Last night before going to bed, we were reviewing the some information we received from Disney concerning the time in Tunis. It seems they do not observe daylight savings time, so they are one hour earlier than ship time. The paper advised us that Disney tours would depart on ship time, not local time. We were supposed to meet for our tour at 9am, but we are on a private tour, not an official Disney tour. So, when do we show up? 9am ship time or 9am local time (10am ship time0. I tried calling our tour rep and was unable to get through. We finally decided to split the difference and show up at 9:30am.
We woke to chilly, gray skies this morning with occasional light drizzle, which was not a good omen, but we decided to press on. We left the ship and clear immigration and then met up with Kent & his family outside the cruise terminal. He said he had spoken with a Disney rep and they said that private tours would pick up from this area. We didn’t see anyone with a “Bailey” sign, so we figured we must be meeting at local time instead of ship time. That meant we would have about 30 minutes to stand around and wait.
It was chilly & breezy outside the terminal and the kids were starting to act up after about 20 minutes of standing around doing nothing. Every once in a while, we would walk to the exit area and look up & down the street for a tour rep, but we didn’t see anyone. Finally, 10 o’clock came and went, so I called our tour company again. This time, we got through and told them we had been waiting for 45 minutes and where was our guide? They said they would find out and call back. Sure enough, a few minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was our local guide. He explained that he was not allowed to come inside the gate.
So, we walked back out to the gate where we had been checking periodically…still nobody. Finally, one of the police told us to walk down the street. Turns out, there is ANOTHER outer gate. He had been there waiting for us for an hour!
Well, despite the poor start, the tour turned out great. The bus was very comfortable and we were all happy to be warm, dry, & sitting down after the wait. It was about 1:30 to the wild animal park and the guide gave us a narrated tour as we drove away from the city.
Since we were an hour behind schedule, we had to rush through the park a bit, but the pace suited us fine. We got a welcome song from a group of Zulu tribe descendants, rode camels & donkeys, saw all kinds of African animals, and enjoyed a delicious lunch al fresco while a calligrapher taught the kids how to write their names in Arabic. A belly dancing demonstration was on the itinerary, too, but we ran out of time and had to skip it. We had a relaxing drive back to the port and got back on the ship about 30 minutes before we set sail.
Now, the kids are getting cleaned up for dinner. We are going to take them to the dining room for dinner, then check them into the kids club. Tonight, we have dinner reservations at Palo’s for all the grown-up’s. I am really looking forward to it.
The Internet guy just stopped by our room to try to help me with my computer, but he was not able to log in, either. He suggested a couple different areas of the boat where I would get a stronger signal, but candidly, he told me that many passengers are hogging up all the bandwith with Skype. He suggested I visit one of the fast-food places at the next port of call which has free wi-fi. We’ll see how it goes…
We woke to chilly, gray skies this morning with occasional light drizzle, which was not a good omen, but we decided to press on. We left the ship and clear immigration and then met up with Kent & his family outside the cruise terminal. He said he had spoken with a Disney rep and they said that private tours would pick up from this area. We didn’t see anyone with a “Bailey” sign, so we figured we must be meeting at local time instead of ship time. That meant we would have about 30 minutes to stand around and wait.
It was chilly & breezy outside the terminal and the kids were starting to act up after about 20 minutes of standing around doing nothing. Every once in a while, we would walk to the exit area and look up & down the street for a tour rep, but we didn’t see anyone. Finally, 10 o’clock came and went, so I called our tour company again. This time, we got through and told them we had been waiting for 45 minutes and where was our guide? They said they would find out and call back. Sure enough, a few minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was our local guide. He explained that he was not allowed to come inside the gate.
So, we walked back out to the gate where we had been checking periodically…still nobody. Finally, one of the police told us to walk down the street. Turns out, there is ANOTHER outer gate. He had been there waiting for us for an hour!
Well, despite the poor start, the tour turned out great. The bus was very comfortable and we were all happy to be warm, dry, & sitting down after the wait. It was about 1:30 to the wild animal park and the guide gave us a narrated tour as we drove away from the city.
Since we were an hour behind schedule, we had to rush through the park a bit, but the pace suited us fine. We got a welcome song from a group of Zulu tribe descendants, rode camels & donkeys, saw all kinds of African animals, and enjoyed a delicious lunch al fresco while a calligrapher taught the kids how to write their names in Arabic. A belly dancing demonstration was on the itinerary, too, but we ran out of time and had to skip it. We had a relaxing drive back to the port and got back on the ship about 30 minutes before we set sail.
Now, the kids are getting cleaned up for dinner. We are going to take them to the dining room for dinner, then check them into the kids club. Tonight, we have dinner reservations at Palo’s for all the grown-up’s. I am really looking forward to it.
The Internet guy just stopped by our room to try to help me with my computer, but he was not able to log in, either. He suggested a couple different areas of the boat where I would get a stronger signal, but candidly, he told me that many passengers are hogging up all the bandwith with Skype. He suggested I visit one of the fast-food places at the next port of call which has free wi-fi. We’ll see how it goes…
enjoyed your blog...thanks for keeping us in the loop...sounds like a pretty good time. Hi to all. Karen Glisson
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