I am sitting in my cabin typing this post because if I don’t get these next two done I will be behind. Tomorrow we go through the Suez Canal and the next day I have a private tour in Jerusalem for 14 hours.

The State Department raised the no travel orders for Egypt so rather than change the new itinerary the Captain stopped at Safaga. Egypt to allow those people who wanted to go to Luxor, Valley of the Kings or Karnak. Safaga is a nothing port so if you didn’t want to do the long tours (total 7 to 8 hours on bus) you just stayed on the ship.

When we pulled into port around 8:00 there was utter chaos on the dock. At least ten big trucks and 200 Egyptians trying to get their goods together to go through customs. They had been in Kuwaiti and just coming home after their contracts ended. By 10:30 the dock was cleared. Just amazing that the chaos was actual order.

On March 3lst I stayed up until 12:00 so the Station Band had been told that it was my birthday so they played Happy Birthday at 12:01 as their last piece of the night.

My birthday was on April Fools Day and they had the pajama party the same day. A blast upstairs in the crow’s nest with lots of drinking and dancing.

Andy and Judy (Peggy’s daughter) stayed in Dubai a week before boarding the ship. American Airline lost one of their bags so they had to do a lot of shopping. These are their Arabian outfits they wore for one of our formals.