Travel vlog (YouTube) by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting their arrival in Dubai and boarding the MSC Splendida for a week-long Middle East cruise visiting the UAE, Bahrain, and Qatar. The chunk covers their brief hostel stay in Dubai, confusion finding Port Rashid (Metro → Uber/taxi help), being escorted to an upgraded balcony cabin after contacting MSC, exploring extensive buffet options (pizza, pasta, Nutella stand, carving/pasta/salad stations), and cultural/dress observations about passengers while the ship prepares to depart at sunset.
Chapters
It's our first morning in Dubai, and it's a beautiful day. We just checked out of our super weird hostel. So we're staying in this hostel because we're only going to be here for a few hours, and it's super interesting. There's a bed in the common area. Wait till you see the bathroom. Shared bathroom.
And.
Hair mayonnaise. Complimentary. Today is going to be totally different from yesterday. Yesterday was like, super budget backpacker. Today should be nice.
Today we are getting on a cruise that goes to a couple stops in the uae, Bahrain and Qatar.
Like, we can go set the camera down somewhere because it's like, so booking.
A cruise is rarely ever the cheapest way to travel. But in this case, it actually made a lot of sense. When we were coming to the Middle east, we wanted to make sure we visited the uae, Oman, Bahrain, and Qatar. Right now that can be a little tricky because the uae, Bahrain and Qatar are having some differences and you can't travel directly between several of the countries. So booking this cruise actually made a.
Lot of sense, and we just really liked our other cruise and wanted to do another one.
And by the time you take into consideration accommodations, food, and the flights that it would have taken to get us between all of these countries, the cruise really didn't cost that much more. And we're just looking for an excuse to get on another cruise.
It's going to be so fun.
And now we're going to try to figure out how to take the Metro to the cruise port. If not, we'll just get in an Uber.
Thank you very much.
I think you should ride it.
Really?
Yeah.
Okay.
Have fun.
Thanks. I'll be over here.
That was glamorous. Excuse me.
It actually turns out it was the same car. There was just a pink line down the middle. It said for women and children only.
There was these two old guys that came in and sat down and then read the sign. They were like. And, like, stood up and ran away.
Oh, it speeds up when you walk on it.
Things weren't as straightforward as we had hoped after we got off the Metro.
We have no clue where we are. We actually have no clue where we're going. We're attempting to call an Uber.
Literally have no idea how we're gonna get there.
We. We were navigating ourselves to Port Rashid, which is apparently massive. Massive.
I mean, it's like this entire. I don't even see a ship.
I think we need to find a taxi. But the problem is I don't have any money.
We don't know how to tell Uber to take us to the ship, like on the phone.
We'll get past this. We just need a minute. All right.
Mohammad's coming for the rescue.
I was gonna say that we saved ourselves some money by getting ourselves closer anyway, but that's not the case by the time we bought the metro tickets and made it here.
It was good to see the city though, right?
Yeah, it was fine. I was enjoying the exercise.
There he is. There he is.
Picking us up just for ration here. Yes. For Chris.
Chris.
Oh, my gosh. This road is so long. We never would have made it with our stuff.
We were heading in the exact, exact opposite direction.
We do see the boat. Or we do see the ship.
Carrie got in trouble for calling our last cruise a boat. Apparently, the proper termination.
Don't freak out.
Thank you so much for anyone else who is considering trying to walk to the cruise port. It's too far.
Wow, the cruise terminal is pretty.
Hello. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
This is amazing.
We're gonna get escorted to our room.
This is your coffee. Ah, perfect. Okay, so you have a wonderful experience.
This room is so nice. And we have a little balcony.
Yes.
Oh my gosh. My dream.
So we did pay for this cruise, but we also reached out to MSC to let them know that we would be cruising with them and sharing our experience on this channel. We booked a ocean view, but it looks like we have been upgraded to a balcony, which is just like, absolutely incredible. I just love being able to be outside. Like when we book an Airbnb, I try to book one with somewhere to sit outside. And now to have somewhere to sit outside on the ocean. This is going to be awesome. A full week.
Seriously, just to be able to, like, come have our morning coffee and be able to sit on the balcony without even having to, like, go up to the buffet.
Dream come true. Speaking of the buffet, you want to go get some lunch?
We're starving.
There are certain foods that when I'm this hungry, I just have no control. And it's pizza and pasta and these plates are so huge. I kept walking by other stuff and I passed the bread and then I passed the falafel, and then I passed these little fried fritter ball things.
There's. I can't eat all of this. You can't let me eat all this. But I really want to. Food looks excellent.
Woo.
Seven days on this boat.
Ship.
And there's unlimited coffee. My favorite. They also have lots of healthy choices. Not just pizza and pasta and bread.
Like cold Cuts and cheese, desserts, daily specials, healthy vegetarian options, a carving station, a pasta station, salad bar, fruit station. You get the point. There are a lot of options and they all look delicious.
It is about 4 o' clock now and our ship doesn't leave until 9, which we just learned is about two hours early because we're trying to award a board, avoid a desert sandstorm in Abu Dhabi.
So we're going to use the rest of the afternoon to show you around the ship as we discover it ourselves.
It's a huge ship. Like, it's going to take a long time.
And it looks nicer than P and O. Don't tell me.
So.
I forgot to mention this is an Italian cruise line, so naturally there's a Nutella stand on the full deck.
Sat tour.
Just in time for sunset, we are back up on the deck and it is absolutely beautiful. Let's just say this ship is awesome. Out of all the cruises that we've been on, which is only 3, this is by far the nicest ship that we've ever been on.
Definitely. And side note, I was pretty curious as to what the dress code was going to be on this ship because we are in the Middle east, but it is an Italian cruise line, so just so you know, everyone here is Westerners, from what we can tell, wearing bikinis and Speedos.
So pack your Speedo.
Don't have to worry about that. But coming from Oman, I felt like it was appropriate to cover my shoulders and knees and wear a scarf just because that's what everybody else looked like. And we're not trying to draw any attention to ourselves. And we'll probably continue to do that when we get off the ship, but here seems fine.
All right, we're going to go enjoy the sunset.
Amanda Hotas just told Kara that he hopes that there's a baby inside of her.
That is the second time somebody said, I hope you have a baby. That is weird.
Got stuck in one of those one time that, like, freaked me out.
I knew this. I've been holding this in for two days.
