Egypt, following Turkey, refused to accept the cruise ship The Scarlet Lady with LGBT passengers on board, Daily Mail reports.
The vessel was chartered by the travel company Atlantis Events for an LGBT cruise. According to the outlet, around 2,000 passengers learned that the call at Alexandria had been canceled from a notice delivered to their cabins in the morning. Egyptian authorities did not give an official reason.
A few days earlier, Turkish authorities denied the ship entry to the ports of Kuşadası and Istanbul. A statement said the vessel had been chartered by a group whose behavior “does not correspond to the structure of society and moral values” of the country.
Atlantis Events CEO Rich Campbell said that in the company’s 36 years of operation, this was the first time a cruise ship had been denied entry to a port “because of who we are.”
After Turkey’s refusal, the route was changed to add a stop in Egypt, but that call was later canceled as well. Instead of Alexandria, the ship will head to Kotor, Montenegro. There are about 2,000 passengers on board, including around 1,100 US citizens.