Egyptian crisis finally forces Thomson to cancel its cruises to the Red Sea

Thomson Cruises has finally bowed to
the inevitable and cancelled its remaining Red Sea cruises scheduled for this
winter as a result of the worsening crisis in Egypt.

Until last week the ports of Sharm el
Sheik and Safaga, and the resort of Hurghada – visited on shore excursions  – were considered safe and immune from the
violence and demonstrations in Cairo and elsewhere.

But in the present circumstances it
would be impossible to operate excursions to the Pyramids and the Valley of the
Kings, the main reason passengers travel on the Red Sea cruises.

Thomson had already cut short this
winter’s season of cruises to the region on Thomson Majesty. It had been
switched to Cyprus from November 6 and was planned to operate from Sharm el
Sheik only between December 19 and February 27. A clutch of other cruise lines, including Costa, MSC, Holland America, Princess and Seabourn have all cancelled their Egypt port calls and river cruising on the Nile is almost at a standstill.

A Thomson statement issued today
says: “As the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has advised against all but
essential travel to Cairo and Luxor this means that we are not able to offer
our customers an alternative itinerary that would meet their requirements for a
Red Sea cruise. We are not able to offer the full excursion programme . . .
that we know they want to experience.

“We understand how disappointing this
will be for our customers and we are currently contacting customers booked on a
Red Sea cruise to advise them of these changes.”

No alternative deployment for Thomson
Majesty has been announced.

German operators including Thomas
Cook and TUI have cancelled all travel to Egypt

While warning against all
non-essential travel to parts of the region, particularly North Sinaii, the FOC
states: “Enhanced security measures are in
place to protect the resort areas.

“Egyptian military are situated in
Sharm el Sheikh international airport, the entrance to the resort of Sharm
el-Sheikh and the exit to the resort area of Dahab. Routine security checks are
being performed on entry into the airport and the police are carrying out
vehicle checks in Sharm el-Sheikh.

“There have been no violent protests
in the South Sinai resorts during recent disturbances in Egypt. The resorts
remain calm.

Customers, however, will have been
voting with their feet. It is unlikely that Thomson would have been able to
fill the ship if they had persisted with their Red Sea itineraries

In the absence of an FOC direction
against travel, passengers who had already booked but wanted to withdraw would
have been unable to claim on their insurance for any payments lost.