We were keen to go snorkeling whilst visiting Muscat and had heard excellent reports of the experience. After some research, Bandar Khayran was top of the list of destinations and I proceeded to book an 8 hour Bandar Khayran snorkeling tour with a local company through our hotel (the Coral Muscat Hotel). The hotel staff were friendly and helpful taking care of the booking and making phone calls for me to ensure that the booking was confirmed.
Well, that was the extent of the helpful and friendly experience. The day of the tour the whole thing was frustratingly unclear. I have a feeling that some of the complications were exacerbated by Ramadan and the time of the year (summer) as some of the tours appeared not to be running at all. However, this was not communicated at all during the booking process despite an insistence on my part that I wanted to visit Bandar Khayran for snorkelling specifically. When we arrived at the harbour there was huge confusion as to where we were going, why I had been told that we had been booked on an 8 hour Bandar Khayran snorkelling tour when the only tours operating were 4 hour dolphin watching tours and that none of the boats were heading to Bardar Khayran that day. It was mentioned that the sea was too rough to go that far and that all the dolphins were north on this particular day. I didn’t want to go dolphin watching as I had seen plenty of dolphins before and this was not part of the tour that I had booked.
In the end were were promised Bandar Khyran but funneled onto a dolphin watching tour boat with everyone else. In the end we didn’t see any dolphins anyway despite spending a couple of hours on quite rough seas looking for them. The hour or so snorkeling we had was really great in the end although I’m still not completely sure that we made it to Bandar Khyran and rather suspect that we were just a bit further on from Yiti beach and Wadi Aday. It was still fun though, my son enjoyed the boat, the snorkeling and feeding the fish.
Would I return?
Yes. I’d return for the snorkeling but I would want a different tour and would book through a different tour company, despite all the companies appearing to merge when it came to the boats that actually departed. If possible, book a private tour and hope that you’ll be taken exactly where you want to go.
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