Overnight on the QEII, Dubai

Landed in Dubai at 1330 local time and took an uber to the boat where we stayed the night. Checked in and then had a couple of hours to rest before we started the 1 hour tour of the boat.

Here's a couple of photos of the cabin. They upgraded us to a deluxe room with a sea view.

View from one of our portholes.

Time for a cuppa.

Welcome chocolates and fruit

1 hour tour of the boat started with a quick run through and then we entered near one of the two rotating car lifts.

Our tour guide, Greg.

Original room 

The rest of the original room

Thickness of the door to the car storage entry.

Car on the rotating lift to take down to the lower deck.

Then wound our way up to the bridge. There's some pretty old technology up there.

2024 plan

So, this is the plan for 2024.

Left Brisbane this morning and arrived in Singapore a few hours ago. We're staying overnight about 15 minutes from the airport.

Back to the airport tomorrow morning for a 0940 takeoff landing in Dubai at 1300 local time.

Tomorrow night we're staying on the QE2 which is now permanently docked in Dubai.

Early start the next day leaving Dubai at 0800 and landing at Gatwick at 1230 local time. Then a local train up to St Pancras and the Eurostar across to Paris.

Another night in a hotel in Paris on Thursday before taking a train on Friday morning down to Dijon and then a car hire for a few days which will allow us to provision the boat more easily.

The only bit that we have planned for the remainder of the trip will be less than 90 days in France before getting into Belgium where we will be taking advantage of the bilateral agreement between Australia and Belgium which allows us to stay for up to another 2 months.

We'll find somewhere to winter the boat and then fly direct from Brussels to the UK on our way home in September.