I had a phone call and email yesterday from our Thomson shop. They received a letter (which is a disadavantage of booking with the shop - we normally book online). I am so disappointed it has changed. And if you go on their website, you will see the day at sea is now near the end of the week.

Sorry about posting in text style.
They have changed where we are going now?? How can they not comply with it? Oh no so disappointed that was one of the places we were really looking forward to going!! Rar!
x

Had a gander at the website. Yes they have changed it! All in all, at least its the itinery that has changed and not cancelled the holiday or anything. I havent ever been to Turkey, so its ok for me. Dissapointing for others I guess. As a holiday is what you make it, Im still looking forward to it. Only 3 weeks to go. Anyone else here flying from London Stansted? x Just got our letter from Thomson re Change. x

Yeh it is what you make it, but there was quite a few things we wanted to see in Syria- nevermind i will have to have a look on the website today and update my mum! I'm sure we will still have a great time anyway. No we are flying from Manchester, i know i'm on count down

I'm disappointed, but I am still very much looking forward to our holiday! I love the whole cruising thing. It just spoils you for other holidays. Will put up with Turkey but at least it is a different port.

3 weeks from now we will be on our way! We fly from Luton at 10:40.

Our flight would have landed! 0805 from Stansted! Better be GOOD weather as I soooooo need it. X

Hi there. Returned from this trip last night. We did not know of the changes until we were on board and were more than happy . We had a great day in Alanya where is was an easy walk off the ship. The other change was a day in Haifa, which we found to be a really great city. This was our first cruise in this area and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

Great, sounds good. Glad you enjoyed it.

paulinewales

If you haven't done so already, it would be appreciate if you could post a brief review of the ship here:-

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/cruise-reviews/

luci

Very excited now, we booked this cruise literally on Thursday evening very last minute - our first cruise and it's opened up a whole new world of preparing for a holiday I've never had to deal with before! When we booked the itinerary had obviously already changed because we never even knew it was meant to go to Syria! Egypt and Israel are our main interests so Turkey might just be a chance for a little bit of shopping in the town or maybe we will just stay on the boat for that day and try and catch some extra rays before going home! Another one here hoping the weather is going to be nice, I have looked at the current weather on my iPhone for Ashdod, Alexandria etc and Ashdod is meant to be in high 20s and the rest mid 20s this week so fingers crossed for two weeks time it'll be nice and warm!!

Racegirl - we are also flying out from Stansted at 8.05 on the 31st!! We were meant to be going from Luton but going from Stansted actually worked out cheaper, and Gatwick cheaper still but it's worth the extra money to go from a local airport.

Because we booked so late and there's three of us (me, partner and 13 yr old daughter) we ended up having to have a suite rather than a normal cabin as they can sleep 3 - brought the price up some what but I hope that the suite will be nice, worried though as it says on a website somewhere being at the front and top (where the suites are) don't help with sea sickness which we don't know if we suffer from having never been on a cruise before, but now I'm panic buying sea bands and travel sickness tablets!!

We haven't had our tickets yet, they are being delivered to the travel agents, apparently they usually arrive about 2 weeks before departure, hope this is true!

ETA: Something else that just occurred to me - the travel agents gave us all sorts of sheets about visa entry to the countries we are stopping at and on each one it has a list of recommended vaccinations for each country - worried now though as there's no way we have time to get these vaccs and have them active by the time we go, most are normal like polio, tetanus etc, but there's Hepatitis A which none of us have. They say recommended, and not required (required field is blank) but I'm worried now - the travel agent didn't mention them at all - will we be ok??

You could try and get the jabs now, I had mine for Mexico, but you should be ok. We just have an inside cabin on deck 1, but its just two of us, and I dont intend spending my hols in there. Its our first cruise too, but my inlaws have done a few and they love it. We chose Stansted as we go Gatwick all the time, so its a change. I dont know about the visa thing but we booked online and got our tickets really quick, its a thick booklet that tells you everything. You need 1 US adapter plug and 1 European for some reason for the room. Only going for a week but glad of the 23kg allowance! LOL! Hope to see you in the queue for checkin! x

Hi PrideRavyn and welcome to HT!

I would recommend that you get the required vaccinations. There are no compulsory vaccinations for any country in the world, not even Africa, they are only recommended.

A member recently contracted Hep A and didn't have the vaccinations. SEE HERE

You may not be covered by your travel insurance if you contract a disease you could have been inoculated against.

luci

luci HT Mod wrote:

Hi PrideRavyn and welcome to HT!

I would recommend that you get the required vaccinations. There are no compulsory vaccinations for any country in the world, not even Africa, they are only recommended.

A member recently contracted Hep A and didn't have the vaccinations. SEE HERE

You may not be covered by your travel insurance if you contract a disease you could have been inoculated against.

luci :wave

Yellow fever if you want to go to some places AFTER being in a risk area.

We have had our tickets, went to get them today. So excited now, just over a week before we are sat on the plane to go. I've been checking the weather, apparently last year it was in the 30's, so hoping it will be like that once we get there.
I've got some travel bands from boot's, bit pricey but may be worth it as i am no good on a boat. But, from what i have heard you don't even know it's moving apart from a night time (this is from people who i have asked who have been on a cruise before), so im hoping this is true!!
Can't wait to see the sights. We haven't had any visa form's, may have them once we get on the boat!!
Hope to see u all in just over a week! Yay, bring on the sunshine x
p.s- i had my injections last tuesday, and the nurse who did the injection's said that you would only be likely to catch anything due to bad sanitation, and with us all being on a boat and not staying in any of the countries over night and for long periods of time, you should be okay! But, i still had mine just incase- she mentioned to make sure to use mozzie spray to stop being bitten. It takes two weeks for the injections to get into your system, so it might be worth getting them done anyway just incase!

Fantastic time was had, it was brilliant!!!!! We are already thinking of booking our next one on the same ship for this summer!! The staff were wonderful, made many friends and still keeping in touch with them. The trips were fantastic, apart from Jersulam was abit manic, and had abit of an awful guide. How did everyone else's holidays go??