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Staying ashore overnight between Haifa and Ashdod


rirby

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During our upcoming cruise, our ship is scheduled to be in Haifa one day and Ashdod the next. Does anyone have firsthand experience with or knowledge of the possibility of staying ashore in a hotel the first night and reboarding the next day in the second port? I realize extenuating circumstances, such as the second port being cancelled for some reason, would throw a wrench in this plan - just trying to see if it's possible. Thanks!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hi, rirby,

If you have not had this trip, I do not believe what you are asking is possible. You have to use your ship pass to get off and return. If you do not get back on board the ship will think you M.I.A. Let us know what happens(ed).

Jim

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This tends to create extra work and possibly a red fag to the port state.

Between stops the ship goes back into international water.  Depending on citizenship it can break the integrity of the manifest for immigration purposes. 

As offered by the cruise line the manifest is acceptable as it complies with immigration and visa requirements on boarding day.   It was designed to be that way.  One can argue that "my" citizenship allows it, but the ship has to deal with dozens of possible citizenship of guests.  They are not legal immigration experts that can decipher the weird and wonderful possibilities of what works for one guest but is a violation for another guest with a different citizenship.  So they create policy that is the least common denominator which ensures they don't inadvertently violate a port state immigration law for any guest.   The argument that it's "okay for me" doesn't work.

As the ship presents the manifest to the port on arrival, even if no immigration law is violated, the situation that "we will arrive with X number of guests but we are departing with X-2 guests" raises red flags.    Immigration will want to know why.  Who are these guests?  What are there names?  What is their citizenship?  Where are they going?  Are they on any watch lists?  and so on.

It creates a bunch of headaches for the ship to deal with upon arrival that can cause immigration to delay clearing the ship.  That means other guests can be delayed, excursion operations are impacted, etc. 

It's entirely possible it works on your itinerary but would be a violation for other itineraries across the fleet so the company policy is no.  Otherwise guests assume they can do it on the next cruise when it is a violation in another country. 

It's just a whole lot easier for the cruise line to say no and if you violate the policy by doing so on your own you will probably be removed from the manifest for the rest of the cruise.  You cards deactivated, your belongs collected and stored until the end of the cruise.

However feel free to contact Royal and make the request.  It never hurts to ask. 

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On the 5/6 Odyssey sailing, the initial itinerary was Ashdod followed by Haifa.  Cruise director announced that 500 passengers were getting off in 1 port and not returning until the 2nd.  They asked anyone doing so to please let them know.   We ended up skipping Israel due to the political unrest.

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