Day 32 - Monday 13th June

Most of today would be spent travelling from London to Dubai. We'd booked a car to arrive at the B&B at 9:45am to take us to Heathrow and so we had breakfast at 8am at the B&B and got ourselves packed and ready to go.

After the problems at Stansted Airport a few days ago with the London Airport Transport car not turning up, we tried British Airport Transfers this time. It turned out they arrived early - before 9:30am. Suzy had gone out to buy flowers for Jackie, our B&B hostess, and she was still out when the car arrived.

The 9:45am booking time was intended to allow plenty of time for traffic delays etc but everything went smoothly and we were at the terminal at about 10:15am. Furthermore, there was no queue at the check-in counter and only short queues at security and passport control.

Suzy wanted to do some duty free shopping for cosmetics. I found an external battery for my iPhone that cost me about half as much as the prices I saw yesterday in the Apple store at Westfield London. Bargain!

When the indicator board said our flight was starting to board, we went to the designated gate and found there was a bus to take us to the plane. We've encountered buses at airports before but this one took almost ten minutes to reach the plane - standing up in a packed bus. When we got to the plane, there were two sets of stairs and no airbridge. It seemed pretty primitive for an international flight.

The flight was due to leave at 12:50pm and we were seated by 12:30. It was surprising to see so many empty seats around us. Most of the other passengers didn't board until after 1pm and the plane didn't leave until about 1:45pm.

For this leg, we'd booked British Airways Premium Economy with Qantas Frequent Flyer points. The seats had more legroom that normal economy and the service was OK. The flight was less than seven hours and, because it was a daytime flight, there was no need to sleep.

There is a 3-hour time difference between London and Dubai. The flight was due to arrive at 10:40pm Dubai time but it was about 11:30pm before we landed. The Dubai terminal is huge and modern. It was a long walk to get through the corridors to customs and baggage pickup.

Once we got out of the terminal, we were hit by the heat. Although it was after midnight, the temperature was still above 30C. It was easy to get a taxi - a woman driver in a head scarf and long flowing robes. Although she spoke good English, it wasn't  so easy to explain which hotel we wanted to go to but she got us there OK in the end.

Our hotel, Le Royal Meridien, is in the Jumeira Beach area. Like other buildings in Dubai, it is very new and big. The entry area is vast, elegant and amazingly grand. The service is exceptional - there are very helpful staff everywhere and they all speak excellent English. You might compare it to living like a king - it's perhaps more like living like a sultan. In fact, the elevator shows there is a royal suite on the top floor of hotel.

It was 1:30am before we got to bed - a very long day.