As people had suggested that Celebrity were good we went on their Holy Land cruise. As a Christian I was looking forward to seeing Jerusalem and Galilee. I booked in Aqua class and a wheelchair accessible cabin, and informed my agents that I was a wheelchair user. I was told this was not a problem as the cruise was accessible. I tried to book excursions on line but could not.

Imagine my distress when speaking to the excursions desk I was told that I would not be able to visit any of Israel. Having spent thousands on a holiday to Israel I was not expecting that. I appreciate not all excursions can be accessible, but I do expect that at major stops and particularly where it is required that you are taken from the ship by provided transport that it would be accessible to everyone on the ship. There were a lot of wheelchair users on the ship but not in powered chairs. After a lot of distress, eventually I was offered a tour of Jerusalem and one of Galilee at over a $1100 per tour. for the first one we were able to find another couple to share and that brought the cost down to $260 each, $100 more per person than for other passengers. For the Galilee tour we were on our own and had to pay the full cost.

What was even more upsetting and astonishing, at the ports you are not able to take yourself off the boat, you must use the transport out of the port, and not one bus was wheelchair accessible so instead of 3 days in Israel I had 2, as I was forced to stay on the ship for the second day at Ashdod, I was not even able to go into Ashdod. Read more