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Ease up a bit. Yes, seasoned cruisers know that in the end, you're booking X days and ports - and even disembarking ports it's now abundantly clear to me - are not guaranteed. Cruise lines don't exactly advertise that fact when they sell their cruises. You have to either dig in the fine print, or get bit by it once to know that. He sees it in a different way. "The cruise ship was just a taxi." Was he legally correct? No. But his point is that in his mind, the cruise no longer has the same value to him that it did when he booked it. And in that, he is correct. He is the sole judge on whether it's worth it to him.

Thanks!

Okay, thanks. That's the factor that I was missing, considering the sister ships' (and also NCI's other brands) rerouted itineraries. They may have had to sacrifice some of Epic's itinerary to give the slot to another ship that needed it more. That actually makes much more sense. I appreciate the input.

Sorry, you must have added this while I was typing. I understand what you're saying, but again, why would they have to create an entire new itinerary when the one they had was fully reserved and arranged except for the last two ports? If we already had a slot reservation for Rhodes and Patmos on specific days, why give up those slots for someone else to take? And from the posts - and I'll grant you, there are some entitled people there - nobody suggested skipping even more ports than we already are or adding Mykonos. Most, if not all, had already come to a their go/no go decision based on losing the Israeli ports and changing disembark to Athens and were way more pissed off at losing two additional ports. If NCL was changing the ports to appease some of them, they really missed the mark. None of it makes sense, which means NCL must have had one hell of a reason for doing it. Curious what that was. Maybe I'll ask onboard, maybe I'll just order another drink and sit on my balcony. Either way, I'm still going.

I agree, they're all factors. What is less clear is if all of those factors were already scheduled for every port for this cruise prior to the 10th day of the 12 day cruise, and had been for at least two years prior, what would have changed with those arrangements that would necessitate changing the ports? The only obvious change that had to be made was deleting Ashdod and changing the disembarkation port. The rest of the schedule disruption has no obvious reason, although there must have been some reason if NCL added that much work to an already overworked staff. It's a fair question to ask what that was, although we'll probably never know.

And here we are, speculating about what those factors could possibly be. Do you have any insight to add?

No need to get snarky about it. I was just saying that nothing in the first 10 days of the cruise needed to be changed. The slot reservations at the ports were already booked and all logistics already planned. So why mess with the rest of the ports? The only changes that needed to be made were the Israeli ports on days 11 and 12. Why create all of the extra work?

Yeah, that's true. I don't know, I can't think of any other reason why they did it that way. Exactly, so why cancel ports that had already been booked nearly two years in advance? All they had to do was skip Ashdod and Haifa and reroute to Athens. Why change up everything else? The return cruise has Patmos and Rhodes still on the schedule.

I was scratching my head at that, too. For some reason, we're going to Mykonos on Day 4 rather than Santorini. That seems to have created a knock-on effect, which made Patmos and Rhodes unavailable. Not privy to what happens behind the scenes for that. I would guess it has something to do with logistics. Simply skipping the Israeli ports and going directly to Athens may have been too far to sail without visiting a port where fuel or other provisioning services are available and thus needed to rearrange what days we visit those ports. There's no threats security-wise that would necessitate deleting any Greek ports, so for those going on future Greek Isles cruise, I wouldn't worry. Yours will likely go as planned.

I'm on the Epic with you on 11/8. Right now, NCL is probably working the logistics of the Jade, which was scheduled for Haifa 10/11 and Ashdod 10/12. I'm certain those are going to be cancelled, but they're stops, so they can choose alternate ports. After that, NCL doesn't have another cruise touching Israel until the Gem on 11/7. Our cruise and the return from Haifa to Rome are the only cruises that NCL has that disembark/embark from Haifa all year. Once they get through the situation with the Jade, Epic will probably be the next priority. It's a fluid situation, and who knows what's going to happen in the next month. Personally, I would rather them make the port change now rather than holding out hope to make it in until a week before so that we have time to adapt our travel plans. I doubt Egypt is going to be an option. It's too close, and there was also a situation where two Israeli tourists and their tour guide were murdered on the same day as the attacks in Israel. They would most likely pick another option. My guess would be Athens, since they already have embarkation facilities there and the city is big enough to accommodate multiple flight and hotel options. I seriously doubt they would cancel the entire cruise. That's 22 days worth of a ship sucking down money rather than making money because of three days of scheduled ports. It's a sad situation all around. More concerned for the people in the region than this cruise.

If you get a chance, ask her how long she's staying on the ship. Would love to try one of those next month.

Thanks for posting all of these pictures. We're in the room directly above yours in a few more weeks, and it's nice to see what they look like currently, vs some youtube videos that may not be up to date. Don't drink up all of the good stuff before we get there.