PhilRSchultz

People like to go to “I’m just as, or more, worried about violent crime in American cities so why are you worried about traveling abroad”. I find this to be too simple of a take. When an American is visiting, living in an American city they are surrounded by millions of fellow Americans and melt as just one another American citizen into the background. When traveling abroad to varying degrees and depending on the destination, one becomes one of a “few” Americans traveling and standing out from the surrounding population while visiting predictable places. Does that mean you should be terrified/suspicious of every citizen of this foreign destination? Of course not. But it does mean that those that want to seek out and harm Americans have a much smaller pool to choose you from and knows exactly where an American tourist might likely to be. A very different situation than driving through L.A.

I initiated an online chat w/ Viking inquiring about “new” port times which they proceeded to email me. Looks like we arrive Cyprus at noon on one day, then have the whole next day. My guess is the shore excursion you already booked before the itinerary change will still occur that second full day. The question is whether or not additional shore excursions will be offered for that first half-day. If so, any excursion would have to be limited to a 4-hr excursion so my guess is it would be something in and around Limassol, probably something like The Crusader Kolossi Castle built by The Order of St. John. If you hadn’t already booked an all-day excursion, while tastes vary, I was choosing between their Paphos excursion or Nicosia and chose Paphos, a town who’s history extends back into The Bronze Age, through the Greeks and Romans, while also featuring in Biblical history (see Paul). If I hadn’t done that, I would’ve done Nicosia strictly for the national museum.

Initial thoughts and reactions: (1) There might be (2) days of excursions in Cyprus and on Malta; (2) We visit Heraklion, Crete on a different day than was originally scheduled. Question: On original itinerary, we only had (6) hours in port in Heraklion which REALLY restricted what you could do (no way previously to visit both Knossos & The Heraklion Archaeological Museum for example). Might we have more time in port with this rescheduling?; (3) Malta’s a decent substitute; (4) The fact that they are avoiding Turkey probably means Viking intends to avoid all Muslim countries. That said, was slightly surprised that they didn’t nix Cyprus, but actually added another day there despite its proximity to the conflict. They nixed the sea day between Rhodes and Cyprus which sarcastically, but perhaps in reality, is Viking trying to make that sea crossing under cover of darkness 😀

For Nov. 14th Cities of Antiquities & The Holy Land Viking departure:

“Worldwide” travel warning for Americans to be specific. Also news breaking that Yemeni Houthi rebels fired missiles at an American naval vessel off its coast. https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/state-department-worldwide-alert/index.html - State Dept worldwide travel warning for Americans https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/us-navy-intercept-missiles-yemen/index.html - Yemeni Houthi rebels fire missiles at U.S. Navy

Monitoring so that I’m notified of any further posts in this thread

Look! Another one! Like I said, as the paying customer I’ll be the judge of that. What I purchased was access to various destinations. The cruise ship was just the taxi. And I fail to see how my original post that his highness, RD, responded to displayed attitude. How did the earlier poster characterize your type? Oh yeah, “snarky”. Indeed

I didn’t realize my posts were subject to the self-appointed cruise message board police, but, foolish me, this is an internet message board so what did I expect? Thanks for the advice……. but I think I’ll be a far better judge as the paying customer in this matter in regards to whether I’ll feel I received what I paid for.

Why cancel non-Israeli ports that were already scheduled? That seems odd. Hope that doesn’t happen on my Nov. 14th departure with Viking. I would not be happy. My expectations are (3) ports excursions that were supposed to be scheduled in Israel now change to (3) port excursions elsewhere at landings as close as possible in quality compared to what we’re losing in Jerusalem and The Holy Land. To me, that means adding Ephesus, Santorini, and something else

https://cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/2023/10/royal-caribbean-cancels-israel-itineraries-on-rhapsody/

I’m on the 11/14 departure. To answer your question, no I haven’t heard anything directly from Viking yet, just the below statement on their web site from a couple days ago: https://www.vikingrivercruises.com/my-trip/current-sailings/index.html#noscroll

Thanks. To make sure I’m understanding, are you saying your cruise “shuffled” other existing port dates (besides Israel) to accommodate the new port days in Bodrum & Cyprus because that has been one of my questions in all of this?

Different strokes for different strokes, but in my opinion Ephesus and Troy trump all other alternatives for replacing Israel port dates and I hope that’s where my looming cruise changes to

My money would be on some combination of Santorini, Ephesus (Bodrum), with some harder to determine destination (Troy? 2nd port in Crete?). This is because of the geography of our itinerary which was scheduled for (3) nights in Israel sandwiched between Cyprus and Heraklion, Crete. All of this assumes Viking will not be changing any non-Israel port dates which of course would give them more flexibility to add a Sicily or a Malta

I think it’s a matter of whether Viking keeps all their port dates other than Israel. If so, then my cruise, which departs Athens and ends in Rome, would have left Cyprus bound for Israel with Crete to follow. I would assume, they would want to geographically fill the (3) Israel nights with something closer to the Cyprus/Crete ports which would have me betting that they’ll add Santorini and Ephesus (Bodrum). No idea for the third night (perhaps Troy? perhaps a 2nd port in Crete other than Heraklion which we’re already visiting?). We’re all just guessing at this point, but I think these are reasonable guesses. I would assume Sicily is out due to geography and due to where the Israel portion of our itineraries occurs