At the end of last summer I came across a review by Galina Yur about a cruise on a large ocean liner by MSC, and that’s it, I was lost. I started to study what cruises are available to us in principle. A cruise on the Persian Gulf is one of the not very expensive ones, so I decided on it. At first, I monitored prices for the cheapest internal cabins on the Opera liner with embarkation and disembarkation in Dubai, just to keep within the budget. But I could not find a flight for reasonable money, prices started from 200 thousand for three people. And suddenly in the middle of November I came across a tempting offer of CruClub company on a last minute promotion: a cabin with a balcony and a flight from Doha cost less than the first one! My husband and I decided that we should take it and booked it immediately. However, the dates did not fall on the spring school holidays, but something had to be sacrificed, and my son was only too happy. All together with tips for three people totalled 3782 euros. We didn’t take insurance, a drinks package or the internet. My husband then took out insurance from Tinkov, and it seemed to be free of charge. In fact, it turned out that starting and finishing in Doha is very convenient, everything goes quietly and without crowding, as most of the passengers are loaded in Dubai
Money
Rials and dollars are used in Qatar, Gazprombank UP cards do not work there. We dragged it out until the last minute and didn’t have time to buy them. In Doha, we immediately got into a situation – the taxi driver did not want to take our dollars because of the year of issue, although the notes were intact and beautiful. Then he did take them, as we had nothing else at the time. As far as we understood, they only want the newest ones.
In Dubai you need dirhams or a card, somewhere they also take dollars (smaller notes and not old). Our Gazprombank UPs work almost everywhere, even in taxis.
Motorboat. As the company is Italian, all invoices are in euros. Cruise card on board is also topped up in cash euros.
Flight
We flew Qatar Airways – a wonderful airline! Everything is clearly on time, boarding the plane in groups, the number of which is indicated in the boarding pass. There are no queues anywhere at Doha airport, there are machines everywhere, the staff are helpful, and everything is just lightning fast, there are huge waiting areas at each gate. In the plane the seats are comfortable, everyone is given plaids and pillows under the back. During the 5 hours flight we were offered snacks and cold drinks (including alcohol), then a hot lunch, then hot drinks, and for a snack again cold drinks, chips and chocolate.
Doha airport is more used as a transit airport. So at first we didn’t orient ourselves and followed everyone to the control, but then we were redirected to the right place – to the Karwa car park to the turquoise taxis. There the staff stood there and very quickly seated everyone in the cars. It took us about 10-15 minutes to get to our hotel, we paid with dollars and got change in rials.
Doha
When booking the cruise we were offered to choose the date and time of the flight, we decided to arrive the night before, spend the night in the hotel and in the morning at least one eye to see Doha. The Hampton By Hilton Doha Old Town was chosen because of its excellent location, good reviews and reasonable price. I booked it on bookings, wrote there and to the hotel itself with a request to pay cash on arrival. No one replied, so we decided to wait for a while. In the end, a week before the flight, our reservation was cancelled because we couldn’t confirm it with a foreign bank card. I didn’t want to change the hotel, so I booked it on trip.com, which gave the lowest price. But still it turned out to be 1.5 times more expensive. The hotel was quite normal, we slept well.
In the morning we had a leisurely breakfast and went to the Qatar National museum.
It works from 9 am, we did not take tickets in advance, they cost 50 reals adult, children under 16 years old are free. There are no special requirements for appearance. Food and drink are not allowed.
It is about 5 minutes walk from our hotel to the museum. The museum is not to be confused with anything else, unusual, incredibly beautiful architecture! You can walk in the courtyard, and from there you have a good view of the seaport, where our liner was already parked. It was from there that we saw it for the first time!
Pro Liner
The Virtuosa Liner is brand new, huge and beautiful! It is a whole city of 19 decks with its own restaurants, bars, shops, theatre, swimming pools, Jacuzzi, water park, games rooms, gymnasium and many lifts. There are many activities on offer for adults and for children there are clubs for all ages.
MSC Virtuosa (Морские круизы)MSC Virtuosa (Морские круизы)
Boarding is possible in the morning as soon as the liner arrives, cabins can be ready as early as 10am, as luck would have it. But even if your cabin is not ready yet, you can use all the ship’s infrastructure. Suitcases are picked up at the cruise terminal during check-in and embarkation and delivered to your cabin in an hour or two. Departure from Doha at 18.00, exactly one hour before departure everyone should be on board.
We got to the port around 1:00 in the afternoon quite drowsy in the sun, so welcome cold drinks in the port were very helpful). Check-in was lightning fast and in 5 minutes we stepped on board Virtuoso. We were waved towards the lifts and there it was – our cabin 12132.
The cabin with balcony “Deluxe Fantastica” is very comfortable and well equipped. Its area is 17 square metres + balcony of 6 square metres. Sleeping places: two beds placed together and a fold-out sofa that can be converted into a bunk bed. We did not unfold it, it was long enough for a teenager 178 cm tall. Bathroom with shower stall, spacious wardrobe, table with drawers, many shelves, interactive TV, telephone, hairdryer, mini-bar, safe, air conditioning. There are 2 armchairs and a table on the balcony. The stateroom with balcony was awesome! We could sit on our balcony and enjoy the sunsets instead of jostling on the open decks. We always slept with the balcony open and breathed the sea) We could hardly hear the neighbours, maybe we were just lucky, I don’t know.
