A series of articles covering our trip to the Holy Land on the Thomson Celebration cruise ship. Our itinerary had been changed at the last minute due to unrest in Egypt. A day in Alexandria was changed to give us an overnight stay onboard in port in Israel. The ports for this trip will be Marmaris, Turkey > Rhodes, Greece > Ashdod, Isreal > Larnaca, Cyprus > Alanya, Turkey > Marmaris, Turkey.
Click each picture below to access the main articles and photos of this fabulous trip.
Our holiday around the Aegean and the Holy Land is coming to a close, so here's a chance to have a look around the Thomson Celebration cruise ship.
This is our cabin for this trip - 086 on Deck 8. The majority of cabins have twin beds but there are a few with doubles. The Celebration has had a bit of a makeover since we were last on her - and is due in dry dock anytime now for more refitting.
Looking from the bed. A new flat screen TV is mounted on the wall and the bathroom has new fittings. There's a fridge under the TV, a sofa against the wall and the wardrobes are behind Fran.
Thomson Celebration as seen in Rhodes on our first day of cruising whis week. Not the brightest of days... Thomson Celebration is a smaller ship than many these days, but I rather think that touring round in a floating skyscraper is defeating the purpose a bit. I want to know that I'm on a ship. Someone in the restaurant one day moaned that there wasn't enough deck space on her, but he couldn't have looked very hard... We saw lots of empty sunbeds even on the day at sea. We've encountered quite a few moaners on different ships and as far as I'm concerned they either spoil their own holidays or they just simply like moaning. There's been nothing to object to on any of the ships I've been on.
So let's have a quick look round parts of the ship. Deck 5 is where you'll find most of the lounges and the show theatre. We tended to spend evenings in a cabaret lounge that we'll see later. This shows part of a corridor near the shops that holds a number of stalls when the ship is at sea. Shops and the casino are closed whilst the ship is in dock and only open once the ship enters international waters. Each day special offers are laid out on the tables. One night it will be jewellery, another night perfumes, another night handbags and accessories etc. There isn't a night for train sets, Scalextric or guitars...
The main general shop taken through the glass doors when it was shut. It sells books, sunglasses, clothes, souvenirs, sweets, tobacco, spirits, sun creams etc. Spirits can be bought but will be kept until you leave the ship. Buying to avoid the bars is not allowed.
The main corridor is called Broad Street. It runs down the port side of Deck 5 from the self-serve restaurant at the rear, through the show lounge, past the shops to a quieter lounge towards the front of the ship which offers access to a library and Internet station.
It is seen here during the day, so not many people here. This is where you can be served afternoon tea and the entertainment is a refined violin and piano duo. At the far end on the left you can see a couple of VDU screens in the Internet area.
Deck 5 has the large self-service restaurant at the rear and a grill selling pizza, hotdogs, burgers and baked potatoes on the open deck at the stern. There's a pasta station there also. We are looking now into the Meridian Restaurant which has waiter service and is found one deck down on Deck 4 from the midships staircase. We ate in there for both breakfast and evening dinner, using the self-serve only for lunch. At the rear of the Meridian is Mistrals, where for a reasonable extra charge you get silver service and special menus.
In the Meridian, it's worth staying with your favourite waiter and his team. They get to know you and your tastes and will help you feel relaxed and help by suggesting things that they know you will like. Once we found Manny was onboard, we simply asked for him by name on entering the restaurant and the Maitre D' and his staff waved us towards his "station", where he kept our usual table waiting for us. The photo was taken on the final night when the Parade of the Baked Alaska is held, this being a fun event for both passengers and crew.
Manny (right) and his team - Zar on the left was his Assistant Waiter and Lito was the Wine Waiter. We tend to remember our waiters and it's always great to see them again. Manny had served us earlier in the year on Thomson Dream. He had been home, got married and came back to Thomson Celebration in the interval! We see two or three waiters a year, so they are easy enough to remember. How they manage to remember us out of all the hundreds or thousands of people they see every season never fails to amaze me. Mind you... that could say something about me perhaps - I'm not a shrinking violet!
Manny surprises Fran with a delicate thrust of the baked alaska towards the camera! The waiters parade through the restaurant in line holding the flaming delicacies aloft and a roar of approval comes whenever one of them passes their own group of tables or station.
Deck 6 is the Promenade Deck. This is an open deck that goes all the way around the entire ship. Joggers and exercising power walkers can circle it five times to cover a mile. The rest of us saunter innocently into their path and look at them in sympathy. There's also a fully equipped gym with treadmills for those who are too focussed on their walking to risk open air and distracting sights...
Fran at the rear of Deck 5 one morning with a Danish Pastry. She asks me to point out it was the only morning she had one... I resisted. Manfully. Not even a bite of hers... Behind the self-serve restaurant the open deck has a number of tables for al fresco dining, or just sitting and reading if you don't want to sprawl on a sunbed. This is where many of the daily demonstrations are held also. Towel folding, napkin folding, cocktail making/bottle juggling, fruit and ice carving are carried out by the crew. Some passengers carry out demonstrations of gluttony, sunburn, and peevishness to fellow man. These can be just as entertaining...
Then as we move from the tables towards the very rear, or stern, of the ship there is the swimming pool, one of two - there's another pool on the rear of Deck 7 which is adults only. At the very rear is a stage area where the entertainers do lunchtime or afternoon concerts.
In this case it's our friends Tomas and Maris, who go by the stage name of 2 Intense. From the Philippines, we met them several years ago and try to meet up at least once a year.
Their stint of work finished, they join us for a while at our table and we undertake the gruelling mind-taxing afternoon quiz. There's one of these every day for those who congregate on the rear of Deck 5.
Our favourite spot for the second half of the afternoon is the Horizons Bar. This is situated on Deck 9 right above the bridge and there's a fabulous view from the window over the bow of the ship. It's the same view that the Captain has and there's an old binnacle in the centre before the window, holding a compass so you can stand and play at driving (nautical term) the ship. The seats are comfortable and there's a bar. We find it a great spot to read, to relax and on occasion in port I can sketch in comfort from the side windows.
At night it's a cabaret bar. Thomas and Maris do their thing, and they are very good at it too! It's usually a fairly quiet place until the main show lounge theatre show finishes and then it rapidly fills up.
Maris: "I see Tomas has a fuschia tie!"
Tomas: "Oh... how do you spell that?"
Maris: "Pink..."
It's our last night. We take photos and say our goodbyes until the next time. The ship is heading back to Marmaris where we shall have a coach ride for around an hour and twenty minutes to Dalaman Airport for our flight back to England.
On the last night cases must be packed and placed outside the cabin door for collection by the crew. Passengers remove their clothes, pack them and open the door a crack then, the coast being clear, scurry out, leave the cases and go back into their cabin for bed. In the morning they get up and realise they've no clothes to put on...
Monday 7 October. Marmaris, Turkey. A gorgeous day. We've never had chance to look round this gorgeous port and today is no different. We look out over the side and watch the port workers loading rows of suitcases onto a lorry to take them to the Port Authority building. All we have to do is have a leisurely breakfast, have a second cup of coffee on the back of Deck 5 and then it's time to get off the ship and start our journey home.
We walk down the quayside to the Port Authority buildings and turn to take a last photo of the Thomson Celebration. Then our landing card is stamped by the Port Authorities and we find and take our luggage to the coach for the airport. The Thomson Celebration disappears as we turn round the bend on the climb up the hillside from the port. It's ok. For another month (well... less two days!) I'll be sorting through my photos and writing blog entries and I do know one thing... It won't be our last trip on the ship, or with Tomas and Maris! (But you'll have to wait until April 2014 to hear about that!!!)
Sunday 6 October 2013. We arrive back at Alanya, Turkey from the excursion which has taken us to Manavgat Waterfall and Side (a town, not the side of the waterfall...)
The Thomson Celebration is parked (nautical term) at the end of a long jetty. We leave the coach and go through the terminal building and out onto the jetty.
Looking back at the Red Tower or Kizil Kule of Alanya. This octagonal tower was finished in 1226 and is 33m high, which I make to be around 107 feet in old money. Obviously they got their bricks from Accrington...
It protects the harbour and shipyard which has been in use since 1221. From it a high wall links to the City Wall, which heads off up the hill. The history of the place is not dissimilar to that of Side which I described in the previous entry. Pirates, Ptolemaics, Seleucids, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans have all had a piece of it at some time or other.
Ah yes, you remember a couple of entries ago, when we had just landed here (another nautical term...) I mentioned that there seemed to be a load of old galleons lined up in the harbour?
Well I don't think they are all that old somehow but they are of that sort of design, if not exactly reliant on wind power... The customer base is not that old either, so I gather from the incredible din coming from it as it passed and the obviously frenzied goading of a DJ. Over the boom-boom-boom of house music (I have no idea what house music really sounds like, but I expect it to be as bad as the sound coming from this boat) he was shouting into the mic incessantly. By gad, in the old days we'd have sent the Navy...
Wood seems to be the material of choice for pleasure craft in Alanya and I do have to say I approve of this. Far nicer to look at than whitewashed metal.
The tug boats were, however, a little more practical in their design. And this winds up our last day of the holiday. We'll make the most of things tonight and we'll have a look at the Thomson Celebration herself in the next entry, together with a few of the staff and entertainers onboard, some of whom we count as good friends of several years standing (and a few years sitting or keeled over...)
Tonight the ship heads along the Turkish coast back to Marmaris and we will be heading back to the UK and slightly cooler weather!
Hang on, you lot... Side is a place in Turkey! It's pronounced see-day and after our time at the Manavgat Waterfall, described in the previous entry, this is where we came to on the excursion from the Thomson Celebration which had docked in nearby Alanya on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.
Side has some wonderful Roman remains, including temples, a massive amphitheatre, a gateway and a few arches of an acqueduct. Above can be seen the scant upright remains of a Temple to Apollo, behind our merry bunch. The guide here is making up for the fact that there wasn't much to say at the waterfall and is now assaulting us with the most banal commentary...
A sample: "Behind us is the harbour, it was very important for trade..." Inspiring stuff... I have a foolproof guide for tour guides. They can say whatever they like but it should be in this order:
All around us are massive columns from the temple. This place had a chequered history. Alexander the Great came here without any great opposition and left a small garrison. For a time it was under the control of his General, Ptolemy, who decided to proclaim himself King of Egypt in 305 BC and started a chain of kings called Ptolemy (and incidentally a chain of co-rulers called Cleopatra), one of whom we still remember far more than we do any of the Ptolemys. She probably knew this place too - we'll meet her again in the next entry at Alanya, just up the road where the ship is waiting for us.
Side was captured by the Seleucid Empire (it covered a lot of today's Arab states and as far east as north western India). They in turn were defeated by Rhodes, working together with Pergamum and Rome (who must have been pleased as this event saw the defeat of the fugitive Hannibal, he of the elephants across the Alps jaunt). In the first century BC the place was captured by pirates who set up their slave trading centre there. The Romans booted them out twice, the second time being by General Pompey but they quite liked the slave trade and kept it going. From the 4th century AD, Side was plagued by raids from the mountain people, Arab fleets, Christian zealots and also suffered several earthquakes. Small wonder that the population thought "bugger this..." and fled. It remained deserted but for a stubborn open-all-hours corner shop (clothes pegs, slaves and fridge magnets) until around the 1100s when people came to see if the raids had stopped and started to rebuild the city.
The Temple of Apollo has a fine mesh fence all round it apart from one aspect which has the view blocked by a construction hut and one corner where I stretched to my full height (I know... laughable...) and poked the lens through a gap in the fence.
There is a large amphitheatre which I wanted a look at. We asked directions and made our way up the busy shopping street and found ourselves back opposite the coach park. We walked up to the ticket booth all excited and found they only took Turkish Lire (we only had euros) or credit cards - and of course we had left that behind...
A bit deflated, we walked around the outside of the theatre anyway. Steel supports have been added under the Roman arches that support the massive public gallery. The theatre seated around 15,000 spectators and hosted all sorts of events including gladiatorial combat.
But then a wonderful thing happened. We came to the edge of the theatre, passed through the city gate and came to the site of a temple to Dionysus outside the theatre.
And having walked around the temple, by looking back, we get a really good view of the galleries of seating in the theatre. Miss Franny wouldn't let me go back to the ticket office to gloat...
In front of the seating is a wall, which would be the back of the stage or orchestra - this was an amphitheatre not a full arena, so a semi-circle of seating with a stage at the front. On the bit of grass in the centre of the temple site is a reconstruction of a fountain that stood before the main entrance of the temple.
A closer look at the fountain. Dionysus is the Greek version of the Roman Bacchus - the god of grapes, harvest, wine, etc... He'd do well in Blackpool...
Things got a bit too giddy at his last debauch and the temple ended up strewn about like skittles... On the other side of the temple to the amphitheatre were several old ruins, one with some mosaic flooring and a rather taller ruin of a 6th century hospital.
We walked back through the Vespasian Gate to the old city and realised that we were back at the coach half an hour early. We walked back to the top of the shopping street and bought a few bits and pieces and most importantly a cool drink each.
We bought them here. The owner was a very helpful chap whose mother (I presume) worked in the shop. I was taken with the miniature Turkish carpets on the stand outside the front door. A more practical souvenir than some of the real full size Turkish carpets that are very very nice but with price tags in direct proportion to niceness!
We bought cans to drink and sat on benches in a little square with the view above. Very pleasant indeed. Some familiar faces started to drift by us and we realised it was time to head back to the coach again.
