Cruise lines Uniworld (river cruises), Royal Caribbean and Princess have scrapped Turkish ports from their itineraries.
These leading names in cruise industry follow the likes of Celebrity Cruises, Azamara, Cunard, Holland America Line and P&O Cruises, which have all pulled Turkey from itineraries this year.
There are now only a few remaining cruise lines who will call in at Turkish ports, excluding Istanbul. These include luxury cruise line Silversea – it still calls in at Kusadasi, Marmaris and Canakkale on some cruises. Celestyal Cruises, based in Greece, is also still stopping at Kusadasi and Cesme.
Royal Caribbean has announced it is replacing Kusadasi with Kotor in Montenegro or Rhodes, Mykonos or Chania in Greece.
This will be the case for all cruises in 2017, with shore excursion costs for Turkey refunded.
Princess has also confirmed it will pull Turkey out of all 2017 itineraries and passengers will be refunded for all shore excursions.
However, the line hasn’t as yet announced which ports it might use as alternatives.
Similarly, Uniworld has confirmed it is scrapping stops at all Turkish ports for 2017, but has yet to provide an alternative.
Turkey, previously a hugely popular destination with British tourists, was subject to a number of terrorist attacks last year.
There was an attack in Istanbul airport in June 2016 that resulted in 42 deaths and, on December 11, a twin bomb attack on police outside a football stadium in Istanbul killed 38 people.
On January 1 2017, there was an attack on the Reina nightclub in Ortakoy, Istanbul; 39 people were killed and 69 injured.
After the attacks in the summer, cruise lines started pulling out of trips to Istanbul, including Crystal, Disney and MSC Cruises.