The day again began with enjoying at the swimming pool. After freshening up, we left for breakfast. The variety was again really minimal and the service was pathetic. I don't even want to waste my time by writing here how bad their service was. After breakfast we left for shopping.
We first visited Dubai Outlet Mall. The Outlet Mall had lots of brands under one roof and there was pretty good discount going on. We had our lunch at the Food Court on top. We then left to Dubai Mall for Shopping. This place is huge. We could only cover 25% of the mall for the time we had. I absolutely loved the time spent time. One might get tired going around the mall, but this place has lots of store under one roof. They have a huge aquarium and Fountain Show. We had to miss the Fountain show because we had to head back to the hotel for our Dhow Cruise.
After all the shopping (of course, we did crib that we couldn't visit Mall of Emirates), we headed back to the hotel to freshen up. We were to be picked up for Marina Dhow Cruise by around 7:00 pm - 7:30 pm. Guess what?? We were ready on time by 6:50 pm but the bus came to pick us up by 7:45 pm. We were dropped off at the cruise location. The cruise started about 15 minutes after we boarded. One can enjoy the building and the view from the top deck. The food was average and the belly dancing was good. After a long night, we reached our hotel by almost 11:00 pm.
The next day, we wanted to check out early and go to Atlantis. We all got ready, packed our bags and went down for breakfast. The service again was so bad, that we walked out of the breakfast. There was no one to even notice that we had come and gone!!! This after waiting for more than 30 minutes for breakfast. The variety that is laid out is bad and is cold. They take minimum 15 - 20 just to reheat the stuff. All apartment guests are seated upstairs of the cafe and we are the only ones for breakfast. It is not like the place is packed and service is tight. It was more than 30 minutes and they hadn't got any eggs for us to eat.
We checked out the apartment. The check-out process was pretty fast and we headed out to Atlantis. I had made reservation to stay at Atlantis for 1 night. I had booked 2 double rooms and 1 triple occupancy room. They informed me that there was no package with breakfast. So I had to pay for my breakfast separately. I had called them earlier to enquire if I can check in early. The suggestion that was given was to come in early, drop off our luggage and go ahead and see the hotel.
We reached the hotel and were amazed by the size of lobby. It was truly a magnificent place and it's too huge that you can get lost easily. We started with the check-in process. The luggage was taken and we were allotted 1 room for the moment. The rooms were big and the view from the room was amazing. The bathrooms were big as well :) We went ahead and saw the Lost Chambers. The variety of fishes were just amazing and loved that I could see so many different species of them :)
View from one of our rooms:
View of Lobby:
After we were done with Lost Chambers, we had a quick bite at The Burger Joint. The burgers were absolutely smashing. It was well past 2 pm and went to the room to check if we were allocated our other 2 rooms. We were not and we had to wait for quite sometime :(. We then headed to the Aquaventure Waterpark. Since I was preggie, I really couldn't do anything much but the rest of the family had a blast. I wanted to do snorkelling and heard it was safe to do while you are pregnant. So went ahead and did snorkelling with sharks!!! I was quite scared while getting inside but the guide was fantastic and made me feel at ease. It was absolutely thrilling to see a shark so close ( The staff at Atlantis get confused between Shark Snorkelling and Dive Centre).
We went to the beach nearby but the water was way too salty that we ended up going to the swimming pool. We snacked at the "Shark Bytes" next to the pool and took advantage of 50% off on beverages :). We were tired and went to our room to refresh ourselves. We were debating between Nasimi Beach and Ronda Locatelli. We mad our booking for Nasimi Beach and at the last minute changed it to Ronda Locatelli. The restaurant was absolutely gorgeous. The food tasted brilliant. I had one of the best pizzas here.
My room was facing the dive centre and I could see all the lovely fishes swimming all night long :). It was time for me to take some rest before I head out to India the next day
