This was not a trip planned well in advance. I browsed cruise offerings and spotted something that looked like a good deal – an MSC 7-day cruise around the Persian Gulf for $209/person.
My husband and I are not cruise people. Before that, we only did 2 cruises. We normally organize our trips ourselves. This process takes time and can be tiresome. I thought that it may not be a bad idea to relax once in a while and to leave everything to a third party. Besides, I had not been in this area yet despite my relatively high count of the visited countries.
Naturally, my husband rejected the idea as he usually does. “Very well,” I said, “I am going anyway. I’d rather go with you but if you do not wish to come, this will not stop me from going.” Two days later, he asked to show him the information about the cruise. One week after that, the cruise was booked and paid for. The total cost of an inner cabin for two with all added fees was just under $600.
When the same night I was contemplating the upcoming trip, it suddenly struck me that we were going to Muslim countries during the holy month of Ramadan when even visitors should refrain from eating and drinking in public places from sunrise to sunset. Oops, the credit card was already charged and a cancellation was not an option. All right then, we will see how the Ramadan looks like. It should be an interesting experience by itself.
We struggled to find reasonably priced airfare for convenient flights from Denver to Abu Dhabi. In the end, we settled on the tickets with a 9-hour layover in Amsterdam. The airfare cost more than the cruise and a 7-day vacation was not sufficient to justify the expense and the long-haul flight from Colorado to Abu Dhabi, so we decided to see a couple more countries after the cruise – Qatar and Tunisia.
After a stroll around Amsterdam, we returned to the airport for our flight to Abu Dhabi where we landed at 6.00 a.m. on Monday. Our trip started on Saturday at around noon. In December 2022 and January 2023, I traveled to Fiji, Vanuatu, Australia, New Zealand, back to Australia and home and I did not feel as tired as after this flight to Abu Dhabi.