Taxi Available in Port of Ashdod Israel

For those recently on the Equniox, do you recall if there were taxis waiting for hire at the dock in the Port of Ashdod Israel?

We are trying to arrange a private taxi pick up there. Taxi driver we have used for years says we need to advice Celebrity. Our TA called Celebrity they are saying taxi driver needs to contact the port authority.

Wondering whether anyone on a recent cruise saw private taxis waiting for passengers at the ship.

Or did passengers not on tours need to take a shuttle to outside the main gate to get a taxi.

We are taking a lot of gifts for friends and family in Israel so easier if we could get a taxi near the ship vs the main gate.

Learned through experience on recent cruise - in case others are wondering about taxi service here is how it worked for us.

We arranged to have a driver pick us up at Ashdod. Used the same driver in 2007 and many times prior. In 2007 he was waiting on the dock when we reach Ashdod. In 2009, the port was so secure he was not able to enter it because he does not routinely work out of this port.

We asked a taxi driver at the port to call our taxi, we had taken his cell # with us. Then we hired a taxi to take us outside the main gate so we could meet our driver. So far, so good - we then spend the day doing what we had planned with the driver. Later that evening the driver brought us back to the port - once again he was not permitted to take us directly to the ship. We had to take the ship shuttle back to the ship.

In the future, we would hire a taxi at the port given the level of security in this port.

When we were in Ashdod earlier this year the Port was on higher alert and taxi's were greatly restricted.

Pris993's experience matches ours a month ago, except that we took the port shuttle from the ship to the outside rendezvous area. We heard rumors of cabs charging people US $50 just to go to the port gate, but do not have first-hand knowledge of this. There are very few cabs with passes to enter the port, which could easily result in this kind of exploitation.

In general, the port shuttle bus operation at Ashdod was very haphazard, with different Celebrity people giving us different pickup points (the one which finally worked was where two groups of freight containers used to wall off the passenger area from the freight operations came to a corner; you could go through that corner to get to the cabs with security passes). We waited a half-hour for our shuttle; only two were running. And our shuttle dirver got lost and had to double back in order to find the way to the port gate. Ashdod port is not at all set up for passenger operations, either physically or organizationally; allow at least an hour from disembarkation until you reach your cab or van.

For those recently on the Equniox, do you recall if there were taxis waiting for hire at the dock in the Port of Ashdod Israel?

 

We are trying to arrange a private taxi pick up there. Taxi driver we have used for years says we need to advice Celebrity. Our TA called Celebrity they are saying taxi driver needs to contact the port authority.

 

Wondering whether anyone on a recent cruise saw private taxis waiting for passengers at the ship.

 

Or did passengers not on tours need to take a shuttle to outside the main gate to get a taxi.

 

We are taking a lot of gifts for friends and family in Israel so easier if we could get a taxi near the ship vs the main gate.

This was our experience: it took a very long time to get off the ship with only one gangway used and lots of people late setting off on tours. I understand extra security is needed at this port but organisation from both Celebrity and port authorities was almost non existent.

We wanted to go to Jerusalem independently and our first task was to exit the port. There was great confusion over the port shuttle service and people were being sent back and forth along the docking area. Port authorities could not tell you when/if it would come and where it would stop. Celebrity need to put pressure on the Authorities to sort this or threaten not to come with resultant loss of huge amounts of tourism. At this point we also heard the $50 taxi fatre just to get you to the port gate. Like the other poster I cannot confirm if this was true but we finally got a shuttle and then began the negotiation for a ride to Jerusalem. The taxis were asking $500 one way. Don't go along with this. we knew the fare should be no more than $140 and eventually agreed on $100. Our conclusion - Israeli taxi drivers will rip you off big time if you let them!

We cannot understand why Celebrity do not offer a 'Jerusalem on your own' tour as they do to Berlin and Florence. All we wanted and many others was to get to Jerusalem and back.

The final insult at this port was that despite the ship not leaving until 10pm, the port shuttle was stopped at 7pm!! Taxis were not allowed to go all the way to the ship and although we had been told that walking through the port is not allowed, the armed guard at the gate on learning the shuttle had stopped, told us to walk back to the ship! So much for security. We heard of old ladies having to wander across this enormous port in the dark not knowing where they were going to get back to the ship having been turned out of their taxi at the port gate. It is a wonder they weren't shot. And this was after waiting half an hour for a no longer running shuttle. Lots of people had no idea it had ceased at 7pm.

Sorry this post has been so long but it really was shambolic.

Mmm. I was on that cruise as well and I couldn't believe the lines up and down the stairs to get off at Ashdod. Israeli security had only 1 metal detector on the quay. After an hour they just gave up and everyone got off. That coupled with the issues reported on this thread about getting to Jerusalem solo will mean that Celebrity need to take notice because people will stop booking "Holyland" cruises that stop in Ashdod.

The taxi mafia have that one almost stitched up and celebrity need to organise solo coaches for those people who know Israel or have researched it all and aren't afraid to be dropped off somewhere in Jerusalem.

Hi everyone,

Bob K. (rsquare) started a thread on the Middle East board titled, 'Ashdod Shambles', and posted a link to this thread, and as he mentioned my name in his post, I thought I would take a look at this thread and post a reply.

First, let me say I'm sorry to hear that some of you have had a poor experience with getting off your ship in Ashdod. I sailed r/t out of Ashdod in June on an Israeli cruise ship, and I didn't experience any of your problems: my taxi driver dropped me off at the shuttle bus location with my luggage, and a bus arrived shortly after. On disembarkation, the time from the gangway to my waiting taxi was less than half an hour- and that included going thru immigration and loading and unloading luggage on the bus. There were many taxis waiting at the shuttle drop off point; some had been prearranged, but many were open and waiting for fares.

I think Bewer must have misunderstood his taxi driver's fare quote (many Israelis are convinced they speak better English than they actually do :eek:)- 500 NIS would be the equivalent to about $130, so I bet the driver was quoting the fare in shekels, and Bewer thought it was dollars. While there have been incidents in Israel of taxi drivers trying to rip off tourists, those reports are rare as the taxi authority encourages people to report dishonest cab drivers, and cracks down very hard on those who are dishonest. Few cab drivers would risk those harsh penalties.

Same for 'Uncle Rabbit's' declaration of a 'taxi mafia': I've found taxis in Israel to be less problematic than in many other countries. Are they perfect? No, of course not- but they are far, far from awful.

As to problems with long lines to disembark, and issues with the port shuttles- I haven't seen complaints from cruisers on other cruise lines, so I think this may be a Celebrity problem that the line needs to address. I know that I've been in several ports this year where I had to wait up to an hour to disembark, either to a pier or to a tender.

Sorry if I don't sound very sympathetic- I just think, from what I've read (and what I haven't read elsewhere) that Celebrity may have been more to blame for your bad experiences than the Ashdod port.

For those recently on the Equniox, do you recall if there were taxis waiting for hire at the dock in the Port of Ashdod Israel?

 

We are trying to arrange a private taxi pick up there. Taxi driver we have used for years says we need to advice Celebrity. Our TA called Celebrity they are saying taxi driver needs to contact the port authority.

 

Wondering whether anyone on a recent cruise saw private taxis waiting for passengers at the ship.

 

Or did passengers not on tours need to take a shuttle to outside the main gate to get a taxi.

 

We are taking a lot of gifts for friends and family in Israel so easier if we could get a taxi near the ship vs the main gate.

Hello Pris993

To make things clear so your visit won't meet with such problems this is what I know from being a guide picking tourist from the port either on private tours or by the ship tour:

1. Ashdod is a relatively big port. There is a passengers terminal but it is used mainly for the Israelies cruise companies' passengers going from Ashdod on a cruise. The piers are far from the port's entrance and sometimes the cruise ships don't even dock at the pier close to the terminal.

2. Shuttle service is necessary here but you must understand that the shuttle is arranged by the cruise company and not by the port authority.

3. There are no special secrity regulation in Ashdod which are defferent from the ones in Haifa. The thing is that Haifa port is smaller end very nerrow and the terminal and the exit is right near the docking pier. I don't think that Ashdod port was on any security alert in the past year or more.

4. There are taxis at the pier that you can use. When you go on one insist on turning on the metter. The Price from the port to the centarl bus station (from personal experience) should be 50Nis that is arround 12-15$!

5. Only authorised vehical and taxi can enter the port. If you arrange a taxi driver which is not authorised he can easily arrange a permit. What need to be done is to fax the port authority at least a day in advance to the number 08-8517878 the details of the passengers, the cruise company and the ship company along with the driver ID and the vehicle license number and the permit will wait for him at the gate at your arrival day. He can check that the fax was received by calling directly to the permits department at 08-8517263. Of course it is easy to know that if your job is to take tourist from the port. In the cases discribed here I am sure the drivers were good one but not experienced one in that procedures.

5. The problems with getting off the ship is usually not a security problem, actually the passengers are not checked by the security. Usually the ship staff is trying to get the excursions out as fast as posible so they let first the excursion people to get off according to the busses numbers and the departure time (which is usually differnt to each group of busses according to the destination). I saw ships crew working so efficiency that 40 busses disappeared from the pier in 45min. On the other hand is saw some working so unefficiency that it took 15 busses at least 1.5hr to leave the pier. In both cases the independent passengers find them selves waiting to their turn to get off the ship...

All in all I think that any problem you might have can be solved easilly and don;t let anything to ruin your visit.

Just to make things clearer for Happy Trailer; there was no missunderstanding for me at Ashdod. There was one particular man asking for $400 to go to Jerusalem. It was not shekels, it was US dollars.

Make no mistake, someone in the Israeli tourist business needs to start MANAGING the taxi situation as following this experience we were then in an argument with a female taxi driver who wanted $150 dollars (not Shekels) to go fromn outside the port to Jerusalem. Another driver came up to us and acepted the $100 we knew to be a fair price.

The responses to this thread are very informative and interesting.

Some of which were posted long after our cruise in October.

Never the less, when we did go in October, the taxi driver we arranged to pick us up did not get the proper pass to enter the port. When we got off the ship, we searched in vain for him. There were lots of other drivers and it was difficult to determine whether he was there or not. After looking for him, we talked to another taxi driver and asked that driver to call our driver, using the taxi driver's cell phone (we had taken our driver's cell #). Consequently, we were able to contact our driver, hire the driver who helped us contact our driver to take us out side the port area to meet our driver. So all is well that ends well.

In the future, we would avoid making advance arrangements in this port. We will simply hire one of the taxi drivers there at the port.

Posting this at this time, to help others.

When we came back to the ship in the evening with our driver, once again the security folks would not let the driver takes back to the ship. We had to get a shuttle to the ship.

Drivers at the port have the clearance to get folks in and out.