Doha, Dubai, Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

[Pushka]

I’ll check that out! Thanks.

This does look like a good option. El Al has one hour flight. Can’t check dates just yet but can’t see Aegean on the Thursday.

 

[Daver6]

While I think of it, CX also fly to TLV. I know the connection from PER is horrible, but might be better from ADL, but that flight get into TLV around 7am from memory.

 

[Daver6]

This does look like a good option. El Al has one hour flight. Can’t check dates just yet but can’t see Aegean on the Thursday.

Google flights shows A3 560 departing LCA at 1pm. 5 minutes faster than LY too

 

[Pushka]

Google flights shows A3 560 departing LCA at 1pm. 5 minutes faster than LY too

We can make that too! Thankyou!

 

[RooFlyer]

Whew! Thank you Daver6 for getting me out of a spot. I was going to have to confess that I've only been to Amman and Tel Aviv once each, so hardly the authority for Pushka!

 

[Daver6]

Whew! Thank you Daver6 for getting me out of a spot. I was going to have to confess that I've only been to Amman and Tel Aviv once each, so hardly the authority for Pushka!

As long as I can still shift the blame to you when it goes belly up....

 

[Pushka]

As long as I can still shift the blame to you when it goes belly up....

If we have to collect luggage in Cyprus as we can’t connect on same PNR would there be any issues? Staying in airport. A few hours gap.

 

[Daver6]

If we have to collect luggage in Cyprus as we can’t connect on same PNR would there be any issues? Staying in airport. A few hours gap.

Should be ok unless your flight is delayed. My mother recently had to do this going PER-DOH-LCA-TLV in Y. It was tight, but do-able. Any reason this wouldn't be as one PNR though? I've got the same as my mother and managed it on one PNR making LCA a breeze.

 

[Pushka]

Should be ok unless your flight is delayed. My mother recently had to do this going PER-DOH-LCA-TLV in Y. It was tight, but do-able. Any reason this wouldn't be as one PNR though? I've got the same as my mother and managed it on one PNR making LCA a breeze.

Thankyou. I’m trying to do it on my own but might need a TA here. I’d like to spend some points in an award but maybe that too won’t work.

 

[love_the_life]

Is the Israel bit part of the Viking cruise ( ie an add on pre or post cruise tour)? Do you have a burning desire to visit Israel? I personally wouldn’t bother.

 

[Pushka]

Is the Israel bit part of the Viking cruise ( ie an add on pre or post cruise tour)? Do you have a burning desire to visit Israel? I personally wouldn’t bother.

We certainly want to visit Jordan at the other end, and Israel is at the beginning and all with Viking. We have a really close friend in Melbourne who is Jewish and his brother lives in a kibbutz, full orthodox. We have met his other brother when we went to NYC. Our Canadian friends are Jewish. I have a great grandmother who was Jewish but did not maintain. I’m really tempted if I can tweak the flights.

 

[love_the_life]

We certainly want to visit Jordan at the other end, and Israel is at the beginning and all with Viking. We have a really close friend in Melbourne who is Jewish and his brother lives in a kibbutz, full orthodox. We have met his other brother when we went to NYC. Our Canadian friends are Jewish. I have a great grandmother who was Jewish but did not maintain. I’m really tempted if I can tweak the flights.

My great grandmother was Jewish as well but I have no desire to visit.
I can see the logic though if part of the Viking offering.

 

[Pushka]

My great grandmother was Jewish as well but I have no desire to visit.
I can see the logic though if part of the Viking offering.

Well there you go! Funny if it’s the same one!!!!

 

[love_the_life]

Well there you go! Funny if it’s the same one!!!!

Now that’s a thought

 

[Pushka]

Now that’s a thought

The name is a derivation of Moses!

 

[love_the_life]

The name is a derivation of Moses!

Think you are probably safe from a rogue relation. My GG was a Russian Jewish girl who was spirited to the UK and taken in by a family. It has been very difficult to trace her.

 

[OATEK]

We have booked for a brief visit to Israel & Egypt in early 2020. Quite keen to visit Bethlehem & Jerusalem.

 

[Pushka]

We have booked for a brief visit to Israel & Egypt in early 2020. Quite keen to visit Bethlehem & Jerusalem.

How soon? I guess ours starts 26 December until 10th January from memory. We’d almost try for Christmas Day there depending on family at Christmas time.

 

[lovetravellingoz]

Jordan was our favourite of Jordan, Israel and Egypt as part of independent trip with our three daughters then aged 5, 8 and 11 where we backpacked around for about 8 weeks. (It was also our first major international FF trip after having redeemed points for 5 to fly to Cairo Return via Thailand on the way back. Flights on Singapore Airlines which was the start of my love affair with that airline. Points redeemed from Ansett which cleaned out my balance two weeks before they went belly up).
- Petra..and other Roman Ruins
- Crusader and Saracen Castles
- The Desert of Wadi Rum - spent NYE in a Bedouin Camp

Jerusalem was amazing and we arrived at about noon on Orthodox Christmas to be greeted by a blizzard which ceased all the shops to shut.
- The whole city - is just fascinating to wander around a city like this just dripping in time
-The tunnels under the city and the wailing wall
- The Church of the Holy Sepulchre
- Being pelted with snowballs by bored tax-drivers - the history and the ongoing tensions of the various religious denominations who fight over is management
- Experiencing the obvious divide between two peoples that do not "see' one another
- Crossing the Gaza Strip in a bullet-proof bus while thinking "cough, maybe we should not be here!" (When we booked in Jerusalem we were only show pics of a flash luxury bus which at the start it was. Then the bullet-proof bus for the strip and then after walking across the border into Egypt a small white beaten up mini-van!

Egypt
- Just littered with ancient sites and ruins - but the ruins and museums are often not well manged or maintained
- We were there after 9/11 which as it turned out made it better and the people were extra warm and friendly and we had free reign at mist sites we visited.
- When we were at the Valley of the Kings, we were the only travellers there. Pyramids of Giza, perhaps two dozen other travellers while we were there..
- Feasting in the streets of Cairo in the evening during Ramadan once the daily fast broke.
- Cruising down the Nile
-Xmas and snorkelling the Red Sea from Dahab and swimming in the Blue Hole


Overall we gained memories for life and greatly enjoyed the trip, but for my wife and I once was enough (I mean that in a good way, as the world is a big place and there is so much to see).

However our eldest daughter went back post Uni with a female friend and travelled around guided by a young female Egyptologist who showed them not just the sites, but also gave many insights in the politics of the time and area.

 

[Pushka]

Our DIL went to Bethlehem as an 18 year old and travelled with 2 other Brits, one of whom spoke Arabic but only spoke English aloud so the locals thought they were safe to use their language. Every night he would tell the 2 girls how many camels the locals were prepared to trade for them.

She also said that the Muslims were responsible for looking after the Bethlehem holy site as there are separate entries for each ‘variety’ separated by ropes. When those varieties were in charge they would move the ropes each night so they aren’t trusted anymore. This was around 14 years ago.

She has told me I need to cover up even though Im an oldie. They won’t cope with my blonde hair and blue eyes.

We are flying from Tel Aviv to Cairo. And we aren’t telling our oldest son for a long time as he will flip his lid! We are naughty parents who misbehave. On the other hand he is adopted from Sri Lanka and we travelled to Sri Lanka in the middle of the civil war in 1985 and a BA plane was blown up on the tarmac. If we hadn’t been brave enough to do that well..........