Tuesday - Muscat, Oman

A very Happy Birthday to Salam and to Susan!

Since today was our last morning that we could do room service, we did exactly that and had a late morning breakfast in our room. The ship was very quiet as over 1200 passengers had gone into Muscat on various excursions. We had debated the issue, but instead we opted to just stay on board and enjoy the beautiful day. I will have some photos to post since Bob has graciously offered to send me a few. We went up to the sunning deck quite early as I was determined to finish the book I was reading to get it back to the library today. The deck was so pleasant because there was just the lightest breeze and not the gusty wind of days past. The scenery was also breathtaking as there were very steep mountains right up to the shore, not the desert scenario that we had anticipated. As you can see it is a beautiful area.

We also had the opportunity to see many of the “Dhow” boats which are the traditional type of boat in this area.

After spending several hours in the sun working on a tan we went to a late lunch where we had chicken meatball subs that were absolutely delicious, but VERY strong with garlic. The best was the dessert, pineapple fritters with rum raisin ice cream. What will we ever do without dessert two times a day! After lunch we did a little more packing and felt as though we were in good shape to have our bags out by midnight. We did decide to go to tea one last time even though we were still full from lunch. They really do have the best scones on board with the real clotted cream, we will miss that. I think we have spent a lot of time today reflecting on this trip and are truly sad to see it come to an end.

The ship left port around 5:00 PM and had to make quite a turn to get out of her berth. Below is a photo of us departing from Muscat that was sent via a comment (Thank you Arabesque)!

We readied ourselves for dinner, but first we went down to the Queen’s Grill lounge for drinks with our tablemates Bob, Marsha, Judy, and Jung. Bob and Marsha are also leaving the ship tomorrow to visit their son and his family who live in Dubai while Judy and Jung and doing the entire world voyage. It was really great to spend one last evening with our new friends. Dinner was bittersweet as we knew we will be leaving all of this tomorrow. We ordered off of the a la carte and had the most wonderful rack of lamb with mint sauce (hey, I haven’t talked food in days now!). After dinner we went down and enjoyed one last evening in the Queen’s Room with dancing. We said goodbye to Shirley earlier today, but went down to see Betty one last time. She ended up getting locked out of her room, so she didn’t get down there until quite late. Mom even graced the dance floor for a Bosonova!

Shortly after 11:00 pm we had to return to our rooms to get our luggage out. We had a brief scare, we thought we had lost Mom’s stateroom key, but it was just hiding in my purse. We are now getting ready to go on to bed as we do have an early morning and a big day ahead of us in Dubai.