After the dolphin watching tour, our driver told us he would take us to a viewpoint beyond Marina Bandar Al Rowdha.
PDO is the Petroleum Development Oman, the nation’s primary petroleum company. And the above is the company’s private beach — for their employees and their families. And if a private beach wasn’t enough of a company perk…
Unfortunately when we entered, there was no reservation in our names. So we had to contact the travel agent to speak to the front desk and sort things out.
After a sumptuous lunch, our driver decided to go for a smoke break and left before us. The rest of us washed up, took some photos of the restaurant and before making our way out. But when we tried to exit the restaurant, we were stopped by one of the staff. When we asked why, she said we have to “pay first”. Stunned, we were (again) perplexed by the lack of communication. We tried to convince her that this was an organized lunch courtesy of Oman Tourism but she called the manager instead. When the manager came, we told them this was being paid for by Oman Tourism and fortunately he knew deal and understood the situation. He then just asked one of us to sign the bill, which I did.
Anyway, once we were ‘set free,’ we walked back to our car.
Grand Mall did have a Carrefour and Daiso though. I made note of the prices at Carrefour as well, and realized Lulu Hypermarket was cheaper (in general), and then left after buying some stuff from Daiso. By sunset, we were picked up by the driver to be dropped back at the hotel.
This was our last night at the Radisson Blu. Tomorrow we would check out, visit the Grand Mosque and leave Muscat for Jebel Shams. Now I was really excited to see what more natural wonders and history Oman had to offer!
This past October, I won a chance to fly to Oman, courtesy of Oman Tourism. This wasn’t an invite per se, but a contest win. Indiblogger.in held a contest sponsored by Oman Tourism a few months back and my submission was chosen as one among the three best. Three bloggers won the chance to visit Oman on an all expenses paid guided tour of Oman.