Oosterdam June 11 sailing, Ashdod, Haifa tours?

[CruiseLover832]

Hi, Our family of 3 are excited to have this rare opportunity to visit Ashdod and Haifa. I wonder if anyone has recommendations at these stops - tours, transportation and must-sees. Also, Restaurants to visit. 

Thanks in advance.

[CruiserBruce]

Rare stops, so there isn't a lot of info out there. This cruise is on our target list for the next summer or two. Have you looked at the Middle East board:

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/forum/19-africa-amp-middle-east/

 

Your Roll call:

 

 

[cruisemom42]

I was lucky enough to do this tour with HAL a few years before COVID. We had one night in Haifa and one night in Ashdod. Sometimes if there is ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the ship will avoid Ashdod and may spend 2 nights in Haifa instead (less in the path of any stray rockets....lol).

 

Ashdod is the closest to Jerusalem, so most would recommend tours to Jerusalem (there is much to see there) or possibly Jerusalem + Bethlehem from Ashdod. A secondary (but far less interesting) destination from Ashdod would be Tel Aviv.  Some people try to do Jerusalem + the Dead Sea or Masada, but IMO that is too much for a single day and you really end up short-changing yourself in Jerusalem.

 

Haifa is a pleasant port from which many tours will head to the Galilee region. Such tours might include Nazareth, the Jordan river, Cana, etc.  Other options include Caesarea, a beautiful set of ruins right on the shore of the Mediterranean with very Roman influences (built by Herod the Great but a lot of the construction was done by Roman army units). There is an aqueduct on the beach there that is beautiful to see....  You could combine Akko (ancient Acre) with Caesarea if you like history; Acre of course is very associated with the crusaders and Knights Templar. Especially interesting if you get a private guide who will walk you through the underground tunnels there...

 

As to tours, when I did the cruise HAL offered an overland tour that left the ship in Haifa and did not return until the end of the day in Ashdod, spending one night ashore in a hotel. This tour (for a solo, me) was astronomically expensive -- as expensive as the entire cruise!  So I started looking at private tour options.

 

I located an excellent private guide who provided me with a full day tour by myself on Day 1 (Haifa) based on my own interests. Returned to ship at end of day. Then a full-day private tour for myself and one other couple in Jerusalem for the full day. It was less than half of the ship tour for a thoroughly personalized experience, one of the best tours and guides I've ever had. I was okay focusing only on a few places with Roman history (my passion) because I was already planning a return to Israel via land and knew I'd have time to visit many more places then.

 

Another tour option if you do not want to go the small-group route is Guided Tours Israel. They are extremely practiced at working with cruisers on shore excursions. They offer several "set" itineraries based on your interests (e.g., Christian sites, Jewish heritage, etc.) and their tours are in large vans of somewhere between 12 and 20, I believe. They are consistently rated highly in reviews I've read here. I just wanted something more specialized/personal than they offered.

 

One more point -- there is a lot of ground to cover. With my private tour I was glad on the second day to only tour Jerusalem. We were back at the ship in good time without rushing. But as we were leaving Jerusalem at around 3pm, the HAL tour buses from that expensive overland tour were just arriving!  Of course, they ended up being late returning to the ship -- by several hours. 😲  There was quite a bit of grumbling later from those who took that tour about the overly ambitious itinerary and being rushed off their feet.

 

 

[Larainerenee]

8 hours ago, cruisemom42 said:

I was lucky enough to do this tour with HAL a few years before COVID. We had one night in Haifa and one night in Ashdod. Sometimes if there is ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, the ship will avoid Ashdod and may spend 2 nights in Haifa instead (less in the path of any stray rockets....lol).

 

Ashdod is the closest to Jerusalem, so most would recommend tours to Jerusalem (there is much to see there) or possibly Jerusalem + Bethlehem from Ashdod. A secondary (but far less interesting) destination from Ashdod would be Tel Aviv.  Some people try to do Jerusalem + the Dead Sea or Masada, but IMO that is too much for a single day and you really end up short-changing yourself in Jerusalem.

 

Haifa is a pleasant port from which many tours will head to the Galilee region. Such tours might include Nazareth, the Jordan river, Cana, etc.  Other options include Caesarea, a beautiful set of ruins right on the shore of the Mediterranean with very Roman influences (built by Herod the Great but a lot of the construction was done by Roman army units). There is an aqueduct on the beach there that is beautiful to see....  You could combine Akko (ancient Acre) with Caesarea if you like history; Acre of course is very associated with the crusaders and Knights Templar. Especially interesting if you get a private guide who will walk you through the underground tunnels there...

 

As to tours, when I did the cruise HAL offered an overland tour that left the ship in Haifa and did not return until the end of the day in Ashdod, spending one night ashore in a hotel. This tour (for a solo, me) was astronomically expensive -- as expensive as the entire cruise!  So I started looking at private tour options.

 

I located an excellent private guide who provided me with a full day tour by myself on Day 1 (Haifa) based on my own interests. Returned to ship at end of day. Then a full-day private tour for myself and one other couple in Jerusalem for the full day. It was less than half of the ship tour for a thoroughly personalized experience, one of the best tours and guides I've ever had. I was okay focusing only on a few places with Roman history (my passion) because I was already planning a return to Israel via land and knew I'd have time to visit many more places then.

 

Another tour option if you do not want to go the small-group route is Guided Tours Israel. They are extremely practiced at working with cruisers on shore excursions. They offer several "set" itineraries based on your interests (e.g., Christian sites, Jewish heritage, etc.) and their tours are in large vans of somewhere between 12 and 20, I believe. They are consistently rated highly in reviews I've read here. I just wanted something more specialized/personal than they offered.

 

One more point -- there is a lot of ground to cover. With my private tour I was glad on the second day to only tour Jerusalem. We were back at the ship in good time without rushing. But as we were leaving Jerusalem at around 3pm, the HAL tour buses from that expensive overland tour were just arriving!  Of course, they ended up being late returning to the ship -- by several hours. 😲  There was quite a bit of grumbling later from those who took that tour about the overly ambitious itinerary and being rushed off their feet.

 

 

That was great info! Can you share the name of the guide who you used?

thanks

[Pushka]

We have booked Guided Tours Israel for our Haifa overnight in May. Day 1 we are going to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Day 2, Nazareth and Sea of Galilee. Obviously we haven't taken the tours yet but the communications have been very responsive. 

[cruisemom42]

On 2/14/2023 at 6:24 PM, Larainerenee said:

That was great info! Can you share the name of the guide who you used?

thanks

 

Sorry, it took me a little while to find this relocated thread....

 

I worked with well established guide Moti Bar-Tuv (sometimes spelled Bar-Tov if looking at reviews), who has an agency:  https://travel-israel.info/about-us/moti-bar-tuv

 

He worked with me to find a guide that met my specifications. Unfortunately I am not sure whether this particular guide, who was a specialist in Roman archaeology in Israel, is still working. However, a couple of years later my sister and BIL also worked with Moti to put together a small group tour with less specific goals, and they were also quite happy. 

[Markanddonna]

I've been to Israel via cruise ship twice now in the last few years, most recently this past November. Are these port stops, or will you be ending or starting in Haifa?  We did it both ways.

 

If this is your first time, try to find a private excursion that is NOT with the ship. Israel is so important, and it is so sad to see 50+ overwhelmed passengers following a tour guide down the via Delarosa (which isn't really the street Jesus even walked on.) 

 

We used Guided Tours Israel for our first trip on all three days and were very pleased. All four trips described were excursions I arranged and offered to other passengers.  It was easy to fill up vans.

First day: Jerusalem and Bethlehem, second day a Christian Tour of the Galilee and Nazareth, and the third was a customized tour of Acre, Caesarea Maritima, B'hai Gardens, and the aqueducts. 

 

I did a ton of research for the second trip, a 12 day cruise from Rome to Haifa. We used Guided Tours Israel again for a trip to Masada and the Dead Sea from Ashdod. When we disembarked in Haifa, we went directly to Jerusalem and stayed in an apartment in western Jerusalem for a week. We did our own tours from there using a combination of walking, taxis, and a two-day overnight tour to the Golan Heights where we stayed at a kibbutz.

 

I'm not saying it is easy to tour Israel on your own, but it made the time so much more interesting, and we got to experience more of the culture. Experiencing the challenges of Shabbat for the first time was memorable. It was like a ghost town once sunset on Friday arrived with no trains, buses, taxis, restaurants, stores open, etc. Glad we knew to plan for this!

 

I am currently in the last stages of writing a travel book on how to tour the Holy Land by cruise ship. We got to visit Rome, Cyprus, Athens, Corinth, Malta, Ephesus, Istanbul, Rhodes, Patmos, and some other ports that were fabulous like Naples, Florence, Santorini. 

 

One thing I would try to avoid is that inauthentic baptismal site called Yardenit. 

Edited February 17, 2023 by Markanddonna

[Pushka]

13 hours ago, Markanddonna said:

I've been to Israel via cruise ship twice now in the last few years, most recently this past November. Are these port stops, or will you be ending or starting in Haifa?  We did it both ways.

 

If this is your first time, try to find a private excursion that is NOT with the ship. Israel is so important, and it is so sad to see 50+ overwhelmed passengers following a tour guide down the via Delarosa (which isn't really the street Jesus even walked on.) 

 

We used Guided Tours Israel for our first trip on all three days and were very pleased. All four trips described were excursions I arranged and offered to other passengers.  It was easy to fill up vans.

First day: Jerusalem and Bethlehem, second day a Christian Tour of the Galilee and Nazareth, and the third was a customized tour of Acre, Caesarea Maritima, B'hai Gardens, and the aqueducts. 

It is good to hear you were happy with Guided Tours Israel and those particular two tours. We are doing exactly the same in May. 

[Markanddonna]

Are you doing the Galilee tour privately or with a larger excursion (15) with GTI to the Galilee.  If private, really ask the company to not visit Yardenit. The authentic site is Bethany at the Jordan, which was made unsafe during the wars in the 1960s and 1970s. It is now being restored by Jordan. Yardenit is a commercial enterprise and owned by a Jewish kibbutz. It was created as a tourist site but that is not where Jesus was baptized or where John the Baptist baptized.