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Ancient Kingdoms cruise.


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Booked this cruise on-line a while back and have been checking the marella cruise excursions page,

A few days ago I had a look and noticed that the two port of calls in Egypt had been replaced by Kusadasi and Rhodes, 

So I went into our local tui shop and they confirmed that they were changing the port of calls even though they are still selling the 

cruise as going to egypt, we are booked on the 25th march cruise but she also told us that the december cruise has also been changed, 

just thought I would let people know although I hope it will change back unlikely as that would be,

We have had no info from marella but the lady in the shop said they would be sending e-mails out sometime, 

the disappointing thing for me is I booked the cruise for the egypt part and have already been to kusadasi and rhodes,

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

HI sorry you are affected too.

Yes i had e mail to say the egypt ports had been dropped and replaced by rhodes town and kusadasi.i too have already been to these 2 places so very disappointed .i was a bit puzzled why egypt was dropped as ive not heard much trouble there of late and its been replaced by turkey which is forefront of the news with syria .there must be some reason i expect . i was very disappointed that the only offer was £100 pound on board spend per person to compensate .not very good deal for all inclusive cruise in real terms  . if they had adjusted the balance would have made more sense. on top of that i had booked the 2 day full israel experience overnight staying in jerusalem hotel £250 pp excursion-jerusalem-bethlehem and dead sea included in tour.   i was told this was now reducing  to one day excursion only .the itinerary for that excursion couldn't possibly be done in one day but they didn't send new excursion details ,marella said there would be a partial refund on the excursion but couldn't tell me how much at present . it was at that point i cancelled the cruise  and excursion -as the 2 parts i was looking forward too had changed dramatically and no longer same cruise i had booked .real shame and not good customer service .400 pound deposit fully returned within 24 hours ,still waiting for excursion money to be refunded but im assured it will be in less than 7 days time 

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Just had my e-mail from tui and have been offered £100 each also,

we think we are going to carry on with the cruise because we have also booked a 7 night stay in Cyprus,

disappointed to miss out on Egypt and the excursions in Israel still not showing properly on marella site,

got a few weeks to go before we have to pay the balance so will be keeping our eye on it.  

 

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So sorry to read that your itinerary has changed. Very disappointing for you both as Egypt is an amazing destination. Even more disappointing that Marella have failed to keep you informed of the changes.

 

This has happened to us on many occasions over the years.  The most disappointing time was many years ago when we had booked to go to Syria with Thomson. There was no trouble in Syria at that time and many people were going to the country to visit the archaeological sites.  

Although we had booked this cruise several months in advance we weren't told that we would not be going to Syria until we checked in on the ship.  Thomson had known about the change for a long time but didn't bother to inform guests. 

The reason they gave at the time was they felt the immigration process was taking too long for a one day visit to the country. 

 

A few weeks later our friends had their visit to Israel cancelled because of trouble in Jerusalem. The port was changed at the last minute to believe it or not......Latakia in Syria. There were no problems with immigration.

Feel sad that we will never get to visit Syria now.

 

Ports may have to be cancelled for various reasons but if Marella know in advance that an itinerary will have to change they should have the courtesy to inform people as soon as possible. 

 

I do hope the people who have decided to continue with their cruise have an enjoyable holiday and the ones who have cancelled find another itinerary to suit them and that they have the chance to experience Egypt in the future. 

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  • 4 months later...

Just wanted to let everyone going on the 25th March that it is also very unlikely that the ship will be going to Israel. The Israeli government stated that anyone coming into the country would be placed in isolation for 14 days. The other worrying thing is are they just going to dock but not let anyone off the ship. I have just checked the TUI site and they are still selling this cruise showing that Israel is still on the itinerary.

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