matters worse. Then the driver did something extraordinary: we got to what would turn out to be within 100 metres of the hotel but he decided to turn right instead of taking a U turn and we ended up in a maze if not a rabbit warren of back streets. I made him return to where we were within 100 metres of the hotel and I got out. All nice a friendly but I could see that leaving the car and letting the man go back home was the best option for both of us. The hotel called me and I told them where I was and they sent out a search party for me: very kind of them don’t you think? As it happened, I spotted the hotel before the search party spotted me and all was well.
I was festooned with staff once I got into the lobby: honestly, at least 8 people started to look after me. It’s a new hotel and they were clearly learning their systems and trying out their customer service training.
Despite the fact that I am a little deaf I am very sensitive to night noise, especially in an unfamiliar environment. Even thought the room was big and comfortable, there was a lot of traffic noise, aircraft taking off noise and lorry reversing noise. The hotel is smack bang along side one of the new Metro stations and there is construction work going on 24 hours a day: they were making deliveries of materials all night, hence the lorry noise.
I woke up around 2:45 am and then was kept awake by the noise for an hour or so. Then again, young Master W felt the need to send me a text message so bing, bing, the mobile phone screeched out at 3:15 ... we then had a text message conversation which began with the clot asking me for the answer to a question we had SPOKEN to each other about just a few hours before. During that conversation I thought he had understood that I would be giving him the answer to the question in a WEEK or so.
I went back to sleep and slept until just before the alarm went off at 7am. Good! Showered, closed the cases and headed off for breakfast.
There then followed a massively stressful event as I asked the hotel to get me a taxi at 7:40 and then tucked into my milk, cereal and fruit. I checked out and was told to wait as the taxi wouldn’t be long. At 8:10 or so I insisted on being involved in the taxi procurement process and was sent to the back of the hotel where the young lad hunting down the dratted thing was standing behind the hotel, in a quiet back street ... absolutely no chance of getting one in my opinion. I asked him to phone for a taxi, which he did. I couldn’t stand it though and after 5 minutes said I couldn’t wait there any more and asked where we should go to try to guarantee greater success. I led the charge: I am 1.91 metres tall and he was around 1.65 metres tall at a guess. So I was always well ahead of him.
We then stopped and started and ended up on a busier but no more fruitful street. I really didn’t know what to do. My helper was keen and willing but unable to help me. He didn’t know which bus, if any, I could get to the airport ... I called the office and they did their best and promised to mobilise a car; but that would take 15 – 20 minutes to reach me.
I then moved on a little more and within a minute I was ensconced in a taxi. I said to the driver, thank you very much but I am in a very, very big hurry. It was now 8:50 and my flight was leaving at 10:10. See why I was in a crisis mode and had been for the best part of an hour?
The driver really put his foot down for me and we had a lot of unusually clear tarmac to go at. We did it and he got a big tip for his pains. He did tell me though that yesterday, a colleague driver picked up a fare of someone going to the airport and because of the traffic he got to the airport at 9:30 for a flight time of around 10:00 and ... missed it. Just what I wanted to hear.
I got there, then, checking in with around about 15 minutes to spare. As I checked in, though, there was another chappie checking in at the next counter and he had a pipe with him: a deer stalker type pipe and that set me on edge for a second as I have just finished reading a Kathy Reichs book in which an aeroplane was brought down when a pipe smoker stuffed a smouldering pipe inside a duffel bag that subsequently caught fire and caused an explosion!! I am typing this at 38,000 feet over Frankfurt with around 1 hour 05 minutes to go to landing at Heathrow so it looks as if we have got away with that one then!
DW
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.503 / Virus Database: 269.16.4/1146 - Release Date: 22/11/2007 18:55
