Here's Ross with some fish 'n' chips
World Cruise hostess Jamie along with Crystal's very own leprechaun, George, and Rick Spath, the cruise director
Thursday morning found us in scenic Al Fujairah by the (Arabian) sea. We had originally booked a canoeing excursion, but two days earlier we received notification from Shorex that the tour had been cancelled due to ‘bad water conditions’. We found out later that what this really meant was there was NO water in the lake - which makes paddling rather difficult. And here we thought we were the only ones on the tour - again. The good news was that we managed to get booked on another tour; the better news was that it didn’t go out until 12:45, so we had lots of time to catch up on our (much needed) sleep from Wednesday’s late night.
The Mountain 4x4 Adventure was a real step up from the dune buggies we had in Dubai. These cars were Toyota 5-passenger vehicles equipped with leather seats, full air conditioning, leather-wrapped roll-cages (if you looked close enough)…and a driver.
Our trip took us out of the city of Al Fujairah, through Sharja and across the border into Oman. We had to take our passports along because of this border crossing, and, sure enough, we had to show them on the way into Oman - but nobody cared when we returned to the Emirates, probably because our cars all had Dubai licence plates.
Once we left the town of Dibbi, we headed up into the mountains. The third person in our car, a lady traveling with her sister and mother on the whole world cruise, is a bit of a geology nut and couldn’t get over the kinds of formations we were seeing. She also took so many photos that she’s the new queen of ‘won’t know if she enjoyed her vacation until she reviews the pictures’. And people think Larry talks fast!
While dubbed a “Mountain Adventure” this tour would be more accurately described as a “rock pile adventure”. After a high-speed drive of about an hour (vehicles here apparently have only two speeds - all the way on and stopped!) we left the paved roads behind for what could be charitably described as a dirt road. And more accurately described as a “goat track”, except that would be an insult to goats everywhere!!! In fact, we were driving alongside, and quite frequently in and through, a dried up riverbed that lead up into the local mountain range. We bounced and banged our way (thankful we had a driver!!) up this road for about an hour before stopping to stretch our legs in the middle of a gorge. Once again, the pictures do a better job of “describing” this than we can, but keep in mind that three weeks ago, after several days of heavy rains, most of the area in these pictures was under 15 feet of water, such are the extremes of weather in this part of the world.
As our tour was not scheduled to return to the ship until 5:15, getting to dinner at 6:00 would have been a problem, so we opted for Casual Dining around the pool. Although Crystal has offered this option most evenings on Serenity for years, it was something we had never tried before. The area around the enclosed pool is transformed into a casual restaurant, complete with fine china place settings and table service provided by the ever-smiling guys from the Lido Deck. While the fixed menu is not as extensive as the one in the Main Dining Room, they offer an excellent selection of appetizers, mains and some really decadent desserts (including Double Caramel ice cream!) from the Ice Cream Bar. It tasted as good as it looks in the pictures and is something we will definitely do again.
No comments:
Post a Comment