Ferry from Iskenderun to Egypt suspended
 

Hi,

i just saw that UN RORO has suspended their route from Iskenderun to Egypt.
To my knowledge that was the only remaining option to get into Egypt.

I saw the link further down in this forum but the collection of information here is pretty outdated.

Any more recent information / alternate operators?

We are leaving in September. so still a few weeks to go. With some luck they might be resuming the route but I sure would like to have a plan B.

David

Nothing yet ?
 

Hi David,

I have the same problem has you, I've been spending long hours in the internet looking for an alternative route, not very sucsesful so far. There is a ferry from Marseille to Tunisia, but you can not cross Libya, meaning you need to go west ! I hope you find a plan B soon ! keep us up to date in your crossing !

Cheers,

Gilberto

Hi!
I will go with a Land Cruiser from Spain and i contacted several options. RoRo and container. Between 7 and 14 days they will take to cover the route Valencia - Port Said.
I don´t your starting point, but maybe if you need it I can send you the companies that I contacted.
Greetings

Iskenderum to Egyptr just opened up again.

RORO service back in acjtion as is heard.

sakke

Hi

thanks for your replies.
I also found Salamis who are operating a line between Cyprus (starting in greece) and Haifa. That's what I have arranged for me now.

David

Hi!
I try to answer a private message but I don´t know if I did it right because i can´t find it, and now they say that I need 5 post to write a private message, so i answer it here:
I had a quotation from Sagunto (Spain, close to valencia) to Alexandria at euro 700 plus euro 110,00 loading charges and euro 90 customs formalities. The contact is Mario.Manni@agencies.it
Greetings

Options now that Israel/Gaza is rocketland...
 

We had planned to take the ferry from Haifa to Cyprus, but are now looking at other options - might be that the region is calm again when we arrive there in a month (currently in Ethiopia), but right now does not look like it.

We wrote to UN Roro (http://www.unroro.com), Worms ACS (Worms Alex) and Salamis, to find out if there is any option from Egypt to Europe that does not break the bank (or our nerves - we have heard horror stories of the Egyptian customs). If anyone has any recent experience here, please share!

Hi,
Salamis is not going to Egypt. UNRORO is operating the route to iskenderun again. They are usually friendly and supportive. Best to call them at the Iskenderun office. They tend not to answer emails.

I would not be too much concerned about Israel. The people have the situation well under control. As long as you are not getting close to gaza you will be in Israel at least as safe as you have been anywhere in afrika.

I'll be taking the salamis ship to Haifa in two weeks.

David

I just got an email back from UNRORO.

Stephan,

I’m sorry to tell you that we had to re-suspend the line due to lack of demand. I’ve heard that some other company has started the service on the same line.

Saygılarımla, Best Regards

R.Sinan Asil | Commercial Department


I also got an email from two overlanders who just took the ferry to Port Said from Iskenderun. The agency is Catoni Shipping. I've send them an email but they didn't reply yet.

Tunisia
 

I guys,

Kind of good news. I spoke with a couple of guys from Scotland who went (Motorbikes) from Edinburgh to Cape Town last year (Sept-Dec), they took the ferry to Tunisia and cross over Libya, I know there is few "thread" which stated that is not possible but I spoke with them and saw all their videos in Libya. No problems at all while crossing and border crossing. The gave me a contact, a guy who run a travel agency in Libya and I spoke with him last week, he help them in Libya. He told me that as far as 3 weeks ago a spanish couple in a motorbike crossed Libya without any problem. He also told me that right now it's some problems and need to wait at least after the ramadan. Obviously you need to get a Libya visa (£150), very expensive, and you need to pay for Arab number plates at the border, also you need a letter of invite from some one in Libya. As always, things change very quick in this area and you need to explore a plan B. Also I don't know how difficult or easy will be for car-4x4's !

Hi Matpat,

while it might be technically possible to pass through Libya I don't think it is currently a good idea to do so! It is a ride of about 2000km through a country that is basically at war. They are currently even closing the foreign embassies and calling back their people.
If that other company that is operating the route from Turkey is not working than the best other option is still Salamis to Haifa. You need a second passport ( I would not rely on the "Stamp on an extra paper" option. If that fails your trip ends at the border to Sudan) but this should not be an issue for most countries.

Regards,
David

Boarding the ferry from Port Said to Iskenderun today
 

Hi guys

Just a quick update (we will post the details of this in the HUBB transfer section once we are back home): we are taking the ferry from Port Said to Iskenderun, the bikes are already in customs, the ship has arrived in port this morning and we will board today or tomorrow early.
We have used Eslam as fixer - dirt expensive, always late and definitely not our favourite fixer-guy (that would be Mazar in Sudan), but he gets the job done (it seems!), and we do not have to deal with the multitude of Baksheesh requests on our own - he takes care of all that.
We pay 250$ per bike + 150$ per person + 500 Eg. Pound shipping order p.p. + 1500 Eg. Pound for the fixer p.p. We do not have to pay anything else here for port or customs, but port charges in Turkey will come on top, though we heard that is not that much (hope that is true).
The ferry has been running now for one or two months, before that it was going Damietta - Iskenderun, now it's Port Said (don't ask me why, our Egyptian biker friends also did not know why.. just one of these Egyptian riddles, I guess...).
You can track the boat on marinetraffic.com, just search for the vessel CENK Y. It's been fairly regular traffic up to now. Hope it stays like that :-)

As far as we know, this is the cheapest option to go to Turkey from the African continent. The other option is to take the ferry from Haifa to Cyprus, cross the island and then take another ferry from the northern part to the Turkish Mainland. If you add up the costs for ports and ferries, the Cyprus route would be slightly more expensive than leaving from Egypt directly for Turkey (actually a lot more expensive for us, as our GreenCard does not cover Israel and we would have had to buy another insurance there at the border - which is not cheap, we heard).

As written above, we will put this in the HUBB in more detail once we are home. Will of course also include it in our presentation at the HUBB Germany Autumn meeting in October, in case any one of you is there :-).

Cheers from Port Said
Anne

""but port charges in Turkey will come on top, though we heard that is not that much (hope that is true).""

When you are at the Turkish side, probably a fixer will ask for your passports to do paperwork for you saying that he works for the ship company.

Definitely all customs purposes are free and easy to enter turkey so you can do all yourself..

What you need to do at the gate is;
1-Buy your visa if you dont have already.
2-Buy turkish traffic insurance policy for say 3 months.
3-Find the customs officers to have the vehicle checked.
4-Get the stamp for the vehicle on your passport page for max.180 days.(will be same with your road ins. validity date.)
5-Have last check of the doc. at the port exit gate.
6-Freedom and time to discover Turkey and enjoy your trip..

Wish you all the best.

That sounds handy! Does this ferry take trucks? And is there a link to the company email / web anywhere please?

Anything new about Turkey to Egypt with car?

Looking for a solution around the 14.th of oktober 2014 with My Classic Morris Mini :)

/Daniel