We Have Our Ashdod Entry Instructions

Another quiet day at sea … lunch with friends Pam & Ray in the Grand Dining Room was the only interesting portion of the day. Oh, and we also broke with our Terrace Café breakfast routine to eat our morning meal in the Grand Dining Room today.

Since there is nothing noteworthy about our day, I’ll just write a bit about the instructions delivered to the cabin last night for tomorrow’s entry process into Israel.

The plan is for testing to commence at 6:30a ... ½-hour after we're scheduled to arrive. There will be no announcements into the cabin so as not to bother those who want to sleep in because they are further down the testing list … as we are ... at 8:50a.

Once the testing is completed, it is expected that immigration procedures will begin around 10:00a. That time, however, might change, so we are to wait for the announcement and then proceed into the terminal building with our passports … which will be returned to us at the time we go to the Insignia Lounge for our PCR test. Then, back to the ship to await clearance of Insignia by the Israeli Authorities.

On another topic with regards to our arrival. Apparently, we are not allowed to walk through the port tomorrow. So, O will be operating a shuttle to the Sea Mall in the city center. I looked it up and it’s not far from the Marina. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that although we are in port until 10:00p, the last shuttle is @ 5:30p. Assuming we can get on the first shuttle @ 1:00p, that will give us just about 4.5 hours in the city. Is it even worth going? We’ll try to figure out tomorrow if we can make our way back to the port on our own at a later hour. Private vehicles are prohibited from entering the port and only a few taxi companies are allowed to enter the port … or so I read. Thus transportation is the hurdle that we need to figure out. Research is pending.Read more