Weekend Away (Pull up a chair it's a long one)

Four couples and two ladies from Hash House Harriers went off to the Fujairah Rotana Resort and Spa a five star beachfront hotel nestled between the Indian Ocean and the Hajar mountains. Less than two hours drive from Dubai.

The journey by car from Dubai is quite enjoyable as it involves passing through rolling deserts and desolate mountains. The only hassle involves navigating your way between the huge trucks that are chugging their way slowly along the highway. The hotel blends in with the local landscape. Since it is only four stories high at its tallest point, the hotel does not block your view of the adjacent mountains. The grounds are nicely spread out and well cared for and green, so the entire resort feels roomy and relaxed. The airy surroundings are a pleasant contrast from the beach hotels in Dubai that are growing increasingly claustrophobic as skyscrapers are being built practically on top of them.

It was great to look out at the Indian Ocean and see nothing but clear blue sea right to the horizon (albeit rough) with not a man-made island in sight.

The hotel itself boasts 250 rooms, most of which are in the main building facing the beach. There are also four low-rise outer buildings that are beach-front rooms. We stayed in the one of the outside buildings on the first floor with a nice view of the pools and beach. Our room was spacious and the aircon was super efficient as it was at least 40+ degrees and 60% humidity all weekend. Which caused problems every time we left the comfort of our room as our glasses steamed up for a few minutes making it difficult to get down the staircase.

The hotel is relatively new - it opened in April 2007 ....... Our only complaint on the room was the size of the bathroom, which was quite small in proportion to the rest of the room. Two people could not use it at the same time.

There is a spacious outdoor pool for adults with a swim-up bar However, if you want to do more than lounge around the pool there are loads of recreational activities available. sports, many of which are free, including water skiing, kayaking, windsurfing, and pedalo. We actually didn't take advantage of these as they were cancelled on the first day due to rough sea and the second day it was to darn hot. So we managed to top up our suntans which had almost disappeared due to it being to hot to sit outside in the last few weeks.

Now all the folks with us were between 45 and 65 years of age....this is important to remember.... read on :

On the second evening we tried to book a table for 11 ( one extra had joined us for the day ) in the seafood restaurant .... on being told they could only accommadate us outside and it was far to humid, Martina decided to make up a story about it being someone in the groups birthday ... so they said okay " inside " and asked whose birthday was it, Martina then thinking very quickly on her feet said "Kyoko's "

" We will do a cake " said the restaurant.

So it was to be a Un- birthday for Kyoko.

All went well we had the meal then Kyoko announced she was tired and went to bed...but we had not had the cake! Oh! crikes what are we going to say when they bring the cake... Quick thinking again we decide it's Tom's birthday ( Kyoko's partner).

So out comes this cake with 5 waiters singing happy birthday with a cake saying its Kyoko's birthday and we are singing to Tom. There was some very strange looks on the faces of the waiters, but we pulled it off okay.

This is not the sort of antics you would expect from an adult group, may be a group of teenagers ..... but we were all laughing and enjoyed every minute of it.