Here we go again - problems in Egypt

http://news.yahoo.com/forty-one-hurt-egypts-liberals-islamists-clash-154707799.html

Anyone know if a ship was due to port and it diverted?

Search of ships doing Holylands/ probably Egypt - Mariner went out a few days ago.

What's the link to track ships??

Thanks for posting the link.

Keith

Mariner OS is docked right now in Alexandria:

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/nl/default.aspx?level0=100

Glad to hear that.

Keith

I am not sure I would get off the ship in Egypt right now.

Mariner OS is docked right now in Alexandria:

 

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/nl/default.aspx?level0=100

Thanks that's the link I was hoping someone would post!

I was on the ship last week when we docked in Egypt.

We had no issues, although had the feeling the Captain was glad when we left the port.

Many people were too afraid to leave the ship. We had planned an overnight in Cairo but cancelled that for a long full day tour of the Pyramids. Some people did stay overnight with no issues.

I was on the ship last week when we docked in Egypt.

We had no issues, although had the feeling the Captain was glad when we left the port.

Many people were too afraid to leave the ship. We had planned an overnight in Cairo but cancelled that for a long full day tour of the Pyramids. Some people did stay overnight with no issues.

I was also on the Holy Land cruise aboard the Silhouette. The cruise tours for Egypt are sold by offering security on all tours. Be warned, the security guards ride on every other bus, and not on every bus. I feel this was misleading. We booked two Egypt tours and we never had a guard on our buses. The buses are supposed to follow each other caravan style. This is impossible in Egypt traffic. Once we left the port, our bus was on its own. Very unsettling, especially since our bus got stuck on a one way street in downtown Alexandria, and was surrounded by locals who began waving their arms and wanted the bus out of their narrow street. We complained to the cruise tour manager once we returned to the ship and she assured us that Celebrity will reassess the way these tours are offered. Egypt was quiet the two days we visited, but the situation is fragile.

For those that just stopped at the port of Alexandria, please answer me a question.

How long after you docked in Alexandria did they let you go ashore? I was wondering how long it took for your ship to be cleared by the local officials.

We are supposed to arrive on the Crown Princess on Oct 30th. The paperwork states arrival at 7:00 a.m. so I was trying to figure out what time we could dis-embark the ship.

Thanks

PS, we too are worried somewhat but do have plans for an overnight in Cairo.

Fingers crossed nothing else happens

We were on the Mariner a few weeks ago in Alexandria - I can't remember exactly, but I don't think it took very long to be cleared by local officials. In fact, they were quicker to grant us access than several of the other ports. I wonder if it could be due to their declining tourism industry with the recent issues, so they were willing to do whatever they could to bring people in.

We also did an overnight in Cairo after a domestic flight to/from Luxor the first day - had no issues and at no time did we ever feel unsafe. You will have an amazing time, the only thing you need to worry about, is keeping enough peace in the area so your ship will dock. =) It was amazing and completely worth every second!

On the Silhouette--Celebrity cruises, we docked at around 8 am, and there was no delay in having people exit the ship--I would say within 30 mins people left.

There was a situation whereby , since we docked for about 36 hours, after about 12 hours the Captain was a sked to move the boat up 2-3 feet--this may sound simple, but it took almost 1 hour.

evidently there was another ship that needed to be docked behind our ship, and there was not enough room

Squirt 3124. Thanks for the reply. We too are doing Luxor and Cairo. How was Luxor was it crowded at the sites? I have been to Egypt before but my husband has not and I hope we both get to stop at Alexandria so we can make our tour. I feel it will be now or never as I think that area of the world will get worse.

Markf. Thanks too for your reply as we will need to be ready to disembark fairly quickly after arriving in port. -

We are booked on the Queen Elizabeth, and Alexandria is one of our ports. The QE captain cancelled the call there a few weeks ago. Please keep us posted if anyone has trouble there. We are scheduled to be there November 24. Thanks!

lakelodge....I will be there on October 30th if all goes well and the Crown Princess does indeed stop in Alexandria as planned. I will try to log on to Cruise Critic and give all those interested an update on our experience.

My husband and I just returned from the Holy Land cruise aboard the Mariner of the Seas. We docked in Alexandria on October 12th and 13th and spent 2 days in Cairo. We were booked on a private tour with Egypt Private Excursions and I would do it again in a minute. Ayman, our guide, was warm, funny, and knowledgeable. He even stopped a group of girls on the street and asked them if they would talk to us about Egypt and America. They were delightful. We ate lunch at two different restaurants--recommended by our guide--without any ill effects, and had fantastic Indian food at the Mena House Oberoi for dinner. The ancient sites were unbelievable, and the people were very friendly, however, the poverty and squalor were unfortunately a little overwhelming. Apparently there had been a demonstration against the government at Tahrir Square on Friday, but we were totally oblivious to it, and on Saturday when we visited the antiquities museum, all was quiet. Don't be scared to go to Egypt. You'll miss an amazing opportunity if you pass it by!

Squirt 3124. Thanks for the reply. We too are doing Luxor and Cairo. How was Luxor was it crowded at the sites? I have been to Egypt before but my husband has not and I hope we both get to stop at Alexandria so we can make our tour. I feel it will be now or never as I think that area of the world will get worse.

 

 

Markf. Thanks too for your reply as we will need to be ready to disembark fairly quickly after arriving in port. -

We were on the Mariner last week and also did the overnight to Luxor and Cairo. The sites in Luxor were almost deserted, our tour group had the valley of the kings virtually to ourselves. Same with Karnak and Luxor temples, only about 3 other tours there.

We felt pretty safe there, there were demonstrations the day before we got there do as a precaution our visit to the Egyptian museum was cancelled to keep us out of central Cairo.

Glad to here about these remarks. We are going to the Holy lands in May of next year on a cruise and have been keeping an eye on these boards. I will be real disappointed if the cruise line cancels these ports. Hopefully the news media is making things out to be worse than they really are. the news media seems to do this with a lot of things.

Kandy

Yes! Our guide wanted so badly for us to understand that the huge majority of Egyptians had no ill will toward the US, and that many of the protesters are paid to protest. The western media then just takes the story and "runs with it," so to speak. We are so happy that we put our reservations about visiting Egypt on the back burner and went for it. It was amazing.

Thanks to all the Mariner cruisers for giving us some reassurance that all these events that take place are quite isolated and not reflective of the situation in the country at this time.

This has been all over the Middle Easterner news. It has gotten NO attention in the USA, as 95% of the coverage has been in Arabic. Evidently, it was even in Pashto as relayed by some of my colleagues working in Afghanistan. I have been inundated with emails from friends and business associates that are living/working in the Middle East with this information.

Here is an English version sent by someone in Kuwait. Spooky stuff.

http://www.france24.com/en/20121027-al-qaeda-leader-calls-muslims-kidnap-westerners

We were in Egypt from 4 to 18th Oct 2012 and the tourists are all really well looked after. We felt safe the whole time and had a fantastic time. Tourism is their main source of income and they are looking forward to more tourists coming back.

Go see Egypt you will love it.

We were on the Mariner of the seas 10/20/12 sailing and did the Egypt overnight tour with Ramses on 10/23-10/24/12. We had 32 people in our group. Ramses provided an armed guard who stayed with us at all times. That being said we really didn't need him. At no time did we ever feel unsafe. The vendors at the pryramids and other attrractions are very pushy and obnoxious but are just trying to make a living and not to pick your pocket or harm you. We found the Egyptian peopled to be very friendly.

Just got an E-mail from Norwegian... Alexandria port has been cancelled and Istanbul and Naples are set to replace it :( I'm booked for the 11/6/13 sailing on Jade.

Anyone else have anymore info about this? Is there a possibility that Alexandria could be rescheduled? Egypt was why I chose that cruise. Super bummed.

Just got an E-mail from Norwegian... Alexandria port has been cancelled and Istanbul and Naples are set to replace it :( I'm booked for the 11/6/13 sailing on Jade.

 

Anyone else have anymore info about this? Is there a possibility that Alexandria could be rescheduled? Egypt was why I chose that cruise. Super bummed.

Looks like it's still in the 11 day Holyland itinerary leaving on the 11/16/13.

This is just a SWAG, perhaps given the issues, Egypt on both the 10 and 11 day itineraries might have exceeded customer demand and early bookings might have been a bit light.

Note - even if you do switch to the 11 day itinerary which still includes Egypt - that could change at moments notice, even once the ship is sailing. Many ships have diverted during this winter cruise season.