Being
in Oman for few weeks, Muscat has been quite okay for me but I hadn’t expected
much of a good night life here. Being in the Middle East, especially Oman amidst
a very conservative society, I probably thought Oman wouldn’t have good pubs
and bars but then an experiment was what I was waiting for.
So it was Thursday night, actually almost
midnight and then I got a call from a work friend of mine if I wanted to go
check out a bar in Muscat and I was totally in. So it was midnight and four of
us planned a sort of boy’s night out to have a drink at Radisson in Al Khuwair,
Muscat so we got in this taxi and started driving. As we started, the taxi
driver recommended us to go try the bar at the Grand Hyatt, Muscat so we
changed our plan to go to Radisson and made our way to Grand Hyatt.
So after a few minutes taxi ride, we were
outside the Grand Hyatt, Muscat, whose exterior looked quite amazing, like the
brand Hyatt does seem to maintain its high standard and appeal. The outside was
crowded, with taxis, cars and people, probably because it was Thursday night.
It is basically weekend on Friday and Saturday here in Oman so Thursday night
is equivalent to Friday night here. There is another place Club Safari too in
Grand Hyatt, Muscat which seem to be quite popular but we thought of trying a
sports bar instead so we made our way inside Habana Sports Bar.
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| At Habana Sports Bar |
Habana Sports Bar is located in a very
easy to spot place. Just as we enter the entrance of Grand Hyatt, Habana Sports
Bar is just round the corner in the ground floor of the hotel. As we entered
Habana, I saw packed tables with people having drinks, some busy with a game in
the pool tables and some just watching a game screened in the bar. We were
basically there just for a drink and not to enjoy watching a game so we just
found a table and grabbed our seat. Muscat had been quite a peaceful slow place
as what it appeared to me and as I entered there, I saw a completely different
side of the city’s crowd. The crowd there was very much alive, people from
various nationalities, dominated by Filipinos and Arabs, having a great time
enjoying their night time out. It was probably because it was Thursday that the
place was particularly crowded. The seating were cozy but we just grabbed a
round table to sit as the place was too crowded to get a cozy place to sit.
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| A glass of Heineken and a Pint of Corona Extra at Habana Sports Bar, Grand Hyatt, Muscat. |
A waitress came us to attend us in the
table and handed us the beverage menu. I was probably there after a heavy
dinner from home so wasn’t hungry so a glass of beer was everything I was
longing for. The place was actually really noisy that it was even hard to
actually talk to the waitress who seemed quite busy in her own world plus the
noise there didn’t even allow her to hear us and vice-versa. We ordered 3
Heineken beer and a pint of Corona beer. It was really a positive vibe to be
there out with friends and soon the waitress came back with our beers and it
was great to sit there and have a drink with friends. But the funny thing at
Habana Bar was that it didn’t seem like a good place where you could enjoy a
drink and have a conversation. It was almost impossible for me to talk to my
friends sitting just next to me while having my drink as the place was too
noisy. I literally had to scream out loud in my friends ears in order to have a
talk to them. We ordered the waitress one more round of beer as we finished our
first drink. A pint of beer cost about
3.8 Omani Rials there in Habana but as the type of service we got, the price
wasn’t quite okay. There were no complimentary snacks or nuts or anything
given. When we asked the waitress if we could get anything with the beer, she
handed us four, with a bowl of po corns. This seemed quite weird. For me,
popcorn was a sort of a movie snack and I would rather enjoy popcorns when I am
out to watch a movie and not while I am having a drink of beer at Habana. I
asked the waitress if we could get some nuts or wafers instead of that popcorn
and she lamely responded she couldn’t give us anything else other than the
popcorn.
I was there at Habana at Grand Hyatt,
Muscat to have a drink and have a good time and it didn’t quite seem a great
place to have a drink. There wasn’t a special game being screened nor could
there be any chance to get a hand on the pool tables amidst the enormous crowd
in Habana. Though the crowd there seemed lively, the place seemed good, the ambiance wasn’t quite appropriate. I understand that the staffs there would
have a little difficult time when the bar is packed and crowded so a proper personalized
service wasn’t expected either but the environment and service couldn’t just go
well to let one stay more and have some more drinks.
So after our second round of drinks, we
just had to go for the second only convenient option, to go to Club Safari. Other
clubs and bars seemed quite far, probably in Qurum, so visiting another outlet
in Grand Hyatt, Muscat was the only option so we took our chance to go inside
Club Safari after a bad experience in Habana Sports Bar.
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