Cairo Cruise

[Peek-a-boo]

We are on the Aug 12, 2011 sailing, Istanbul - Athens. Regent has just informed us that they have made the decision to by-pass Egypt and have substituted Crete and Patmos. We understand the reason, but are not excited about the substitutions. I called and was told that we will forfeit the $200. admin fee if we cancel. Any suggestions?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Are you not thrilled because you had your heart set on Egypt, or because you don't see Crete and/or Patmos as interesting destinations?

 

My suggestion is to move your cruise to another one. That way you don't lose the $200.

[Peek-a-boo]

Are you not thrilled because you had your heart set on Egypt, or because you don't see Crete and/or Patmos as interesting destinations?

 

My suggestion is to move your cruise to another one. That way you don't lose the $200.

We are not thrilled because we did a Greek Island Cruise last year.

Of course, my sons were really looking forward to seeing the Pyramids, and that is why we booked this cruise

in the first place. We also have time restraints as this is a family trip.

[ridolphi]

Well if you cancel, they will charge you a $100 pp admin fee. But, you would then have a year to apply that fee to another cruise, so you would have time to figure out the when and where and then they apply that fee as a cruise credit off the fare.

 

We are on the June 17 cruise and the same thing has happened, although they are still doing Isreal, and we had been informed some time ago about the possible itinerary change and decided that we could live with a change if it happened, so are sticking with the cruise, although we are extremely disappointed at not seeing the Pyramids - second time for us as we were also on the Oct 3 2010 cruise that was cancelled in Athens due to pod issues that couldn't be resolved.

 

Sooooo...... guess we are going to have to find another one at some point to do Egypt.

 

Good luck, hope it all works out for you.

[ogie58]

We are scheduled on the 14 day Oct 10th cruise from Athens to Rome.

Yesterday we were informed that due to unrest in the middle East that we would not be stopping at ports in Cyprus, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Alexandria. In fact we will not be stopping at 9 of the originally scheduled ports. I would hope that Regent would not hold us to their adminstaive fee when nearly the entire itinerary of a cruise is changed. We are not sure of other Regent cruises or options with other lines we will pursue, but I would be very concerned with any cruise scheduled for middle East ports.

[ridolphi]

Very interesting, as we are still scheduled for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem ports. They only eliminated Alexandria and Cairo. And, as I said, they sent out a potential itinerary change notice aways back, so we weren't unprepared. Strange that they would cancel all those ports this far out from your cruise.

[Peek-a-boo]

We are scheduled on the 14 day Oct 10th cruise from Athens to Rome.

Yesterday we were informed that due to unrest in the middle East that we would not be stopping at ports in Cyprus, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Alexandria. In fact we will not be stopping at 9 of the originally scheduled ports. I would hope that Regent would not hold us to their adminstaive fee when nearly the entire itinerary of a cruise is changed. We are not sure of other Regent cruises or options with other lines we will pursue, but I would be very concerned with any cruise scheduled for middle East ports.

 

That is odd, we stop at the same ports on our Aug 12 sailing, but they have only dropped Cairo and Alexandria.

Do you think that Cyprus, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem will be the next to go?

[Wendy The Wanderer]

Wow, Israel too, eh? That's quite a big change. Did they give you a new itinerary?

[ogie58]

They gave us an entire new itinerary which is now on their website. I am surprised that they would continue to run any cruises into those ports when they made such drastic changes in the Oct 10th itinerary

[cruisealert]

Well if you cancel, they will charge you a $100 pp admin fee. But, you would then have a year to apply that fee to another cruise, so you would have time to figure out the when and where and then they apply that fee as a cruise credit off the fare.

 

We are on the June 17 cruise and the same thing has happened, although they are still doing Isreal, and we had been informed some time ago about the possible itinerary change and decided that we could live with a change if it happened, so are sticking with the cruise, although we are extremely disappointed at not seeing the Pyramids - second time for us as we were also on the Oct 3 2010 cruise that was cancelled in Athens due to pod issues that couldn't be resolved.

 

Sooooo...... guess we are going to have to find another one at some point to do Egypt.

 

Good luck, hope it all works out for you.

We are also on that cruise and excited about extra day in Jerusalem. We are not upset about missing Egypt. Now I am trying to book new excursions, but not available yet.If they cancel 4 nights in Israel we will opt out.

[ridolphi]

cruisealert - I hope we can meet up onboard at some point. We didn't really change any of our excursions and Regent did reschedule to coincide with the appropriate dates. I want to switch our Tel Aviv excursions, but as of today I have been told I have to do it onboard. We will see, but so far everything else is fine. Actually I don't see anything I want to do for the second day in Haifa, but my husband might, he deals with those long 10-12 hour tours much better than I do. I'm thinking spa :D sounds good to me. LOL.

[beachdaddy]

We were finally notified of changes in ports.. don't know what method they use though it seems to be slow getting from one person to next ... But were able to book new excursions online yesterday (Sunday the 10th). Certainly not what we had hoped for but booked way in advance around work schedules ... Am sure it will be a wonderful cruise at any rate!

[lkbside]

Wow, ogie58, that is a big itinerary change. I wonder if they eliminated Israel more for the logic of geographically streamlining the itinerary by not going all the way over to Israel rather than for concern about the ports there?

[Responder]

The latest update I could find for Egypt....

 

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5347.html

[Responder]

Some current news about Egypt..

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/tourists-stay-home-after-egypts-revolution-in-blow-to-nations-economy/2011/04/14/AF0Cc3qD_story.html?hpid=z3