Private tour Aqaba to Petra - or not ?

Our ship arrives at 7 am in Aqaba and leaves at 6 pm. We want to go to Petra. I don't have good experience with Middle East timing reliability - nothing to do with people, but with circumstances. On several tours in Israel, Egypt, Southern Turkey we have had delays due to : road blocks, accidents, bus breakdown, flash flood in desert, unexpected special and thorough checks by police/army due to terror warnings, etc. Luckiliy these were during land holidays.

Therefore my gut feeling says to go with ship tour as this is our last stop before 6 sea days to Dubai and no next port to catch ship again.

However, ship tours also have disadvantages : lots of waiting to load/unload busses, stragglers, lost passengers, not always very good tour guides and very superficial.

And by-the-way, we have done private tours during cruises as well and also had good experiences. So we are not overly anxious or panicky.

Therefore anyone that can give advice on the minimum/maximum time that private tours to Petra would need, reliability, experience, etc. ? How accesible is Petra ; i.e. practially all small roads thru mountains, mostly highway, etc. ?

Any information and advice is very much appreciated. By-the-way this would be in early November 2012.

Roads are very quiet & easy, all decent highway, somewhere under 2 hours each-way. You'll need a bare minimum 2 hours there, including the long walk down (& back up) the siq (ravine). Enthusiasts of ancient civilisations will say you need longer, they're probably right.

But your timetable is more than adequate.

Cost-wise, for two it's about the same by taxi as by cruise bus (we know, we've done it). For four of course it's cheaper, though check out the admission charge (included in ships' tours), it went up significantly about a year ago.

As long as you are ahead of ship's coaches, a roadblock, road closure etc aren't an issue, the ship will not leave a dozen coachloads of passengers behind - esp as it has 6 days to make-up lost time. And these are unlikely scenarios anyway.

The krunch is reliability. This is beautiful but desolate high desert, with no inhabitants & only occasional passing traffic. If your car has a breakdown another can't be whistled-up quickly. In fact I don't even know if a cellphone would get a signal - so you'd be reliant on an ingenious driver & helpful passers-by.

Stragglers don't tend to be a problem here on ships' tours - its effectively a simple transfer from Aqaba to Petra, no intermediate sights other than mebbe a comfort/photo stop. You'll have a guide for Petra, but if your group is too slow, you can leave that herd behind & latch onto another. Or do your own thing.

The vast majority of cruisers, even experienced travellers such as yourselves, take ship's tour.

I'd recommend you bite the bullet this time & do the same.

Just MHO

JB :)

I would use a ship tour. Too many things can go wrong when travel in foreign lands .

I have done Petra two times and did private tours. I actually had our ship book it for me. I would do a private tour. You will cover so much more on a private tour and will not be distracted. Petra is one of the most fascinating places I have ever been to around the world. The drive is about 90 minutes each way.

Just a suggestion. Rather than include lunch we just brought lunch from the ship. This saves about an hour. We had the lunch that we brought in the vehicle on the way back to the ship.

Keith

We also did a private tour to Petra from Aqaba and it was excellent. A dozen of us on the tour.

With whom did you arrange your private tour? i'm going to be there next March.

Hi we are going Red Sea Majic in November has anyone up to date info on D-I-Y tours to Petra :)

Is Petra doable at all for someone with mobility concerns? Marlene

Is Petra doable at all for someone with mobility concerns? Marlene

See this thread on the issue:

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1591672

Thanks

Hi Michidoeme,

Look the cruise lines are always trying to keep the travelers under the impression of missing the ship in case you booked private tours with local travel agencies. So, if you want to come back on time you have to book through the ship because the ship have a private roads in each country ha ha ha ha!. Look we had booked our tours in Egypt, Jordan ports with http://protoursegypt.com they are perfect. We visited Cairo and Pyramids from Alexandria Port, and Petra from Aqaba Port, private tours with private vehicles and brilliant guides. good luck

We also did a private tour to Petra from Aqaba and it was excellent. A dozen of us on the tour.

 

Therefore my gut feeling says to go with ship tour as this is our last stop before 6 sea days to Dubai and no next port to catch ship again.

However, ship tours also have disadvantages : lots of waiting to load/unload busses, stragglers, lost passengers, not always very good tour guides and very superficial.

We were just there on the Solstice a couple of months ago and we took the ship's tour for the very same reasons you are concerned about. BUT, if we had it to do over, we'd definitely book a private tour that included Wadi Rum. Friends did this and because they got an early start, they were at the ruins well before the first buses arrived. They had plenty of time and enjoyed the stop at Wadi Rum on the way back. The ship tours did not include both for obvious reasons (too many people loading/unloading of course). I wish I knew the name of the company for you but I'm sure you'll get recommendations on here.

By the way, someone asked about mobility problems.......I have knee problems and was very worried about the long walk in. Just took it very slow and because of this we weren't able to keep up with our group. No problem, there were guides and groups all the way down. We had plenty of time.

The ship tour included a nice lunch, but like someone else said, bring some snacks and use the time to see everything you can for this maybe once in a lifetime opportunity.

Roads are very quiet & easy, all decent highway, somewhere under 2 hours each-way. You'll need a bare minimum 2 hours there, including the long walk down (& back up) the siq (ravine). Enthusiasts of ancient civilisations will say you need longer, they're probably right.

But your timetable is more than adequate.

 

Cost-wise, for two it's about the same by taxi as by cruise bus (we know, we've done it). For four of course it's cheaper, though check out the admission charge (included in ships' tours), it went up significantly about a year ago.

 

As long as you are ahead of ship's coaches, a roadblock, road closure etc aren't an issue, the ship will not leave a dozen coachloads of passengers behind - esp as it has 6 days to make-up lost time. And these are unlikely scenarios anyway.

 

The krunch is reliability. This is beautiful but desolate high desert, with no inhabitants & only occasional passing traffic. If your car has a breakdown another can't be whistled-up quickly. In fact I don't even know if a cellphone would get a signal - so you'd be reliant on an ingenious driver & helpful passers-by.

 

Stragglers don't tend to be a problem here on ships' tours - its effectively a simple transfer from Aqaba to Petra, no intermediate sights other than mebbe a comfort/photo stop. You'll have a guide for Petra, but if your group is too slow, you can leave that herd behind & latch onto another. Or do your own thing.

The vast majority of cruisers, even experienced travellers such as yourselves, take ship's tour.

I'd recommend you bite the bullet this time & do the same.

 

Just MHO

 

JB :)

Hi

did you prearrange your taxi to Petra or negotiate with one waiting at the port? Could you recommend a taxi or company?

many thanks

James

Can you tell me who you used? Thanks.

Hi have a tour scheduled for next April with Best Shore Trips.

Website: http://bestshoretrips.com/aqaba-port.html

Email: bestshoretrip@gmail.com

Well reviewed on Trip Advisor and I have found my communications with the company to be very prompt and professional.

Joe

I see that a few folks asked about private tours to Petra. I just want to throw in the one we used in September 2015 while on board the Oceania Insignia, so that you'll have an additional option to consider.

We booked a private tour for 4 PAX to visit "Petra + Wadi Rum" with Petra Nights Tours: http://www.PetraNightsTours.com . You may also choose a shorter tour from them to just visit Petra.

The drive from port to Petra was 2 hours. (The van had air-con, WIFI, and the driver also gave us a cellphone to contact him during the day.) In Petra, a local guide accompanied the four of us into the archaeological site, the heat and humidity overcame most of the visitors on that day. After Petra, we had a buffet lunch outside the visitor's center, then drove 90-min to Wadi Rum where we changed to a jeep for a 90-min drive on the desert, then another 60-min on the van to drive back to the port. Our pickup time at the port was 6am, and then returned back to the port at 6:30pm. The tour company did a good job, I highly recommend it. However, be warned that the jeep used for our drive in the Wadi Rum did not have a working air-con, so we were hot, but the interesting conversation with the young Bedouin guide/driver more than made up for it.

We booked a private tour to Petra from Aqaba with Petra Nights Tours (http://www.petranightstours.com), we are impressed with their service & the tour is one of the best we had. The agent replied to our questions in timely manner. We were picked up by a comfortable & clean vehicle, drove straight to Petra, met our local guide, had lunch in a local restaurant then drove back to Aqaba. Tour went perfectly! Contact them for info they are responsive.