I wanted to post on here just to warn others of what to expect on first arriving in Israel. I was unaware of the problems and would have planned differently if I had known. We were on Odyssey of the Seas, a very large ship. Quite possibly on a smaller ship, these problems would have been much less.
After the ship was cleared, RCI excursions were the first allowed to disembark. Everybody else, on independent excursions had to leave in ‘group’ order. This number was determined by your ticket, similar to a tender ticket, which was distributed on an earlier sea day. This meant that in a group minibus, it was necessary to wait for everybody to slowly arrive before the tour could depart. It took until 10.30 am for this, after disembarkation started at 8. This meant that the tour returned very late to the ship. Fortunately we were in port overnight. If it had been a one day call, the tour would have had to be abbreviated.
On subsequent days, there was not the same problem. Everybody was allowed off at the same time.
If I had my time again, I would either do a totally private excursion or a ship’s excursion on the first day.
(This all rather reminded me of visits to St Petersburg in the old days!)