Day 15 - Homebound

Our holiday ends today. Unlike previous years we are not travelling home at the ungodly hour of 4am, Emirates now operate two flights to Dublin daily and we took advantage of this by taking the afternoon flight out of Dubai at 4pm. 

Another large breakfast was had the the Crown Plaza

We set our alarms early to take advantage of the remaining time we had in Dubai. The plan was fill ourselves up from the buffet breakfast and lounge by the pool until we needed to pack and it was a great one too as we managed to check out of the hotel all relaxed after our sun bathing and swimming. 

All set to board our flight to Dublin

Our hotel, the Crown Plaza is only 15 minutes by car from the airport. We left around 2pm and made it with plenty of time for our 2:30pm bag drop-off. Security was fast and boarding started just after 3pm. It was almost an 8 hour flight back to Dublin, which was less than half empty!

The plane taking us home

What a holiday it’s been. In fact it’s really felt like two holidays. Tokyo now seems ages away and we feel we’ve spent quite a lot of time here in Dubai considering our early check in on Saturday. 

On board our return flight

You couldn’t get two more contrasting cities, Tokyo, the worlds largest with over 37 million people, so orderly and polite to Dubai, the worlds most ambitious city with the worlds largest shopping mall, tallest building and longest driverless metro, a city of just over 2 million people in a desert with man made everything. The people here in Dubai are all ex-pats just trying to get by in the service industry. There is a divide between the business men, the service workers and the Emirates. Tokyo is a city of inclusion whilst Dubai does divide. We love both cities so much and I’m sure we’ll return to both again.

The route we took home from Dubai to Dublin

Thanks for taking the time to follow, like and message us whilst we’ve been travelling. We’ve been very lucky and have taken with us so many wonderful memories, most if not all are recorded here in this blog. This is our tenth year of blogging and now this last post completes a decade of international travel to far off lands. It’s such a treasure to be able to look back over the years and relive our travels as you have by following us. Until the next time - here’s to the next decade of adventures….

Pat and Vinnie