Turkey Suspension

A number of cruise lines have already suspended Turkey from their itineraries.

We already have Celebrity, Disney, Crystal and only this week MSC have announced they are pulling out for the foreseeable future.  After the recent events in Istanbul I can of course understand why they are doing this.  The safety and security of all guests and crew is paramount to all these cruise lines, plus you do have clients either on cruises now or just about to go who are calling in to us or the cruise lines, worried and want reassurance.

All cruise lines as well as tour operators are of course, advised by the Foreign Office, which is interesting in that the Foreign Office have not advised against travelling to Turkey.  The latest posts today states – advising against all travel to within 10 km of the Turkish border with Syria, as well as a few areas which tourists would normally not travel to. They also state that over 2,500,00 British Nationals visit Turkey every year. Most visits are trouble free. The Turkish authorities have also advised that security has been tightened.  Of course, further attacks could happen.  Not just in Turkey though, lets face it, unfortunately, we all know it can happen anywhere.

I applaud the cruise lines for taking this stance, you can not be too careful. It is a great shame that those who wanted to travel to Turkey are not able to see the sites however the cruise lines have made sure they have some very good alternatives.  For example, Crystal Cruises will replace Istanbul and Kusadasi with stops in the Greek ports of Chania/Suda Bay, Hydra, Athens, Patmos and Rhodes (depending on which itinerary). MSC cruises will be replacing Istanbul and Izmir with Athens and Mykonos.

Of course all of the other cruise lines will be monitoring the situation very carefully, listening to Foreign Office advice and passenger concerns.

What do you think? Do you think this is the right decision to make at the moment or do you think they are wrong?