20231221 AAAA Trip - Cruise day #3, Bye-bye, Dubai

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 96/105 - Cruise day #3 - Bye bye, Dubai

This morning was the last day in Dubai. The onboard time was 11:30 a.m. so we opted to stay on the ship. Oceania heavily promotes activities so we tried several of them this morning.

Before I get into that - here are some random photos from the last couple of days on the ship that I simply forgot to add.

I have no idea why this ship was doing this, but it sure was pretty

Jellies swam by.

Did I mention that we were close to arrivals or departures, based on the wind?

The first activity today was indoor putting.  They set up three putting targets worth one, two, or three points based on difficulty. You putted head-to-head against another player. The winner got three O points. The non-winner got two O points.

Arlona and I tied so we both got two O points

I played ping pong and scored two more points.  After lunch, we played shuffleboard and between us, we scored five O points.

We're starting to amass some points

The points can be cashed in at the end of the cruise for Oceania swag - essentially, we're competing to be able to provide free advertising for Oceania.

Another of the competitions is the art competition.

This shows snippets of many art pieces on the ship - there's more on the back - you have to find them all and list where they are and the one of the name/artist/material

The art competition is a fun way to explore the ship.

As we ate lunch, the ship began to shake and we pulled out of port. We will be sailing until 8 a.m. tomorrow morning when we dock in Doha, Qatar. We will also fall back an hour tonight so we are time-travelling once again. We will move to UTC+3 or eight hours ahead of the U.S. East Coast.

Sailing out of Dubai

As we sailed away, the haze gave the city an eerie look

A ghost city

Trivia this afternoon went surprisingly well with our team of two other Villagers and a couple from Minnesota winning the game. Our misses:

• In Great Expectations, what job did Joe teach Pip to do?
• We guessed bookkeeper - it was a blacksmith
• What does PET stand for in the medical procedure PET scan?
• We didn't know - it is positron emission tomography
• What African country was occupied but not controlled by Italy in WWII (Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania)?
• We guessed Kenya, but it was Ethiopia

After trivia, we met up with two other Villagers, John & Dinah, who work with the same travel Agent, Lisa, in The Villages. We also met another Villages couple so there are at least ten Villagers, perhaps more, on this cruise. We enjoyed time together in Martinis - the martini bar, before heading to dinner at the buffet tonight.

The buffet on Oceania is a lot like the buffet on Viking - top-quality food that is ready to go. In addition, they offer cook-to-order meals and we chose that tonight. Arlona had the ribeye and lobster and I had the ribeye and shrimp.

Everything was cooked perfectly and tasty. So far, I have to give the edge to Oceania over Viking in terms of food. The food is excellent.

After dinner, we caught up with our Villagers partners for another trivia. We finished in second tonight - still good for more O points. Woo! Our minimal failures:

• What city is the home to Fiat?
• We guessed Florence - it was Turin
• What is Scotland's second-largest city?
• We decided that since  Edinburgh was the capital, it was likely Glasgow - nope, Glasgow is larger - it was  Edinburgh

It was a nice sea day today as we said bye-bye to Dubai. We dock tomorrow morning in Doha, Qatar.