I looked up the time in Dubai - it should be tomorrow -- 4/21 -- in the morning (kinda early). Think they need a wake-up call:-)

Good morning!

First and foremost, a heartfelt THANK YOU to Peter for suggesting the Grand Hyatt for the pre-cruise headquarters. It worked out marvelously well for all of us.

The dunes for dinner ride was a great excursion. We met our drivers at the hotel around 4 pm and off we went to the desert. Along the way, we passed an emir's personal resort. I was thinking about Neverland but never mind ...

As we crested into the conservation area for the ride, we felt like we'd just arrived at Sturgis during Harley Week. There were Jeeps, Toyotas, Chevys, you name it in 4X4 production EVERYWHERE. Once we took off, it added to the fun. Everywhere around you, cars were leaning to the left, leaning to the right. It reminded me of the one (and only) time I took the roller coaster at New York, New York in Las Vegas. Yowser! Seatbelts required FOR GOOD REASON. We had the obligatory stop for changing seats. The back row was built for kiddies. The good news is we all took turns. Riding shotgun, on the other hand, meant the up close and personal sensation of watching the dune drop under the front of the car and hoping the driver knows what he is doing. Our driver, Sony no Baloney, was terrific. He's an expatriate from Punjab in India. While I'm on the topic - Dubai imports people. 1.25 million population, 80% are expatriates.

Back to the dunes .. next stop, CAMELS. Baby camels .. mommy camels .. more camels .. even more camels. Back to the dunes. Next stop, sunset. It became: how many people are standing in front of your view of the sunset? Dubai, of course, has the fine sand grains airborne so 'a clear day' is all relative.

After the sunset, bring on the dinner and the camel rides. Yee haw! Camel ride? No line at the bar? That one only took a minute to figure out. We had two tables and ate on the carpet covered sand. Never smoked a water pipe? Take a left and get on line. Need a henna tattoo? Take a right and get on line. I got the lovely tattoo artist who did the camels, and he's riding on my right ankle. No moving it for 30 minutes and no water on it for 24 hours. Gary went for the scorpion on his arm. Dinner was pretty good - especially the tabouleh and chicken.

When the belly dancer invited the audience participation, we took the cue & headed into the parking lot to find our car. Back home without any trouble. Cooz bar, then time to snooze.

We waved bye-bye to Dubai yesterday around 7 pm. We managed to overload the bartender after sail-away inside of 1/2 of an hour. We think we'll rearrange the chairs in the bar to spell out the word "CAMEL". I hope the bar manager figures out to put extra staff up there.

Ngaire's CAMEL pins are exceptional!

The ship is lovely. Public areas are light and airy. I love the decor. Elevators are problematic - they hold maybe 4 people max. If you are stair challenged, you'll be waiting a while to get anywhere.

Food is variable. We had a perfectly inedible dish of mussels and the best beef filet ever for dinner last night. There were no fresh berries to be had at dinner for dessert .. Ngaire was bereft. Fresh berries just showed up for breakfast, so this appears to be a case of remedial refrigerator management class for us and the dining room staff.

Silversea is more service intensive. No buffet at poolside - it's all table service. Tea is served on the three plate stands at your table - no buffet line. At the sailaway, they had rolling carts of hot appetizers.

We gabbed for a bit in the lounge after dinner. Some of us got into swapping lines from the old 'Rocky and Bullwinkle' cartoons. We now need to track down 'Young Frankenstein' for a Fosters and popcorn fest.

Headed home around midnight and crawled into bed. Beds are softer than Regent, which is good for some but not for me. There was a complete run on pre-ordered pillows, so no foam at the inn. Hmmm .. will have to see what can be done about this situation.

The toilets on this ship are exceedingly loud. We have small children next door. I hope they do not get sucked in (quite literally).

Sunny day in Fujairuh (rhymes with Elveera). A quickie stop and then it's Spanish for Beginners at 3. Of course, if that messes with out POOCH fest, we may have to miss it.

Cheers, Anne

Anne, so happy you had such a wonderful time in Dubai!! We've been there 3 times now and always see and do different things. I think that city changes daily! Did any of the CAMELS smoke the water pipe? Did anyone Ski Dubai at Mall of the Emirates?

Have to laugh about tracking down "Young Frankenstein" for popcorn fest. We just saw the new Broadway play in NYC 3 weeks ago and it was fantastic! Keep having a great time....I'm sure you all will! Thanks for the seamail.

Yippee, our first shipmail! Anne, I wish I could of rode the dunes with you, that sounds like so much fun!
How is the night life in the lounges?

Anne great Sea Mail - keep it coming and most of all enjoy your cruise! :)

Finally more sea mail from the CAMEL's. Wonderful, as always, Anne. The dune buggy rides sounded like a blast. Can't wait to read about more adventures and your opinions of SS. Keep posting!

LOVE the details! Is anyone planning to post photos soon?

Enjoying all the reports - both land & sea. I'm positive all members of the CAMEL group are behaving.
I'm with Luke. It's time for some photos.

Let the party begin!!
Sounds like you are having a wonderful
time and it is only the beginning!

Hello to everyone from Russ and Susan, sounds like a great trip. Thanks for the great emails Anne.

We were at the lake over the weekend, with beautiful weather after a hail storm on Thursday night. I was not to bad in Dallas Ngaire, but west of there was nasty.

So which is cuter baby camels or baby penguins?

Great sea mail Anne...our wonderful roving reporter.

Best, Nancy

Great to hear from you, Anne! How are you enjoying that Silver suite?

That is true about the elevators (small) and the toilets (loud). I never thought of it but it's so true (compared to what Regent has).

Hope you all enjoy...and keep seamailing us!!!

Love the Silver Suite, Kristin - thanks for answering my questions ahead of time. The ship is simply beautiful. I visited one of the verandah suites yesterday. Outside of a few minor differences in layout, it's a Voyager suite with a little less room. Loveseat instead of three person couch; end tables on either side. The table in front of the loveseat is identical.

Susan - so nice to hear from you! Baby camels are awfully cute, too. There was one being weaned from its mother. He was going overboard trying to be creative to avoid weaning. She was kushed on the ground and he was crawling all over her. It was pretty funny to watch.

Fujairah is in the early stages of tourist development. The shore excursion was scheduled for 9 to 12 (I think). It was tough for them to find 3 hours of stuff to show us. There's a deep canyon where we stopped for a few minutes, a museum that was at most a 10 minute stop, a fort they didn't want you to get close to and a drive by the Indian Ocean and some huge, some gaudy hotels. Interesting to see how they are progressing the tourism business, but not much infrastructure to support it that we could see.

If I understood the guide correctly, the tribe members get pretty much a free ride from all the oil wealth in the emirates. Free housing (and we are talking ample, beautiful, new housing), medical, education, etc. The locals insist on 51% ownership and import workers to run the shops, etc. Locals raise families, shop, are engaged in their religion. A fascinating place to visit but why return?

The final stop was at an ancient mosque around the time of noon prayers. The guide said 20 minutes at the stop - umm, the ship was supposed to sail in 20 minutes. She was urging the driver to hustle and fielding phone calls about where were we. She's telling the person calling we're nearly there while the driver is shaking his head. No one was worried the ship would leave without us, but time management should not have been a factor since there's not much to do or see here. Anyway ... most of the other tour buses / dune ride 4x4s were late getting back to the ship. Michele & Don got a quick chance to see their dune ride driver from the prior evening, which was a fun encounter. We expected the restaurants to be overrun once aboard; it was a pleasant surprise to find no trouble or crowds for lunch.

We had a 45 minute spanish lesson with the social hostess. That was worthwhile, but was one reason I missed trivia. Evidently trivia is not run for daily wins by the team. Hmm .. we may have to come up with our own trivia scorekeeping system. A jewelery designer from Jordan is aboard, so we enjoyed chatting with her at the welcome aboard party.

Dinner was with with the house keeper, Marilyn and Suzie last night and a recently retired Kaiser physician from the west coast and his wife. We were thinking of Masaki and Amanda after we met them. The housekeeper is South African so we had a delightful conversation and lots to talk about. She's been on Silversea for 6 years and has worked her way up from cabin stewardess to her current position. The lobster main was terrific; the appetizer so-so.

Le Champagne offers two options: $30 per person plus buy your own wine or $200 per person including wine pairings. It's all personal choice, but I'm hard pressed to see the value in that proposition.

Tomorrow's a sea day. After the Dubai and Cairo pre-cruise activities, I think we are all ready for relaxation.

Cheers, Anne

Thanks soooo much Anne!!! Bet you all are pooped so please rest up and send more SM!!! XXXOOO

Wow! Sounds like a fantastic trip and it has only just started! Please send as much seamail as possible... in between pooch, touring, eating, drinking, etc.

P.S. to Suzanne.. did the mascot make the trip??

Thanks so much for the Camel Mail. We will hang on every word.......keep up the good fun!
xoxo

Just a few notes to add to Anne's excellent and thorough posts.

The ship is beautful and seems to be maintained marvelously.

Food has been a bit of a roller coaster, with some excellent items and some that nearly defy description. The mussel dish to which Anne referred was notable for the total absense of mussels!! The shells were there - a bit of connective tissue was there - the sauce was there - but, alas, the little meaty mussels were AWOL. Yesterday morning, in the main restaurant, we were served the worst Eggs Benedict either of us has ever experienced. The muffins were burnt black, the ham leathery, the eggs cooked until they were rubbery with a totally hard yolk, and the hollandaise sauce odd and lumpy. And the whole mess was completely cold. Yummy. Those eggs benedict definitely needed a benediction (or the last rites). When I sent it back the head waiter and maitre d' were quite apologetic and assured us that they would talk to "someone" in the kitchen. Well, boys & girls, it appears that the mysterious "someone" in the kitchen got the message (and maybe a copy of the Joy of Cooking) - our E.B. this morning were perfectly prepared and served hot. It was a bit disconcerting taking the first bite or two with the head waiter and maitre d' hovering nearby to see whether we would give a thumbs up. They smiled broadly when we did so.

On a minor note (but what are posting for is not to dither about in matters of little importance), there is a very funny page in the passenger info booklet in the cabin. It has a remarkably long list of the items for which the passenger will be charged if they come up missing upon departure, including (in addition to the usual items hotels mention, such at bathrobes) the cottonball container, wooden hangers, makeup mirror, shoe shine bag, and even the leather stand the little passenger info booklet stands on. Lordie, how much theft of those things could Silversea experience??


Enough stream of semi-consciousness for now. Time to go get a pisco sour and attend the cooking demo.

Cheers, Fred

Agree with Fred about the food. (I seemed to have had an allergic reaction of some sort--perhaps to the very strange mussels--I had restless body syndrome after dinner as if I had been injected with caffeine.)

However, everyone we've spoken to about last night's dinner in The Restaurant raved. Many of us had the main course lobster for an appetizer and then followed that with prime rib. Both were superb. The chocolate dessert was also excellent. Many Camelites danced to 60s music after dinner. Am still trying to get my blog up and running, but expect that it will await the next sea day. Want to post some pictures.

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Eugene and Gail

Hi everyone,

I'm sacrificing fanciness to get something up on our Camel blog. So far, it reports on our pre-cruise up to boarding the Whisper. The most recent days are at the top.
Eugene\'s Camel Blog

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Eugene and Gail

Sounds like all you CAMELites are having a wonderful time and enjoying this new experience. Too bad Fred about the EB first morning, but again sounds like they took care of it.

I think though, "you've only just begun" and there is much more to hear about as the days go by, can't wait for more CAMEL mail.

Thanks for the reports all!

Fred, your story about the cabin price list reminds me of our stay in Kali, China last fall - a destination truly not ready for tourists! Items on the in room price list included the mattress and the door!

It's great to read more sea mail. I peaked at your blog Eugene, great start! Ya'll know how I love blogs, especially LCT blogs.

I'm surprised about the uneven quality of the food but glad they improved EB for you, Fred.

Leslie, "don't take the mattress and the door" LOL.

Having a great time. Seas are calm, had our first games of pooch, AND our team won trivia today. Trivia is done quite diffently to Regent and we are trying to adjust. As they say "when in Rome do as the Romans do"

Our upcoming stop in Jeddah has everyone buzzing. This is the third ship to stop here. The Saudi authorities come on board and there can be no alcohol in the cabin or served on the ship while in Saudi waters. So the ship comes through all the cabins and removes all the alcohol. When the Silver Cloud was here a week ago the local authorities did search for alcohol and they can fine anyone who is caught with alcohol. The ship will bring it back to our cabins once we are out of the Saudi waters. All the girls have their abayas. Going to be really an interesting stop.

In Fujairah, our last port of call we went to a department store called LU LU's and I bought a fancy abaya with gold trim and Ken also purchased a "dress" and headgear - looked quite smashing. Ron will look dashing in an indian outfit. WE had a lot of fun purchasing all these items. It was fascinating to see the applicances which looked like they would break with one use. Combination washing machines and dryers at a cost of about $200. Cokes were 25 cents.

Fun day at sea today and OMAN tomorrow. Be back later.

Thanks to all the CAMEL correspondents for sharing your interesting adventures. Wish we were there! Looking forward to hearing about Saudi Arabia.

Dena

Great posts-keep it up! Fred, you are hilarious. Ever considered a second career as a cruise director or comedian? Now that you have the eggs benedict problem cured, try the benediction over the mussels and see what happens. Love the blog, Eugene.

Saudi Arabia...ah yes....Jack and I lived there for two years! If you're nice I'll share our secret receipe for making wine!! ;)

Bonnie - can we have it ready in three days? No liquor onboard whilst docked in Saudi Arabia.

Cheers, Anne

Dreps, I am getting ready to look at the blog. Thanks for starting it and for all with the sea mail. I've been looking forward to hearing about everyone's adventure.

I'm glad we did our organized safari with just 8 or 10 of us and did like having it during the day so we got back for SS's 2 cultural shows that night. We did experience the sunset in the jeep, though vs. on the desert, which I bet was exceptional to say the least.

Suzie, how is my suite? What are you doing about music?

Some Photos from CAMEL:

More CAMEL Photos:

Great pics, Ken! Thanks!

What great pics, and thanks for the fun seamails! Your 25 cent cokes are a long way from my $12 coke in London, and probably the same size (yours might be bigger)!

Great googly moogly, CAMEL pix!! Thanks Ken, they were awesome!!!

Great pictures - the Camel group looks mighty fine -

Thanks for all the photos and info - so glad everyone is enjoying themselves - how could they not? Suzie, does Ray know about your new love? Lee

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WOW is right - amazing, great photos!! Even recognized those I knew, Ngaire, Suzanne, Olivia, Peggy and Jerry. Fun Fun guys!

Those photos (and I'm sure the ones to come) are worth at "least" a thousand and one words in the land of a thousand and one nights.