Fighting for deck space!

This ship is fantastic! Everything is included in the price and they even come around with sunscreen lotion!

Plus……there are only 450 passengers. This means that the normal fight for sun loungers on sea days is a distant memory. Here we are…….which bed shall we choose?!

Last Day

Last day of the holiday. We have spent the last 3 days being very lazy staying at possibly the best Marriott hotel we have stayed in. It has beautiful public rooms, is very spacious with great views of the Dead Sea. We did go down to the sea and floated for 2 mins to say we'd done it!

It had beautiful flowers and a number of pools........including an adults only infinity pool where the 'no kids under 18 policy' was strictly enforced. Kids and their parents were turned away so well done Marriott!

We fly back to London tomorrow and I'm hoping the cabin steward spills wine down me again as I got an email from BA apologising and 50,000 airmiles in compensation!

We have had a great time in Jordan and would recommend Petra as a must see site to visit.

Baptism site of Jesus

Those that know us will know we are not that religious. However since we are so close to many of the historical sites from the Bible, it was only right to visit one of the most famous, the place where Jesus was baptised.


















We actually found it rather sad and disappointing. Compared to the wonderful site built by a people hundreds years before Christ at Petra, the baptism site was frankly.....well you judge for yourself.

We then moved on to where you are allowed to enter the Jordan river and here at the border with Israel we sat and watched as people collected Jordan river water in plastic bottles as well as dressing in white gowns and plunging into the water. Had this been the UK, no doubt Health and Safety would have closed the site down.

All of this under the watchful eye of armed soldiers although they weren't watching when I took the photo!

It seemed a deeply depressing place and whilst the name of Bethany and Jericho are all ones that conjured up childhood bible story memories, in reality there seems to be soldiers, barbed wire and a sense of fore-boding rather than the celebration of Jesus Christ.

Red Sea to Dead Sea

Today we moved from the Red to the Dead Sea a journey across desert taking around 3 hours before the Dead Sea came into view. We were incredibly close along the way to the border with Israel so there were a number of police although none stopped us.

We reached the Dead Sea, declining at an alarming rate according to the Jordanians because of Israel's decision to divert the Jordan river therefore not allowing it to flow from the Sea of Gallilee into the Dead Sea.

We are staying at the Marriott Dead Sea, apparently the lowest hotel on Earth! There was a fantastic sunset with Gillian taking a masterpiece of a shot looking towards the city of Jerusalem and catching the light brilliantly.

Chilling out

Having done extensive touring we are relaxing at the Red Sea. In effect we could be almost anywhere!

Wadi Rum

This was a brilliant day! We moved from Petra and came into the desert for a 4 hour, off-road drive......it was fantastic! This really was a brilliant experience and we had a wonderful guide who really tried in his broken English to explain some of the sights.

He stopped whenever he saw something interesting, something in the rocks or plants or animals.

He showed us where the 'sign posts' were in the rocks for the caravans that toured the deserts...and still do! This graffiti has a purpose, it acts as a signpost from a direction viewpoint and also a 'the water is pretty close' message too. The guide also showed us how to make soap from the plants and also where the water was located and how they got to it.

The scenery was brilliant and the sound of silence or gusts of wind playing a tune through the rocks was mesmerising. The camels were wandering around doing what camels do....and that's not be in a zoo!

We even had a cup of tea by a Bedouin tent!

...........and finally, the driver allowed me to have a go driving through the desert!

33rd Wedding anniversary!

Greetings from Jordan on our 33rd Wedding Anniversary!