I will be taking the three continent tour with trafagar in Sept and wondered if any one has taken this tour or has used Monarch classic cruises for the Athens-Egypt-Jerusalem-cyprus-Turkey-Santorini/Mykosis-Athens cruise. Do you need visas if you are from the US to enter Yurkey and Egypt and if so should you get before you get to these countries?

This Tour sounds wonderful CT.

Visa advice can be obtained from the Net, your TA, or the appropriate Government Agency. Its always good to get the latest advice/news.

I'd say Turkey is OK - not sure re Egypt. Better to check.

G'day cteeth we are doing the Three Continents in September as well. Tour starts 24th Sept. I think I read somewhere that because these are only one day visits that a special entry is organisd by the TG.But then we are Aussies maybe things are different. If you find out let us know. This new tour has certainly raised some interest.

We have to obtain our visa for entering Egypt when we arrive at the airport. I'm told there wont be queues on account there are plenty of counters.

Keitel, Sounds like we will be on the same tour. If you get any definite information on the visa requirements or hear any tidbits or tips let me hear from you. cteeth

quote:

Originally posted by nation:
We have to obtain our visa for entering Egypt when we arrive at the airport. I'm told there wont be queues on account there are plenty of counters.

You can obtain your visa in advance from the Egyptian Embassy in your country if you wish. Personally I prefer to do that; the more things you can get "out of the way" in advance the better, to my mind.

Note that you have to pay cash for your visa. As an Islamic country, the Egyptian government doesn't deal with credit cards.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris Marriott:

quote:

Originally posted by nation:
We have to obtain our visa for entering Egypt when we arrive at the airport. I'm told there wont be queues on account there are plenty of counters.

You can obtain your visa in advance from the Egyptian Embassy in your country if you wish. Personally I prefer to do that; the more things you can get "out of the way" in advance the better, to my mind.

Note that you have to pay cash for your visa. As an Islamic country, the Egyptian government doesn't deal with credit cards.

Chris, I am with you on this one. I have already purchased my Egyptian visa and I won't be going there until September. I like to get things like that done and out of the way.

My travel agent told me that I will need to purchase a Visa in Egypt when we get to port. The cost is US$15. I'll let you know when I get back (I'm leaving in June).

Having just got back from Egypt, I was really glad we got our visas before we left Canada as the airport was quite crowded when we got to Cairo and the lines were long. Several people got sent out of the passport control line as they had not yet got their visas - what were they thinking.
If you are doing a cruise though my experience with Trafalgar is that the TD takes your passpost and obtains all the visas for day entry. In addition to our cruise ship cards last year when we visited turkey and were in port for 1.5 days we were given a sort of landing card which we had to turn in the last evening before the ship left port.
Earlier this year I was planning to join the 3 continents cruise on it's first stop in Egypt, as I was going to be in Egypt already, I was told by my TA that I would have to take care of my Visa for Egypt and getting myself to Port Said and TT would take care of the rest. Unfortunately the date I originally planned was cancelled by Monarch cruises and so I had to cancel the cruise portion and do Egypt only.

I just recently got back from the three continents cruise. You do not need to get a visa for any of the ports. This is all taken care of for you. You will get your passport in Egypt, which will already be stamped when you receive it and you will hold onto your passport for that day and night. You will present it in Israel at their customs counter at the port and hold onto it all day. Other than that, you do not hold onto your passport on the cruise, which is great.

Enjoy your trip, I had a blast. One thing to note, don't expect that the places you are going to stary at are going to be the same 4 and 5 star qualities that we have in North America, hotels are smaller in Europe and the Blue Monarch is not a Celebrity or Holland America or other large cruise ship, it is a small ship, but the staff are absolutely amazing and the food is good. The excursion in Egypt is rushed as are some of the others, but they are worth taking.

An open mind to explore leads to a better experience.

Well just 6 weeks to go and we will leave for the three continents tour. Just wondering if there have been any others that have taken the tour and some advice on the currency to take. I am from the US and want to know if all the ports of call would prefer a particular currency. On a previous tour the first night our tour guide had a gentleman come and exchange currency at a good rate without any fees. We are visiting 5 different countries. What are some of the favorite excursions?? details very much appreciated!!!! cteeth

Ithink I may have told you that I am doing this trip starting Sept24-Oct4. The info from the 'tripadvisor' site was that they will take euros in all countries visited or "your first born"