One of our main reasons for booking this cruise was the opportunity to visit Petra from Aqaba. We booked an outside excursion with Memphis Tours, which was recommended by other Cruise Critic users. We paid a deposit via credit card in ...
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One of our main reasons for booking this cruise was the opportunity to visit Petra from Aqaba. We booked an outside excursion with Memphis Tours, which was recommended by other Cruise Critic users. We paid a deposit via credit card in advance. We were also required to provide passport info to Memphis Tours in advance. The balance of our costs had to be paid in cash when we met with our driver. A lot of people were taking tours with Memphis and there were a lot of drivers with name signs waiting for passengers. However, there were no drivers with our names (and there were several other groups in the same predicament). We found a driver who took us to see "the man in charge." He collected the balance of our money, asked for our confirmation letter, and then worked to figure out where to put us. In the end, although we signed up for a group tour, there were only four of us in the van...so that was great. However, due to the lack of organization, we had to wait 45 minutes to straighten everything out. I would have liked that 45 minutes back in Petra.
We signed up for a combo tour of Petra and Wadi Rum. The drive to Petra was about 2 hours. Once there, our driver got our tickets and arranged a local guide. We were supposed to get horses to take us part of the way, but that would have meant not hearing what our guide had to say, so we declined (also, had heard that the horse wranglers expect tips to get off horses). The entry from the welcome center to the opening of the gorge is 700 meters. Once inside the gorge, it's a 1200-meter walk and you occasionally have to jump out of the way of horse-drawn carriages. The terrain is uneven and mostly downhill to the Treasury (which means it's uphill coming back). It was very dusty and cool as the sun doesn't get down to the path. It took about an hour to walk to the Treasury, as our guide stopped to give us information along the way. Once we got to the Treasury, we were told we had to turn around to get back to our driver. We convinced the guide to take us a little further into the city and we got as far as the amphitheater. There are steps leading up the monastery and a view of the city, but we didn't have time to do that. Because of the time of year (November) sunset is around 4:30pm, so there as a big rush to get to the spot in Wadi Rum in time to see the sunset over the desert. This meant that our time in Petra was very rushed. It took less time to get back to the Welcome Center, but it was uphill and felt like quite a climb.
After Petra, we had a buffet lunch at a local restaurant. The food was good. However, drinks are not provided and a water was $2 and a Coke was $3.
We drove 1.5 hours to Wadi Rum. Our tour included a 4x4 ride through the desert. What that means is a bumpy ride on bench seats in the back of an old Toyota pickup truck. It's fairly flat, but very windy and dusty...and fun. We stopped at the site where they filmed "The Martian," a place offering camel rides for an additional price (we declined), the site where Lawrence of Arabia and the bedouins fought the Turks, and finally to a place to watch the sunset. It was beautiful. The Wadi Rum portion of our tour was about 90 minutes. From there, were were closer to the port, about an hour away, and we returned to the port at 6:10 pm. In retrospect, if Petra is you main interest, I would recommend focusing on that as you could easily spend 5+ hours there, and we only had 2.5 hrs. Wadi Rum is cool. It's a desert like any other and not particularly special.
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