Thank you for all the valuable feedback on our Istanbul to Athens Cruise on Oceania Riviera. Over 300 of you responded and the clear winner by a large margin was…Crete!

It’s taken us a few days to get port approvals and clearance from Oceania, but we’re now ready to update our itinerary for this summer’s sailing in a way that we think you’ll love.

We’ve crafted a revised itinerary that not only includes your top requested destination, but also allowed us to make some overall improvements to timing and experience in our other ports.

Here are the highlights:

• We will now call in Alexandria, Egypt for Cairo (replacing Port Said) with an extended visit until midnight. Alexandria is both closer to Cairo and as a city offers a myriad of historical and cultural attractions on its own. With our extended stay you’ll have plenty of time to see the Pyramids as well as some of the highlights in Alexandria. We’ve been there before and are very excited about this change!

• We’re moving the Mykonos day back one day, allowing us to extend our stay until 2 am, which gives you more beach time, a great sunset, and a real evening out on one of the world’s most fascinating islands.

• Finally, our new call in Crete will be to the masterly preserved historical city of Chania. Renowned for its stunning waterfront and blend of ancient and modern Venetian, Turkish, and Greek architecture, Chania offers a welcoming experience with plenty of historical treasures nearby. We can’t wait to show you this dazzlingly beautiful destination for our first visit since 2015!

Our completely new itinerary is now as follows:

Over the next few days, we’ll update our website with this new itinerary.

Later this month we will also send you some details on exciting tour and hotel options in Istanbul and Athens.

Finally, should the situation in Israel improve to the point that tourism is practical, we will consider returning to the original itinerary. This also seemed to be the guiding preference from our survey.

Thank you again for your support and input. We are excited for this magnificent journey and have an amazing time in store for you onboard Oceania Riviera this summer!

Warm regards,

Rich Campbell
President

We wanted to update you on our itinerary for your upcoming Istanbul to Athens Cruise and get some feedback regarding our decisions.

As we said in our past email, we have been closely watching the situation in Israel and at this stage we feel it is prudent to proactively substitute Tel Aviv with a different port in the Med. The good news is that we have plenty of options to choose from and want your input on where you’d like to go.

At a later date, we may consider adding Tel Aviv back to the itinerary if the situation clears up and enough guests are interested in going.

The only port on your itinerary that will change is Tel Aviv. All the other ports in Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt and Greece are confirmed including Cairo which is both welcoming tourists and expecting a record year of visitor arrivals in 2024. Our day at the Pyramids promises to be spectacular and there are no security concerns pending in Egypt. We also might extend our time there slightly when we revise the itinerary.

Please take 5 minutes to answer a few quick questions so we gauge your interest in the options in front of us at the following survey link:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/RivieraPorts24

We will email you with the results of this survey on Thursday and hopefully announce our revised itinerary on Friday.

Thank you for your support and feedback! We can’t wait to share this extraordinary journey with you this summer on the gorgeous Oceania Riviera! It’s going to be a sensational trip.

Warm regards,

Rich Campbell
President

We look forward to seeing you this summer onboard the amazing Oceania Riviera for our Istanbul to Athens cruise. Many of you have expressed concerns about the situation in the Israel and how it might impact our sailing, so I thought it would be useful to clarify our status and outlook.

Since our cruise is about half a year in the future, Atlantis and Oceania are hopeful that the state of affairs and tourism will return to normal in Israel well before our scheduled sailing. Atlantis is aware of and appreciates that Oceania may have preliminarily canceled other 2024 sailings to Israel, but those changes do not apply to our charter.

Atlantis continues to work closely with Oceania to monitor the circumstances, and once we get closer to our sailing date, we will make a definitive decision on whether we need to alter the itinerary to provide an exceptional experience. Atlantis and Oceania place safety above all considerations and always monitor world events closely to make operational decisions using informed advice from a variety of sources.

Should there be the slightest risk to our guests and crew, we will of course modify the itinerary. Given the multitude of excellent destinations in the region, there would likely be minimal impact to your overall vacation experience.

All the ports on our itinerary are confirmed as listed on our website. Egypt is currently welcoming tourists and there have been no additional warnings on travel to Egypt or concerns since October. Unless something significant changes, we would likely only swap Israel for one of the other sensational ports along our itinerary path. There are plenty of great options available to us!

In order to give you more time and take any financial pressure off decisions, we will extend the deadline for our second payment one month to February 15. As a reminder, our cancellation penalty does not change until February 18, and should the situation remain the same we will likely extend that date as well.

We will send a survey out to all guests in the next 2 weeks to gauge your interest in alternate ports in order to be prepared for any possible changes.

Finally, we are working on some excellent pre and post cruise packages for Istanbul and Athens. We have outstanding tour companies in both cities and will have details to you in early February.

I hope that this information is useful and know that all of you are looking forward to this incredible journey. Thank you again for your continued support and we cannot wait to show you this part of the world on the amazing Oceania Riviera.

Thank you.

Warm regards,

Rich Campbell
President