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The (in)famous Aqaba Nuweiba ferry crossing

The (in)famous Aqaba Nuweiba ferry crossing

Old Apr 21, 2010, 10:18 am
  #1  
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Join Date: Mar 2009
Location: GVA,OPO
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The (in)famous Aqaba Nuweiba ferry crossing

I recently took the Aqaba Nuweiba trip by ferry. There are so may tales of and different versions of it around the internet I decided to start this thread hoping that it may help future travellers.

I had toured Jordan for 5 days and ended the trip in Aqaba. I wanted to move on to Egypt for a 4 night stay at the Hilton Nuweiba. So the ferry crossing was the best direct route to reach it.

Some facts:
There are 2 ferries a day in each direction. 8am and 1pm from Aqaba.
Ferry is operated by ABmaritime (AB). website here
One way ticket 70 USD or the equivalent at day exchange rate in JD (~50 JD in my case).
This includes the departure tax from Jordan, so ignore the tax departure desks on the ground floor in the port as you'll not need it.
The advice is to be there 2-3 hours in advance which may be advisable if you have not bought the ticket in advance as it can get packed and with some queues with people who want to do so for the next departure.
You can buy the ticket in advance (I bought mine the day before)
The tickets can be bought either directly at port (7 km south of Aqaba) or in the reservation office in the center of Aqaba ( Al-Petra St, near Humam Supermarket). Ask around as it's not that easy to find (feedback from fellow passengers that took the same boat).
With ticket in advance 1 hour should be enough (recommended by AB person).
As you arrive at the Port there is a large tow away container where you can drop your luggage just before the guardhouse where your taxi/transport will drop you off. Consider this the act of faith of the trip.
After you arrive at the Port and before you board you have to make your way to the immigration desk on the first floor (almost opposite the AB desks) to stamp you out of Jordan. Took me 3 minutes for 5 travellers with EU passports.
There is a duty free shop (small but with with a good stock and offer of wine/spirits and tobacco) and a restaurant as well on the first floor.
After this you come back down or stay on the first floor and wait.
Boarding will be done to a bus (with AB logo) that is either in front of the main door or towards the left at the entrance of the quay. Keep your eye on this bus and follow the locals. All announcements are in Arabic, so I took the follow the locals approach.
There will be a passport check inside the bus to ensure your passport carries the Jordan exit stamp.
Drive 1 minute into the quay and dropped off right next to the boat.
Board and drop the luggage you're still carrying and make your way upstairs.
You'll be given an Egypt entry form you have to complete before the boat leaves. There was a long queue but foreigners bypassed this queue and you have your passport stamped for Egypt entry right there. For Sinai visa only it was free. A couple of other passengers managed to buy the full Egypt visa (do not know the cost) in this process.
Boat departs and arrives in Nuweiba 1 hour and change after.
You pick up your luggage and exit the boat. between boat arrival and exit it was a long 30 minutes wait for buses and cars to exit the ferry.
Board a bus again for another minute or so ride
Now, if you had dropped the luggage on the containers in Aqaba be prepared for a twilight zone of luggagespotting at the bus arrival area as there will be hundreds of luggages that were picked up from the containers and are scattered around in smaller carts compliment of handlers seeking Baksheesh . Be sure your luggage has a distinctive colour or something that can make you spot it easily. If I were to repeat the trip I'm not sure I would have done it again. Those 10 minutes were pretty long, although the locals were very friendly and trying to help.
Once luggage is retrieve and you've stopped laughing hysterically and high fiving you're travel mates about the all thing make your way to the exit.
Go through the x-ray for the luggage. Foreigners are pushed to the front of the queue again here.
Turn right and walk 300 mts to the exit.
You'll be approached by the taxi drivers (they have their own queue system), state your destination, haggle the price and that's it. FWIW I paid 40 EGP (5€) to the Hilton which is a 5-7 minute drive.
I kept the contact of the driver and it was him that in the end took us for a side visit to St. Catherine's monastery and the ride to the Eilat border.

I noticed as I wrote along I became less factual, but it's all there

Hope this helps future travellers.

GBM
GBM.flights is offline  
Old May 3, 2010, 6:57 am
  #2  
 
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: CPT
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Exclamation And now in reverse Nouweiba to Aqaba!

I did the ferry crossing starting from Nouweiba and this was my experience:

We were based in Dahab (one hour south of Nouweiba) for 5 days and tried to organise the tickets from there. Getting information was almost impossible. The Meridien where we were staying said they have no agency for selling tickets and suggested we contact a TA in Dahab town.

The AB Maritime web site says there are 2 fast ferries a day leaving Nouweiba at 11:00 and 17:00. I phoned their Nouweiba number and was told that the ferry was at 2pm. When I said are you sure its 2pm? the response yes, 16h00. So I said is it 2pm or 16h00? and the response was yes.

Obviously this wasnt getting me anywhere. So through a friend I went to Embah Safari Tours & Travel, one of the oldest travel agencies in Dahab. The agent was adamant there is only one fast ferry and it leaves at 2.30pm. He quoted me USD95 per ticket and confirmed when I asked that they were 1st class and EGP180 for the transfer for 2 pax. I knew the latter was over the odds but the former is just USD5 more than the web site prices so I decided to go with them.

The mini bus picked us up at 10:30 from the Meridien and went via some sort of office in Dahab (really a hut outside a hotel) where our passports and documents were scrutinised. I think this has to do with control of exporting antiquities. Then we drove uneventfully to Nouweiba. Once in the massively sprawling port precinct our driver stopped at a building some way removed from the main activity and went to purchase our tickets. I had suspected this would happen and it presumably accounted at least partially for the need to leave so early. This took the better part of half an hour.

When he returned with the tickets I saw that the price printed on them was USD70 which is the price quoted online for 2nd class. So I rang the agency but the agent claimed there was only one class and the difference was the departure tax. Hmmm suckered. I would have been happy with a surcharge if their assistance had done anything to ameliorate the chaos that was still to come.

As it was our driver just dropped us off at a large open area next to the entrance to the port itself. Despite a very long queue of people snaking all along the perimeter wall, we were instructed to go straight to the gate and enter there. Documents were checked and we entered and were vaguely pointed in a direction (straight ahead). There was a trailer with some luggage on it but no indication that we should drop ours off so we hung on to it. After walking some way in the open we had no idea where we were headed. A kindly soul having his lunch on a bench indicated we should go left. This brought us to a building with a very large empty hall apart from several booths at the end. Enquiries confirmed that this was indeed the departure area.

Having filled in our forms we went through immigration and once on the far side were in another vast, grim hall reminiscent of film sets of poor refugees being deported from a hostile country. This hall was filled with wooden slatted benches and hordes of people. There seemed to be vaguely discernable areas of seating but no indication in English of what they signified. We sat down and settled into our books awaiting our fate with Zen-like forbearance. At this stage we were the only non-Arabs around. At regular intervals a vociferous young man would roam around vending hot tea and there was also a snack bar with a small selection of non-perishable items. And a cell phone shop. The toilets were not quite as vile as one might have expected.

At various intervals there would be much shouting and jostling and part of the crowd would be lined up against a wall preparing to leave via one of the doors. It was all very raucous and surly with people being treated like so many cattle. Later on the officials also started regularly chasing people away from some of the benches in our vicinity. We, however, were left alone and whenever I approached an official or was approached by one, they were very much more civil towards me than they were to their fellow Arabs.

At some stage I was told that we would leave at 3pm. I began to deduce that our boat would indeed most likely leave at 16h00 and not 2pm or 2.30pm as variously claimed. At about 3pm we were told to go to the exit where we boarded a bus. The handful of Europeans who had gathered by now was sent out first. We were still dragging our luggage but the driver did not deign to open the luggage stowage or even the rear door at this stage. Maybe they didnt function: the bus was such an old wreck it was a miracle it made the few hundred metres to the boat. Once the Europeans were on board the bus was filled to the gills with some of the locals travelling with women in their party.

At the dockside once again the whiteys got to board first. The apartheid was beginning to be very embarrassing but I saw no signs of resentment from the locals. We left our luggage in the cargo area as we boarded and made our way upstairs. In contrast to everything we had experienced that day the cabin was quite nice (as can be seen on the web site). We were asked to sit on the port side and were settled in when a steward came and started inviting various people to follow him to the 1st class cabin. Eventually we too got the nod and were soon ensconced in the rather more luxurious seating in the more exclusive cabin upstairs. From our new seats we could watch as the massive slow ferry sailed out crammed with people on the decks.

Sure enough at 4pm the engines started thrumming and soon we too slid out of the harbour 4 hours after arriving in Nouweiba! There were snack bars where beverages and snacks were available for sale. After awhile we were told to go to the lower cabin for immigration formalities. By this stage the lower cabin was packed with every available seat taken. (This presumably explains our elevation to the upper cabin: with seats in demand those who paid the high, foreigner prices were upgraded. Presumably too the higher price explained our VIP treatment throughout the journey.)

We queued at a booth where passports were examined. Those who would be getting visas on arrival (including Americans and Canadians) had to relinquish their passports and these were returned to them at the immigration desk in Aqaba. To my surprise and delight I was told South Africans do not need a visa and my passport was stamped and given back to me at once. (As an aside I cannot tell you all how satisfying this was even though visas in Aqaba are free. S Africans need a visa for just about anywhere in the world and it is the bane of my life having to go through all the rigmarole and expense and watching my passport fill up long before it expires. To finally find a place where we get singled out for preferential treatment was wonderfully cheering. )

The trip took quite a bit longer than the scheduled 1 hour (though we did pass the slow ferry en route) and docking added another 10 minutes. Then the 1st class coterie was herded though the folks in steerage (who were obviously under strict instructions not to move) and into a rear room. There ensued a chaotic process of calling out of various Arabic names and identification of a handful of people that took another 15 minutes. (The amount of confusion made it really hard to believe that those involved had ever done this before.) Thereafter we the chosen people were allowed to go down, collect our stuff and disembark.

On the pier we waited for a bus that came 5 minutes later and took us to the immigration offices. While the others waited for their passports to be processed we S Africans revelled in being able to change some money and go straight to customs, have our luggage scanned and be first out for the taxi touts waiting to take us into town.

With the numerous points at which one has to wait for things to happen, the disembarkation must have added at least another 45 minutes to our travelling time. Having stopped at Avis to pick up our car (also none too quickly) I was astounded to realise that we arrived at our hotel at after 9pm (including the hour lost in the time zone change). After the long, dirty, confusing and tiring day it felt really good to be swaddled in the sophisticated luxury of the Aqaba Kempinski.

Would I do it again? Preferably not. Its not that its dangerous or particularly difficult. It is just incredibly tedious and uncomfortable until you are on board. And you need a very high tolerance for bureaucratic incompetence to cope. We survived it with our good humour in tact largely because I had been forewarned by the various blogs and trip reports on the net.

It could have been made a lot easier if I had managed to find an agency that bought tickets beforehand and delivered us to the ship just in time for boarding. (That would have allowed us to leave Dahab at 2 instead of 10h30 and obviated the dreadful waiting room experience.) We saw one tour operators mini bus on the pier dropping off passengers as we were preparing to board. Obviously that is the way to do it and it wasnt for lack of trying that I was unable to arrange it.

The alternative would have been flights from SSH to AMM or AQJ via CAI - so very expensive and probably just as time consuming. In the end it boils down to price versus comfort. The really dispiriting part is that AB Maritime has the right hardware the boats are modern, comfortable and feel very safe but officialdom manages to make the whole experience excruciating by virtue of chaotic passenger handling at both ends.

Hope this helps.
Cheetah_SA is offline  
Old Jan 26, 2015, 7:51 am
  #3  
 
Join Date: Jan 2015
Posts: 1
Hello!
I spent very much time in internet but didn't found any fresh info (and during 3 last years in Egypt situation changing very fast) about ferries from Egypt to Aqaba.
How i understand the ferry/boat Taba-Aqaba is only for group tourists (and impossible come to ferry port and buy ticket there)??

So now it is possible if i buy ticket just at Nuweiba port at the same day when i planning coming to Nuweiba???
Or there is limited number of tickets and i must take a reservation?

And can i buy just one-way ticket for trip Nuweiba-Aqaba ??
Or return ticket valid for how many days??)

And ferries running daily?? Or there is several ferries in every day?

Or there is very fresh trustful updated info on any website?

In advance thanks for the information
Stanko Bashin is offline  
Old Feb 14, 2015, 2:11 am
  #4  
 
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 1
Pure hell for hardcore lovers

I took the ferry 13th of Feb 2015 and it was the worst travel experience in 20 years of my travel. There is only one ferry per day. It's suppose to leave aqaba at midnight. I was stupid enough to belive lady in travel office on the corniche that there is another ferry at 2 PM and went with my backpack to the port only to find out that there is no ferry during the day and you can not buy ticket at the aqaba port. So i went back to town and bought a ticket for the night ferry in maritime travel next to jett bus stop. They speak English and they call the ferry to make sure the ferry will leave. It's important as the ferry do not operate during bad weather. I had to wait one day because of sand storm. They tell you to be 3 hours before departure that is 9 pm. Ticket is 70$ or 50jd. At the port go thru lorry gate showing you passport and ticket. Then you have to go to the building on the left pay exit tax 10jd and go upstairs to immigration. Have your pass and exit tax stamped. Then you can go downstairs and wait. There is a booth with big INFORMATION sign. They said boarding will stat at midnight. At midnight they said 2 am. At 2 am - 3 am etc. Unless you speak some arabic you will not find anything as nobody speaks english there. They were nice enough to let me stay inside the booth. Local people had to stay outside with temperature around 10 degree. All the snack stalls are closed so better bring your sandwiches and hot tea or coffee with you as you cant buy anything there. Finally the ferry arrived from Nuweiby after 3 am but we had to wait until 9 am for boarding. I speak some arabic but still was not able to determine what was the problem and why we are delayed. Then i had to wait in line to get boarded show again your pass ticket and exit tax stamp. On board they take your ticket and you can find a seat. The aircondition is on despite the cold weather. Finally at 11 am the engine starts. 11 hours after departure time. Travel time is a little over 2 hours so more then 1 hour everybody said. Upon arrival we had to wait another hour before we could disembark. Finaly i could skip long line of local people being searched by police and go and search for my passport who was taken by officer on board. Again they dont tell you anything. Just take your pass and tell you to get it in nuweiba. The terminal there is quite big but as i was only European i found officer in... Bank and retrieve my passport. So at 2 pm - after 17 hours after i came to aqaba port i was finally in Egypt. The worst though is missinformation you get (every hour they said it will leave after an hour) and the testament the local people get from police, immigration and staff. I lived in Egypt for 3 years but i really felt this we are all criminals in prison. There are no tourists on this ship so if you want to see how Arabs are treated by their gouvernmenta and what means customer service here - do so. Otherwise just go via Eliat. After all 3 hours of intrrrogation on Israeli border you are facing sounds like fun comparing to the ferry experience. Or fly to Egypt for double price of the ferry. This will be wisely spend money...
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