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Port of Aqaba


texanaust
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on my spreadsheet under my sig, there is a lot of stuff I copied from other sites..

YOU CAN'T WALK IN THE PORT AREA AND HAVE TO BE SHUTTLED BY SHIP SHUTTLE TO A CAR PARK IN TOWN

THE MAIN REASON TO VISIT IS TO GO TO PETRA OR THE DEAD SEA.....

EVERYTHING WORKS ON SIESTA TIMES....

EVERYTHING SHUTS AT 3PM AND REOPENS AT 6 PM

Cruise ships dock at a commercial pier south of the city.

Shuttles are usually provided into town for those not on a tour to Petra or Wadi Rum.

The shuttle may drop off beside the Moevenpick resort at a bus terminal north of the city center.

This seaside city has a small beach and lots of markets. The only sights in town are a museum and fort. Boats by the water offer glass bottom tours. Better beaches and resorts can be found in the South Beach area.

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on my spreadsheet under my sig, there is a lot of stuff I copied from other sites..

YOU CAN'T WALK IN THE PORT AREA AND HAVE TO BE SHUTTLED BY SHIP SHUTTLE TO A CAR PARK IN TOWN

THE MAIN REASON TO VISIT IS TO GO TO PETRA OR THE DEAD SEA.....

EVERYTHING WORKS ON SIESTA TIMES....

EVERYTHING SHUTS AT 3PM AND REOPENS AT 6 PM

Cruise ships dock at a commercial pier south of the city.

Shuttles are usually provided into town for those not on a tour to Petra or Wadi Rum.

The shuttle may drop off beside the Moevenpick resort at a bus terminal north of the city center.

This seaside city has a small beach and lots of markets. The only sights in town are a museum and fort. Boats by the water offer glass bottom tours. Better beaches and resorts can be found in the South Beach area.

 

 

Thank you for the info. We are going scuba diving and have done Petra before, so we just need to get to the dive shop in the city center.

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Not Celebrity, but ..................

 

Not allowed to walk within or enter / leave the port on foot.

 

We had a free shuttle between ship & town centre (not far from Movenpick) - don't know if provided by ship or port but what the hell, it was free. Mainly used by the crew to do a bit of shopping. We used it to get back to the port from an independent taxi tour taken on-the=fly.

 

Since you've been before you don't need me to tell you that the town is a bit grubby (not unsafe) and has virtually nothing to offer - those who went into town were back within about an hour.

 

JB :)

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  • 9 months later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I didn’t feel unsafe in town at all in 2016 - wouldn’t walk around by myself, but with just DH and I no problems. You must take the shuttle into and out of the port area.

 

We had an overnight in Aqaba and saw Petra one day, Wadi Rum the next. After the tour both days we stayed in town and took the shuttle back to the ship. We walked around much of the town exploring and, yeah, like many towns, it was a little grubby, but not that bad. Shopped some, had some beers, ate at a couple of restaurants, stopped by a pharmacy where the person working sold us some great meds for a cough.

 

 

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Very tight time for this tour - it’s at least a two hour journey each way, which would leave only 2 hours to get to Petra. If you used a horse and carriage to get through the Siq both ways it’s just about possible, but you would get very little time to explore once there.

 

 

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  • 7 months later...
  • 1 month later...

We had considered Eilat from Aqaba - it's ridiculously close, you can watch the Eilat traffic from the ship.

 

But there are issues. :classic_sad:

We had a taxi-driver round-off our Petra trip by taking us to see the border crossing, but unless things have changed in the past few years an Aqaba taxi-driver can't take you across the border. You have to walk across and hope there's transportation on the Israeli side - if there isn't, it looks to be about a 45 minute walk from the border crossing to civilisation (urban area, bus stops etc).  Same problem returning.

 

There's also the matter of an Israeli stamp in your passport, which might bring issues later if at some point you visit an Arab country (when we ported at Haifa and Ashdod on a different cruise we were given an Israeli- stamped sheet rather than a stamp in our passports for that reason, but I don't know whether the same applies at the Aqaba/Eilat land crossing). 

 

The ship will probably hold your passport ahead of Aqaba (that avoids long slow lines for passports to be checked on arrival), but if you explain that you need it the ship will almost-certainly release it to you on arrival, with your promise to hand it back in when you return to the ship. 

 

I have little doubt you can fix something up in advance (sorry, can't help cos we didn't bother), but I certainly wouldn't recommend it on-the-fly.

 

JB :classic_smile:

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