Heading to the Suez Canal

As I was researching the Suez Canal experience from a cruise passenger’s perspective I found all kinds of conflicting information.
*One said the ship is locked down and goes dark, with no one allowed outside or on the open decks during the day or night. This person said all curtains had to be closed and no lights allowed at night and passengers were pretty much confined to their cabins. For several days, actually.
*One said they were forced to endure pirate drills where they were all required to huddle in the hallways.
*Another said the Canal is one way so it took forever for the Canal to open in their direction. And they had to time it so the ship could leave in the cover of night to stealthily avoid the pirates.
*Yet another one said cruise ships have heavily armed guards onboard with water cannons set up on the open decks in case of attack.

In most of the cases I read about, the time in the Suez Canal sounded like a dire and pretty scary experience. I’ve traveled enough to know both cruise passengers and the news media exaggerate and dramatize certain things around cruising. I took what I read with a grain of salt so I was very much looking forward to the transit on this ship to see it first-hand for myself.

Side note: I do have two trusted sources I rely on when it comes to cruising. They aren’t just random people on the Internet and their information is highly accurate, engaging, and entertaining. Yellow Fish Cruises and Vickie and Bernie Travel blog live from their cruises. Each of them have a ton of cruising experience, and thus have a ton of information - with plenty of photos - on their blogs. And guess what? They are both right now on different ships in different parts of the world, blogging live as we speak. Be sure to check them out! Unfortunately neither has been through the Suez Canal so I had to look elsewhere for information this time around. (Thanks a lot ladies, leaving me alone to sort through the crappy information on the Internet. Just kidding. Sort of.)

After our first scheduled day of the Suez Canal transit I can report…
It was pretty much like a regular sea day. We had t-shirt sales and trivia and fruit and vegetable carving and Pub Lunch and music out at the pool and the don’t-hog-the-loungers notification and evening shows. E and I had our 6 AM breakfast (3 days in a row!) and while we missed the moment the sun rose over the horizon, we were walking the Promenade Deck in time to still get a nice view.

I spent time swimming and sunning, and we both spent time napping.

An adult beverage by the pool on a warm day as we head towards the Suez Canal?
Doesn’t get much better than this.

The only noticeable difference in the ship’s activities was by evening we had arrived in our staging area where we would wait for other ships to gather in preparation for our transit. We will be in the southbound convoy of ships beginning tomorrow at around 4 AM. With sunrise not long after 6, it doesn’t sound like cover of night to me.

We’re not the only one waiting for early morning.

Ever see a sunset over Africa? You have now.

Pirate drill with passengers huddled in hallways? Not yet, but I did hear there may be one after the Suez Canal as we will be entering some more potentially dangerous waters.
Relegated to our cabins? Not so far.
Lights off everywhere around the ship? Not yet.

Excited to see what tomorrow brings!

Rhodes, Greece

For the second day in a row, both E and I made it to breakfast before 6 AM. Yay, us! Also for the second day in a row, we took a little rest before I had to go out to my excursion. Since we had calm seas last night, he and I both were ready to explore Greece on our island tour. It wasn’t a great tour as it had extra shopping stops that weren’t in the description - they were ones the guide thought we should make. It extended our tour from a three and a half hour tour to a five hour tour. All because of extra shopping. Ugh. Plus she talked every single moment of the tour in her high-pitched voice. I so couldn’t wait for the tour to be over. But I did get some nice photos, both in the pouring rain (where we started the day) and in the sunshine (where we ended our day). 

When it was finally over I made a beeline for the quiet cabin to kick off my shoes and put on my slippers. While we stopped on the tour for a provided snack (a cookie), it was now over 9 hours since breakfast so I ordered room service (note to self: the cheese quesadilla on the kids menu on the Sapphire uses American cheese so don’t order it again) while I worked on the blog. 

Not much commentary tonight as my head is rattling from another day spent on a bumpy bus ride while having to listen to a screeching voice. So I’ll just leave you with the beautiful island of Rhodes, Greece.

Tour buses lined up on the dock and waiting for cruise ship passengers.

So rainy today.

The walled city.

The Sapphire Princess is out there somewhere.

The mountains of Turkey can be seen in the distance.

Even with the rain the ocean is gorgeous.

 

Finally, the sun!

Finally home.

We have some sea days coming up, thank goodness. The first two will be involving the Suez Canal. It’s a big reason we are on this trip so I’m interested to see what tomorrow holds.