Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
October 29, 2022
Today we arrived in Port about 8 am. Immigration authorities kept changing their minds on what to do. We left the ship after 9 am and were in line for security check. No binoculars allowed. A passenger next to me said to me “what’s the difference, a telephoto camera lens or binoculars? When it was his turn, “no telephoto lens on cameras allowed”, said the officer.
Most of the folks had a HAL tour and boarded busses. I think most of us were going to the same place but paid different prices. Out tour was one quarter the price of the HAL Tour.
Today is snorkeling in the Ras Mohammed National Park and a stop to White Island.
Pickup for us was outside the Port gates. We walked there and had a bit of trouble finding our bus. When we found our driver, we sat and waited for an additional 4 passengers. 4 folks who looked completely lost finally boarded the bus. We weren’t in the bus for 5 minutes when a woman asked if she could be brought back to the ship at 1 pm. This was an all day tour, all aboard was 4:30. Good thing our driver understood little English. The other 4 passengers were quite concerned that the tour was not going to be able to drop them back at the ship in time to get on before departure. I was starting to question why they even chose the tour.
When we got on the boat the crew introduced themselves. Each crew member had the same name. Mohammad. Easy to remember.
An hour or so out we stopped for our first snorkeling experience on this tour. There must have been 40 other boats with 40 or so passengers each tied off here. It was obvious that the boats were here every day and many boats tied off to each other.
The snorkeling provided views of some great coral reefs. The downside was the numerous people out doing the same thing.
The pictures are not necessarily in chronological order. You will see a picture of the young chic I married almost 20 yrs ago. Some photos of the coral reef. White Island is nothing but a sand bar in the middle of the ocean. One of the Mohammads told me it is much bigger in the middle of Summer and in the Winter it disappears.
It was approaching 3 pm and I knew we would be cutting it close to all aboard time of 4:30. The woman who wanted to leave by 1 pm asked me if I thought they were going to get us back by 4. I told her no, they will get us back to the port by 4:30. “How do you know”, was her response. I told her that I have done enough of these trips to know that they do not want to spoil their reputation by delivering us late. I also told her the ship would wait. HAL does do a fair job at convincing folks that the ship will leave without them. I learned from our cruise director on the world cruise that this is not the case. The hassle of leaving people behind without would be something they do not want to deal with.
We pulled into port about 4:20. I could see the look of worry all over our fellow HAL passengers. I was in constant communication with the tour company using WhatsApp. Most of the world uses this to communicate. They assured me that they would call the ship if need be. I wasn’t worried but Terri was getting concerned and she tried to call the ship. She gave up when the connection would be at $7.95 per minute. We could see the ship from where the tour boat docked. I know from watching the ship leave, port after port, that the Captain leaves 30 minutes after all aboard. The mooring lines aren’t even touched until the gangway is hauled in. I wasn’t the least bit concerned but couldn’t convince others.
Our driver was waiting when we got off of the ship. We sat in there while he waited for other passengers going to their hotel. Obviously he didn’t know he had concerned ship folks aboard. It was 4:35 before we left for the ship. 5 minute drive. At the port gate we needed to get out and walk through customs and security. It was intense security. Officers waived you through if you had a passport in your hand. Opening it wasn’t required. The metal detector sounded constantly as we all walked through. Not a concern. As we walked out of the customs building, there was a van waiting for us. The ship was at the pier and was still several hundred yards from us. The custom officer said that the van would take us back out of the port gate where we would board a bus to take us to the ship. Is this the epitome of ridiculousness? The van was pointed the way we just came in. We would go back out of the port to just come right back in. We got out and started to walk to the ship. This kind of thing is hard to take.
Probably a five minute walk for the two of us. The bus was still on the other side of customs.
We went to dinner and then played some music trivia with Jose and Clare. Motown! Wish we would have done better. 9 out of 16. Some of the tunes weren’t Motown but the young woman doing the trivia obviously knew none of the tunes or the artists anyway.…