We woke early this morning as we do each day on board the ship and each of us enjoyed a nice workout. When Keith arrived at the Fitness Center, Mary was already there which she noted was the second time since the World Cruise began that she was up there before Keith. When Keith asked her when she arrived, she said about two minutes before he did. ☺ A little while later Anne Marie and, fellow passenger, John arrived. There were others working out as well. From our vantage point we could see lots of lights on the shoreline of Oman and a little while after that we could see the beautiful mountains as the sun was rising overhead.

We each enjoyed a very nice workout and went over to the Lido Café to get some coffee before returning to our room. There are several early morning tours so the Lido Café opened early with lots of staff already there when we arrived. We said hello to many familiar faces from the Lido Café such as Lido Deck Stewards Alvin, Clark, and Ross who and we also said hello to several of the staff who during the evening hours work in the Prego and Silk Road Specialty Restaurants.

We wanted to point out something that we continue to be amazed about. Very often we run into someone from the crew that we have not met and yet they know our names. For example, yesterday we were walking along the corridor from our room and we passed another stewardess who we had never met before and she said high Mr. and Mrs. “…….” The same thing happened with Keith when he needed some assistance on a get together we were organizing and a particular person from the staff who we had never met knew Keith’s name. The same thing happened this morning when we first walked into the Lido Café with another member of the crew. We continue to be amazed at the wonderful service and attention to detail shown by the staff, and this is just one of many examples of the tremendous staff on board the ship.

A little while after we got back to the room we enjoyed a very nice breakfast. We spoke with our butler, Alexander, who has been wonderful and we will miss him since he is leaving the ship in a few days to begin his Holiday at home. He will then return to the ship later this summer. He has been outstanding and we will miss him dearly. He is the second longest butler in terms of years of service who is on this ship. If we remember correctly, he has worked on-board Crystal ships for 10+ years. He is very professional in all that he does.

We arrived at Salalah, Oman at around 8:00 AM. We did not select a tour. Last year, we had two stops in Oman. The first one was in Muscat, which was a beautiful city. Unfortunately, the morning we arrived they had a major rainstorm (it only rains there a couple of times each year) and all tours were canceled due to flooding. We hope to visit there another time because the city looked very interesting, with many beautiful buildings. There are many palaces and other buildings to see in that city. We also visited Salalah last year. The tours are limited in this area, and none of them interested us. Many people take the tour called Frankincense Trail, which includes a visit to Job’s Tomb and a chance to tap a frankincense tree Many question whether this is tomb is really the tomb of Job. The tour also includes a chance to go to a market and a chance to see nice views of the Qara Mountains. Again, there are a few other tours. For us, we have tried to do a fair number of tours throughout the World Cruise but it is just not practical to go on a tour in each and every port of call.

There were additional tours that we offered that included an Archaeological Adventure, another one call Salalah of Yesterday and Today, Intimate Oman and the Lost City of Ubar. Many passengers who have not visited this port of call before took tours.

We have taken more tours this year than on last years World Cruise but from time to time we take a break from touring and today was such a day. Unfortunately, this port of call does not allow Crystal to provide a shuttle to the closest town. Crystal can only run a shuttle that takes passengers from the ship about one mile to the entrance of the port where taxis were available. Several passengers had problems trying to negotiate fares as it seemed that the cab drivers wanted fares that were significantly more than what was charged last year. Ultimately some passengers asked for assistance from the cruise ship. The port agent was asked to step in and Captain Glenn also tried to assist. In the end, a prices was arranged for a one way drive or the option of the cab driver waiting one hour after dropping passengers in town to drive them back to the ship.

Instead we decided to take advantage of some quiet time on the ship to actually begin the process of packing. We have a number of items with us that we will not need to wear for the remainder of the World Cruise. Since our daughter and son-in-law are joining us for the last segment of the World Cruise, from Rome to London, we wanted to get a head start on packing so that we don’t have to spend too much time doing this while they are both on board the ship. We also recognize that the last segment of the cruise is fairly port intensive so we will be spending less time on the ship and more time in port.

Oman is an interesting country. Oman’s coastline is both beautiful and one of the most fertile areas in all of Arabia. Oman was ruled for many years by Sultan Said Bin Taimur, (1938-1970) and during that time frame very few people had the opportunity to visit Oman. From what we learned last year, some changes were made in this country after the Sultan was overthrown by his son, Sultan Qaboos Bin Said. While still not on a large scale, today over 60,000 travelers visit this country anually and more money is spent by the Majesty of Oman on the people, particularly in the area of education. Salalah is Oman’s second largest city and is home to around 300,000 residents.

Those getting off the ship today were asked to be respectful of the local culture. The Omanis are very conservative people and quite conservative and are strong followers of their religion. They dress very conservatively and most dress in traditional attire. Women were asked to wear loose, long garments, and to ensure that their shoulders and knees were covered. Men were asked to wear long trousers and tops with sleeves.

After our ship arrived in port we took a nice long walk on the promenade deck. During or walk, we ran into many passengers that we have come to know quite well.

We saw one passenger who was on the verandah whose husband has been quarantined as he is sick and as a precautionary method she has been quarantined as well. They thought it was from the lunch they had in India. As a rule of thumb we do not eat off the ship in places that we visit since we truly enjoy the food prepared on the ship and know that the food is of the highest quality and we also know that the preparation of the food is done in a neat and clean environment. We do try to avoid all day tours that involve food and if we were on an all day tour in a country that we had concerns about, we would bring food with us from the ship such as fruit, crackers and something such as a cheese sandwich.

We had been warned that even if the food has been prepared correctly in places such as India there is the risk of microbes that we are not used to. Many passengers did eat off the ship in India so we will hope that very few became ill.

After we finished our walk on the Promenade Deck we went back to our room and took care of the packing that we wanted to accomplish today.

We enjoyed a very nice lunch in the Main Dining Room, which we had pre-ordered.

In the afternoon, Keith participated in the table tennis tournament. After the competition, Keith played several games with other passengers.

Since the beginning of the year, Crystal has offered a newspaper delivery service. You can order your favorite shoreside newspapers from around the world. The price is the same whether you order a weekday paper or a Sunday paper. Not all papers are available for Sunday. Originally we were going to order a Sunday New York Times but that is available Monday thru Saturday. So, instead we ordered a Sunday Washington Post. We receive it at around 2:00 PM our time, or 6:00 AM East Coast Time. It is essentially a full newspaper. It includes most of the sections that one would find in the newspaper except for say the classifieds, and a few other minor section and not the separate store advertisement sections. But, it does have advertising that would be found in the regular sections of the newspaper; just not the separate store only inserts. We were very impressed with the quality of the print, the timeliness of the paper and having to rely on the internet, the television and the summary papers we get it was nice to get a full edition of the newspaper to get more comprehensive coverage of news.



Keith