Got home early hours Tuesday morning after spending a fantastic week on board Thomson Celebration Cruise ship. You could not fault anything. Cabins were cleaned 3 times a day, choccies left on your pillow at night( the kids liked them when we brought them home), food on tap 24 hours a day and lovely it was too. Crew on board could not do enough for you and the entertainment team were very good. As I said it was meant to be a cruise to Egypt and the Holyland, sadly the Egypt part was cancelled and we docked in Rhodes instead, which I might add was very lovely. We got off ship and spent the morning wandering round the Old Town....very pretty. Wednesday we were at sea all day and I got sunburnt....ouch! It hurt! It was soooo hot you couldn't sit in it for long, so we would sit along the side decks as they were more shaded. Thursday we docked in Ashdod Israel and went on an all day excursion to Jerusalem, beautiful place to visit so clean.
Andy standing at Mount of Olives and looking over Jerusalem. We also visited the Western Wall and placed prayers in the wall itself.
The wall itself was not very wide but very tall, a serene place to visit. Next we went to Bethlehem, which is divided from Jerusalem by the wall of Palestine.
It has check points and boarder guards too. Bethlehem we visited the old town and the church of The Nativity.
Doesn't look much from the outside but is stunningly beautiful inside, the photo was taken from Manger Square.
Saturday we visited Larnaca Cyprus, very hot and we stayed for a couple of hours in the morning because by lunch time it was far too hot to be walking about, the sweat just dripped off you.
Sunday our next port of call was Alanya Turkey were it is said the castle in the port was a gift from Mark Anthony to Cleopatra. The view was again stunning. We had an excursion to Side and saw the temple of Apollo and it was then onto the waterfall of Manavgat.
Monday we docked back in Marmaris Turkey were we left the ship at 12noon to get our flight home. We had a jam packed week where we travelled over 1000 nautical miles and visited 4 different countries, took over 400 photos and have some lovely memories. Just wish we had booked for two weeks not one, I can see now why people get hooked on cruises. Ok so we didn't get to do the Nile cruise we originally booked(maybe next year !), but we are so glad we did this cruise.
Well I think I've let you all into a sneak peek of our holiday, just to say if you want holiday ideas try Thomson Cruises, they know how to do it.
Janina xx
