In life, I have been blessed with the chance to take cruises. There you go, a sentence I never thought I would ever say. But yes, I have. It’s not that I plan for it. After all, it’s no train rides, but if I know the place I am visiting has a day cruise, I try to get on it. Like last month, when we had the Dubai Dhow Cruise dinner. It was a lovely evening, which was my Amma’s favourite part of our trip (mine was the desert safari). Have you ever taken a dinner cruise before? If not, please do, and these are the reasons why:
The Only Kind You Can Afford
We booked our Dubai Dhow Dinner Cruise early after being informed the good ones are usually fully booked already if we try to do it on the same day. The cruise took us down Dubai Creek from sunset to starry night.
Enjoying the city while being slightly detached from it was a shooting experience, guys. It will give you different perspectives and a higher appreciation of it, and it can be a pleasant experience to go as a couple or group. I went there with Amma and Aunty (cue sound for new character introduction. Oh wait, I don’t have one, even I am struggling to design this blog). I haven’t tried going about it all by myself, but the prospect of being left alone with my thoughts for hours, without wifi nor pen or paper to sort it out, would want to make me jump out of the boat.
Interesting People
Cruise means the possibility of meeting new and interesting people from all over the world, with a chance of falling in love with one of them and ending up floating together between the icebergs until one of you is dead. Setting aside the possibility of being frozen to death, dinner on the cruise is the goldmine of socializing. People are in a good mood since they eat and are a little looser because they drink. This time, the cruise was filled with the elderly, almost all of them well beyond their 60s. I greeted each of them and talked with the leader of the pack, a small granny who wore six different lengths of pearl necklace, about camel rides, backpacking and kids these days. As I mentioned many times here before, these encounters were some of my favorite parts of travelling.
Food Spread
Another reason that involves food because of food. A dinner cruise usually equals a buffet dinner, which is sometimes the most appealing factor for me. Calories from the food eaten while floating on the water don’t count. And who doesn’t want that? Our Dhow Cruise Dinner had both Western and Middle Eastern cuisine, giving us plenty of time to get to the fifth serving or beyond if we wanted to. I stopped at fifth, or maybe sixth, without counting the dessert because happiness-inducing food has no calories too.
Hello Hummus
Give me a huge plate of olive oil-drizzled hummus and enough rotis to dip into it, and I am a happy sailor. I have a thing for olive oil-drizzled hummus. It makes me smile widely. This is why even after eating it at breakfast for five consecutive mornings in Dubai, I still chose this when we were having dinner on the cruise. Strangely, my love for hummus deepened after the trip to Waiheke, on which I couldn’t remember eating Middle Eastern cuisine.
What, one type of dish, you could eat again and again, every single day for the rest of your life?
Amazing Views
The view is why I used to convince my friends to take the cruise dinner together, as I’m not admitting to anyone that it’s the buffet that attracts me the most. Also, that’s enough to convince them. I managed to get Yin to take the Shanghai cruise with me and almost tricked Fafa into taking the Singapore one some time ago. In my defence, it always has been a fantastic view. The night skyline of these metropolises is just amazing. It’s like watching a TLC channel in slow motion and with better food than the usual microwaved canned tuna.
And with this blurry picture, I will finish today’s topic. I am sure I have convinced you to put it on your next itinerary because who wouldn’t want good food, a fantastic view, and the possibility of a new lovaaah.
Ps. Even the pearly-wearing granny was looking for a potential gentleman to celebrate big holidays with. Her words, not mine.
