Monday, March 15, 2010

50 FIRSTS #5: Crumby Omani Hotel

After working at several museums in the UAE, we traveled to Oman to see the beehive tombs near Ibri (that's a tale for another post). On the first night we stayed in the Marina Hotel in Muscat. We went with the recommendation in the Lonely Planet guide (which got all manner of things wrong in their UAE/Oman/Yemen book - beware), but clearly should have checked Trip Advisor first. Only one review is good (probably written by the owner), the rest tell the tale.

When we went to check out, they tried to triple the rate from that agreed to on the phone. Argued for a bit, finally got fed up, paid them the equivalent of half the price of one room (we had 2) at our agreed upon price, told the guy at the front desk he had no honor and walked out. Gotta admit, although feeling justifiably self-righteous, I was a bit nervous doing it.

We chuckled for the rest of the day that they had no way to find us since we didn't reserve on-line and didn't pay with a credit card...until we got to the hotel in Ibri and they asked the standard first request -- "passports please." Then we remembered, the Marina had indeed xeroxed our passports like every other hotel we'd stayed in on our trip. Probably to keep people from jumping their bill... So, we spent the day hunting for the tombs, assuming that we'd be thrown in chains at the border crossing ;-) Yep, we showed them all right.

4 comments:

j's mom said...

And here I thought it was safe to let my daughter travel with you.

Sue said...

You should know better by now ;-)

On this hotel, I didn't pick it. But in Lesley's defense, the guidebook said it was fine, and we had pretty limited electronic access while there. And in truth, it was only one night (and the restaurant on the roof was great!)

Sue said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jaime said...

Rick Steve's needs to write an Oman book.