Holidays+from+Sudan+-+Jordan,+Syria+&+Lebanon

__ Khartoum- Amman __ Transportation: Royal Jordanian Depart Khartoum: 0545 Arrive Amman : 0835 Length of trip: @3 hours Cost: $502 per person // Note: Royal Jordanian offers a 25% discount if the tickets are booked directly with their office. Olympia travel offers 6% discount to all UN agencies // Accommodation: Four Seasons Hotel [|www.fourseasons.com/amman] tel. 00 962 6 550 5555 Cost: 100 JD/night dbl plus 20% tax) // Note: the Four Seasons Hotel offers a UN rate. It also has a meet and assist service from/to the airport at a reasonable rate. The airport greeter will assist you inside the arrival terminal with the visa, passport registration as well as luggage handling followed by escorting to your BMW limousine. // Activities: shopping! two big shopping centers  __ Amman-Petra __    Transportation: Car Rental: Thrifty Care Rental   Telephone: 962 6 568 4771   Cost: approximately $600 (for one week)   Length of trip: approximately 2-3 hours  Accommodation: Moevenpick   [|www.moevenpick-hotels.com/hotels/Petra_Resort]   tel. +962 3 215 7111   Cost: 76 JD/night  Activities:  Petra __ Petra- Wadi Rum __ Transporation: Rental car    Cost: see above   Length of trip: approximately 1 hour  Accommodation:  Bedoin Camp in the Desert [|www.rumguides.com] Cost: 80 JD per person. Activities: jeep/camel trek with Wadi Rum Mountain Guides: guided drive around desert and lunch, dinner and sleep at desert camp, 3-4 hour camel trek followed by lunch. // Note: It is a good idea to have some sort of baby carrier if you are planning to take a small child on the camel. Additionally, for sleeping, you can either sleep inside a Bedoin tent or just alongside it by the fire, or a bit further off on the dune “under the stars” as you wish. You do not need to bring along any particular equipment beyond a rucksack or shoulder bag for daytime necessities (e.g. a camera, a bottle of water, some kind of head covering, perhaps a light sweater or something with long sleeves. Trekking sandals are best for camel riding and generally shorts are not a good idea for camel riding // __ Wadi Rum- Dead Sea __ Transportation: Rental car   Cost: see above   Length of trip: approximately 3-4 hours – scenic route) Accommodation: Moevenpick Resort and Spa [|www.moevenpick-deadsea.com] tel. +962 5 356 1111 Cost:JD 100.00++ per double deluxe room per night (also a “supplement” of JOD 20.00++ is charged for Thursday and Friday – weekend) Activities: swimming in the Dead Sea (obviously), swimming in the swimming pool, lots of overpriced spa treatments and the hotel has 4-5 restaurants within its compound. __ Dead Sea – Amman __ Transportation: Rental car Cost: see above Length of trip: approximately 1-2 hours Accommodation: Four Seasons __ Amman ____ – Damascus __ Transportation: Taxi hired through hotel Cost: approximately $60 (high cost due to Ramadan) Length of trip: approximately 2-3 hours including border crossing Accommodation: Four Seasons Tel. 963 (11) 339 1000 Cost: $145 inclusive of accommodation and buffet breakfast. Per room per night for double occupancy plus 10% services and 11% taxes Activities: wandered around the souks // Note: The Four Seasons Damascus has a UN rate. It also has a meet and assist service from/to the airport at the rate of USD 80.00 for international flights. The airport greeter will assist you inside the arrival terminal with the visa, passport registration as well as luggage handling followed by escorting to yoru BMW 7-Series limousine. // __ Damascus- Aleppo-Damascus __ Transportation: We borrowed a friend’s car and drove Cost: n/a Length of trip: The road was not great, though and there was a very serious bus accident on our trip home. Accommodation: Dar Zamaria Hotel Tel. 963 21 363 6100 Cost: $112/night including breakfast and tax. Activities: we wandered around the souk __ Damascus-Beirut __ Transportation: Taxi hired through hotel Cost: approximately $30 Length of trip: 2-3 hours including border crossing Accommodation: with friends Activities: wandered around the city, American university, shopping, visited Byblos (approximately 1-1/2 hours away). __ Beirut ____ – Amman – Khartoum __ Transportation: not sure, but think: Depart Beirut @9pm Arrive Amman @11 Depart Amman 0135 Arrive Khartoum 0435 Secondly, we all did a number of spa treatments at the Movenpick spa which is reputedly to be one of the best spas at the Dead Sea. We found it all to be a bit over-rated and expensive. But… you cannot go to the Dead Sea and not get a Dead Sea Salt scub and try out the mud at the oldest spa in the world… What do you wish you could have fit into the trip? ** Nothing else! There was too much already! Although my husband would say more Wadi Rum, more Crusader Castles in Syia and more historical sites in Lebanon.
 * Destination: ** Jordan, Syria and Lebanon
 * Dates of travel: ** October 5-21, 2007
 * Number and Age of Children: ** 1 son age 11 months
 * Itinerary (where possible, ** **please include method of travel, departure and arrival times, accommodation, prices, names of restaurants, activities, shopping, etc.)**
 * Language: ** Arabic, English, French
 * Food: ** Wide ranging- most hotels had excellent breakfast buffets and a good choice of food options. The general Middle Eastern fare was available plus in places like Amman and Beirut pretty much any type of food was available.
 * Kid-specific activities: ** Given our son’s age, we were more interested in Adult activities! Clearly, swimming pools, camel rides, playing in the sand, etc
 * What went really well: ** In general, the whole trip went really well. Probably the favourites of the trip were Petra, the Bedoin camp at Wadi Rum was fantastic (they really made an effort to help us to prepare and to accommodate our son. For example, during our 2-3 hour camel ride, they agreed to follow us with a jeep, so that when our son starting fussing about being on the camel, we were able to jump in the jeep and follow along) and the souk in Damascus was also wonderful.
 * What you would do differently: ** My son turned into a bit of a picky eater – in part, due to the fact that we were completely off routine and also in part because we were eating in busy and thus distracting restaurants. In retrospect, it probably would have been good to build in a bit more quiet downtime around meal time and eat either at the restaurants when they were less busy, the hotel room or another quiet place. Also, it would have been helpful to plan his eating a bit more in advance of the trip and bring some better snacks and jarred food.
 * General Comments: ** Middle Easterners love kids, so our son was welcomed absolutely everywhere we went. The region is filled with history and as a result many interesting sites to visit. While the flight to Amman is inconvenient (i.e. at 0545), on the plus side, it was only three hours and your arrive at a decent hour in the morning (i.e. 0835). So, with a good 4-5 hour nap, you still have time to do some interesting stuff on the first day.