We have often heard people say that transiting the Suez canal is boring - we certainly cannot agree with that, and neither could the huge majority of the ship's passengers who spent a large amount of time on their feet on the various upper decks watching the scenery pass by. We found it very interesting - even fascinating - but exhausting. This was because we first went onto the rear upper decks at around 4.30AM - and finally collapsed into our "Happy hour" chairs on the Promenade deck at around 4PM, unable to stand up anymore.
Our perceptions of the Suez Canal were all wrong - we were expecting nothing but sand, sand all around. We were not expecting the fertile agriculture, industry and high density living on the left hand side of the Canal (the main State of Egypt side). It is almost impossible to show you enough photos to give you an idea of the changing scenery. We saw farmers, soldiers, fishermen - donkeys, goats,oxen - military bases by the dozen - orange and palm groves, - and, yes, of course, sand. The people along the Canal appeared to be very friendly - waving, whistling and calling to us - fishermen showing their fish to us. The soldiers on guard were probably the most excited to see us - it surprised us because we would have expected our passage to be quite commonplace to them - perhaps they were bored in their little lonely outposts. We saw a very large Army base with about 1000 men on Parade - along with dozens of Tanks, armoured vehicles, rocket launchers.
All in all - we highly recommend the passage through the Suez Canal - remember, you have to be on a ship to do it, whereas you can go to Egypt to see it's ancient wonders anytime.
You can view a Youtube slideshow of pictures taken during our Suez canal transit here
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