THREE more cruise lines scrap Turkey

It seemed inevitable but now Princess, Royal Caribbean and Uniworld have removed Turkey from all of their itineraries.  The reason being ‘civil unrest’.

They’re following in the footsteps of other cruise lines, namely P&O, Cunard, Holland America, Azamara and Celebrity who all also dropped Turkish port calls a few weeks ago.

Thomson, at the moment, still seem to be including Turkey in their itineraries (except Istanbul) and the six-star cruise line, Silversea are still calling at Kusadasi, Canakkale and Marmaris.

Royal Caribbean have replaced Turkey with beautiful Kotor (Montenegro), Mykonos or Rhodes in Greece or Chania in Crete.

Princess and Uniworld have said they’ll no longer call at Turkish ports but have yet to announce where they’ll be replacing this port call with.  All three have said that any shore excursions booked will be refunded in full.

In the last 12 months, 119 people have been killed in Turkey (42 in the Istanbul Airport attack in June, 38 outside the football stadium in December and 39 more in a nightclub attack) in terrorist attacks with dozens more injured.

This resulted in Disney and MSC being the first to pull out of Turkey.

The current FCO advice states:

“There is a high threat from terrorism. Terrorist groups, including Kurdish groups, Daesh (formerly referred to as ISIL) and far left organisations, continue to plan and carry out attacks.

“There is a heightened risk of terrorist attack against the aviation industry in Turkey. You should co-operate fully with security officials at airports.

“The Turkish authorities have successfully disrupted attack planning in the recent past and have said that security has been tightened in response to recent attacks. But further attacks are likely and could be indiscriminate.”

What do you think? Have you been to Turkey? Were you due to go and have had your itinerary changed or would you still be happy to go?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Lx