14 April 2015; Haifa, Israel.

With calm seas and a rising sun in a cloudless sky the Prinsendam sailed into Haifa. Ahead of us was the Seabourn Sojourn who had left last night before us. The Thomson Spirit had a change of plan so instead of going with us to Haifa they stayed the night in Ashdod. I assume it was for the evening tours as going out in the evening by one’s self is quite a costly affair in Israel. Today our Roving Reporter had to pay close to 4 Euro’s for a ………….very small……………. Ice cream. I wonder how much a glass of beer costs.

Again Haifa is the focus for more tours and again the ship emptied out and all work on board could be done by a skeleton crew. So the Lido operated with only one side open, the dining room was closed for lunch and for the rest not much happened anywhere. The dock at Haifa is easier to negotiate than in Ashdod. There our guests had to take a shuttle bus to the nearest shopping mall and go from there. In Haifa you can just walk out of the gate (Read: cruise terminal under construction) and most of the town is walkable. Also the train station is right across from the terminal and it is 15 minutes by train to Tel Aviv. Plenty of easy to do options.

Baha’i Hanging Gardens. The bow of the Prinsendam can just be seen in the top right hand side.

For the avid walker you can do most of the sights by foot but you have to be agile as Haifa is constructed against a hill and it goes up quite steeply. Against that hill are the Baha’i Hanging Gardens are located which form a major attraction for the locals and for the tourists. Thus nearly every tour stops or passes by there for a good look and photo shoot.

All seats in a row and no trace of partitions. Going to the loo in Roman Days must have been a social affair.

Today the tour of our roving reporter went to Caesarea. Once the Capital when the area was under Roman control. This was around 0 AD or 0 BC. Most of it was constructed during the period of Herod the Great who dedicated the city to Caesar Augustus. Thus the area is littered with ruins and some of them have been rebuilt a little bit. This includes the theatre which is used for performances and Herod’s palace where the Royal Toilets are on prominent display.  For those who have little or not enough imagination the visitors center offers a multimedia presentation and a chance to do a Q & A with virtual figures from the past. So you could ask (push button) a standard question and a hologram figure will answer the question. Unfortunately Lesley could not ask how many people went to the Royal Toilet at the same time. There was no standard question covering that one.

Apart from the half day local tours in Ashdod, Caesarea and the day long tours to Jerusalem & Bethlehem there was also the option of overnight tours. Being in the same country and the two ports being very closely together gave the option to do a two day tour to Petra and to Masada.  Both are located in the far south of Israel (Petra is just over the border in Jordan) but the country is not so big that it causes difficulty to get there by Bus. Those tours left in the early morning yesterday and came back today late afternoon.

Tomorrow there is a sea day and then we start exploring Turkey. First port is Antalya followed by Bodrum, followed by Kusidasi, followed by Istanbul. In the latter port we stay two days as it is a partial change over port where some or our guests, who only booked a segment of the cruise, will leave or join. From there the ship will then start its last leg of this Grand Mediterranean Voyage visiting Greece and Italy. This year the cruise ends in Civittavecchia (for Rome) but next year it is a complete loop cruise again beginning and ending in Ft. Lauderdale.

According to the Weather Guru’s we are supposed to keep this calm and sunny weather for a few days and if the wind does not turn to the North, then it might get steadily warmer.

I will be throwing one of my specials at the ship tomorrow; An engine fire drill in which we simulate that the whole ship loses power………………. what to do about it and how to deal with it.