Passenger Arrested, Barred From Rejoining Virgin Voyages' Scarlet Lady After Drugs Found in Crete Stop
If you're booked on this Atlantis Events charter aboard Scarlet Lady (Athens to Trieste, July 5–15), note that itinerary stops can change on short notice — Turkey, Egypt, and the added Souda, Crete call are all examples from this sailing. Check Virgin Voyages' prohibited items policy before you board: illegal drugs and non-prescribed controlled substances, including marijuana, are banned onboard and you're subject to local law the moment the ship enters a country's waters.
What jumps out to me is the sequence: Turkey and Egypt both turned this Atlantis Events charter away before Greece ever entered the picture, and only then did Souda, Crete become the substitute stop where the arrest happened. That's three disruptions in about a week for one 10-night sailing — Kuşadası and Istanbul denied, Alexandria denied, then a drug arrest in Souda. Virgin Voyages didn't cause any of that, but its own prohibited items list left no room for discretion once the Coast Guard boarded, and it held the line even after a Greek prosecutor released the passenger. My read: this is really a story about how fragile Mediterranean charter itineraries are right now, not about ship security. If I were booked on a charter like this, I'd watch the ports as closely as the drug policy — a suspended sentence didn't get this guy back onboard.