End of the cruise - Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and the long trip home

The sea days after our unexpected stop at Jeddah were uneventful, although sailing through the "High Risk Area" did have visible effects on the cruise.  In particular, no-one was allowed on the Promenade Deck (deck 7 which goes all the way around the ship) after 10pm - basically to allow the security staff out there to maintain night vision.
Anyway, we eventually got through that area and also the Strait of Hormuz - which isn't exactly a peaceful area of the world either - and then on to Abu Dhabi as scheduled.

Abu Dhabi

Had a few issues here. 
I was originally going to do a shore excursion that goes to the Sheik Zayed Mosque and then on to the Emirates Palace Hotel where a coffee with gold flakes was part of the afternoon tea.  I knew that the dress code for the mosque was quite strict (particularly for women) and I thought I had sorted it out - including a head scarf which I bought for the purpose as I never wear them.  However, after a further number of mixed messages from the ship's shore excursions department I reached the conclusion that I didn't have clothes that both covered me adequately for the mosque (i.e. only part of the body that's allowed to show is the face and hands) but that was also suitable to wear in the fancy hotel.  So, I cancelled the excursion and Paul and I decided just to get a shuttle to the Marina Mall (which was the only shuttle on offer).  This may have been a mistake.
First, the shuttle driver dropped us off at a really unlikely looking spot - in the middle of a car park with no markings about it being a drop-off or pick-up point.  But, a few of us asked him and he insisted this was the pick-up spot.  We then started wandering towards the mall, and some guy who didn't introduce himself went running around to a few of the groups who still hadn't gone inside and said that the pick-up spot is "on the other side of the mall under the tower".  Now, this is one of the biggest malls in Abu Dhabi, certainly nowhere near the biggest in the world or anything (my research indicates that it would  only just come into the top 20 of Australian shopping malls) but still pretty big.  So, "the other side of the mall" wasn't all that helpful, and you can't see the tower from immediately outside so that wasn't any sort of help either.  Paul and I wandered off inside and started looking at the shops while also aiming to find all the exits to see if we could find the proper place for the shuttle.  And, eventually we did - still no signs or anything, but we were lucky enough to walk out that exit just as another shuttle arrived.  So, that was good, and we even managed to back-track and find another passenger from our shuttle and tell her where to go - we had seen her earlier and she was quite distressed about how she and her husband would get back to the ship.
During this time, we picked up a brochure about the mall so we could use the map, and in it discovered that the public decency laws in Abu Dhabi are more strict than I had understood.  In particular, they said that holding hands in public - which Paul and I do almost as a matter of course - is an unacceptable public display of affection.  I found it really troublesome to try to remember not to hold hands.  I've since done some more research and found that we probably wouldn't have been jailed if someone had taken offense - because we're married and so holding hands in public would be "tolerated".
They also make a deal about providing 'free Wifi' in the mall, but in fact you can only get free wifi if you have a UAE phone number, which means that it's useless for the vast majority of tourists.
On the bright side though, in amongst all the chain type stores in the mall (Zara, Marks & Spencer, Tim Hortons, Tony Romas and Starbucks just to name a few) we came across a gem of a cafe where we bought the best coffee we've had since leaving Australia! 

Dubai

Got to Dubai the next day and kicked off the ship as usual. 
By this stage the cough I'd had over the previous few days had developed to include full-blown laryngitis and I was feeling fairly miserable, which put a hole in some of our plans.  Dubai airport is NOT the sort of place that you want to spend 8 or 10 hours waiting for a plane, so we had booked a day room at a hotel in the city.  The idea was to get a place that had a shuttle to the Dubai Mall and to see if I/we could get a ticket up to the top of the Burj Khalifa.  But, in the end I didn't really feel up to this at all - so the closest we got was a view of the Burj Khalifa from the hotel room (they actually charge more for rooms with that view - I didn't book one of those rooms but we ended up in one anyway). We paid about $125 for the day room which was worth every cent as the bathroom unexpectedly included a lovely big bath!
We left the hotel a bit before 4pm as planned (they only have day bookings from 10am to 4pm) and went to the airport, still almost an hour too early to check in.  As usual at DXB there was nowhere to sit, although eventually we found a Costa coffee store with seats available and sat there while I drank the biggest latte I've ever been given - seriously it was a proper hot latte in a milkshake container!
No actual dramas with the flights apart from the fact that they're too long and I'm getting too old to tolerate economy class seats for long flights.  If we can't afford business class next year, we're not going.