It was a trip that was just not destined to go smoothly.

Tina and Tim Palmer had long planned to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary with an epic vacation that included a cruise from Istanbul to Israel with stops in Ephesus, Izmir, and Egypt, followed by time spent in Jerusalem, the Dead Sea, and an overland excursion to Petra, Jordan. Covid postponed it twice, then they finally got underway in September.

For most of their travels, it was everything they imagined it would be. On Friday, Oct. 6, the cruise ended in Haifa, north of Tel Aviv. They took the train to Jerusalem with friends from South Carolina they had met on the cruise, then spent an enjoyable day touring Jerusalem, with plans for more on Saturday. They were planning to fly home out of Tel Aviv on Wednesday after their return from Jordan. But that plan was upended when, on Saturday morning, Hamas attacked Israel.

“We were still in bed when the sirens started,” said Tina. “I looked out the window, and things looked normal. We went down to breakfast and people were talking about the incursion.”

According to Tina, the management at the hotel was very calm about the whole thing. There was no announcement, just a paper notice flat on the front desk. If you did not go to the front desk and happen to see it, as Tina did, you would not know anything was amiss, which left the impression that the sirens were not indicative of an unusual event.

But Tina did see the notice, which instructed guests about the protocol surrounding the use of the hotel bomb shelter. “You were supposed to go to the bomb shelter when you heard the sirens, wait for the boom, and only emerge from the shelter once ten minutes had passed.” Typically, the sound of the explosions is due not to a rocket landing in Israel but rather to Israel’s sophisticated “Iron Dome” defense system intercepting any incoming rockets. This happened a couple of times that fateful Saturday morning, sending the Palmers into the hotel bomb shelter with other guests.

It all left the Palmers with the impression that this was something that happened with some regularity.

The second time that Tina and Tim were in the bomb shelter, there was a professional guide in there with a family who had hired him.

“I asked him if this was unusual and he said, yes, highly,” said Tina. “He also told us that the border with Jordan had closed and that it could be a long time before it would be reopened.”

They decided that it was time to call an end to the trip.

“Tim got on the phone and rescheduled our non-stop flight back to Boston for Sunday, the next day,” said Tina. “Two hours later it was cancelled.”

Next, the couple was rescheduled on a United flight, but that, too, was cancelled as all U.S.-based carriers had by that point stopped sending flights into Israel. After 90 minutes, they were finally rebooked on an ElAl (Israel’s national carrier) flight that would take them to Madrid at 5:30 a.m., followed by a flight to Amsterdam and then on to Boston on KLM.

“The airport was hopping at 1:30 to 2:30 in the morning, getting through the notoriously strict security at Ben Gurion airport,” said Tina. “But by 3 a.m. it felt perfectly normal.”

After more than 40 hours in transit, the Palmers landed at Logan at 8 p.m. Sunday night. By then they were well aware of the horrible slaughter that had occurred less than 50 miles from Jerusalem. “We were grateful to get out,” said Tina. “Quite a few Americans are still trying to get out.”

“We never felt unsafe in Israel,” said Tina. “It was a beautiful, clear, blue sky on Saturday. But then you would hear sirens, and locals were holding their phones to the sky and recording the puffs of smoke that were produced when the Iron Dome intercepted the rockets. It was very strange — I could never tell if the explosions were shells landing or the Iron Dome getting them.”

“Sometimes ignorance is bliss.”