Turkey Forces Virgin Voyages LGBTQ+ Charter to Reroute

Turkey has blocked Virgin Voyages’ adults-only Scarlet Lady from calling at Kusadasi and Istanbul on an Atlantis Events LGBTQ+ charter carrying about 2,000 passengers, forcing the 10-day Athens-to-Venice cruise to drop both Turkish stops. The July 5 departure from Athens had been scheduled to reach Kusadasi on July 7 before continuing to Istanbul; Atlantis said the ship will instead add calls in Cairo and Crete.

Aydin province officials, whose jurisdiction includes Kusadasi, said the charter involved groups whose conduct was incompatible with local “moral values” and had caused public concern. Rich Campbell, president and chief executive of Atlantis Events, said it was the first time the company had been “actively told we may not berth here because of who we are.”

Atlantis reroutes and challenges Turkey’s reasoning

Atlantis told guests Thursday that Turkish authorities had canceled the calls. Campbell said about 1,100 of the 1,900 expected guests were from the United States, with others from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and additional countries.

“It’s pretty stunning, to be honest,” Campbell said. “The reasoning behind it is that it’s a gay group.” He said Atlantis had brought gay cruise charters to Istanbul and Kusadasi 13 times in the past 25 years, and that extensive calls involving the U.S. Embassy in Turkey had not persuaded authorities to reverse the decision. Atlantis was founded in 1991 and began chartering cruise ships for LGBTQ+ vacations in 1998.

Campbell rejected any suggestion that the sailing was political. “We are not there for anything except to spend money, have a good time, take tours and be incredibly respectful to every culture we visit,” he said. He also said an “Atlantis brochure” cited by Istanbul officials after a police raid at a bar was not produced by or affiliated with Atlantis.

Kusadasi has turned away a gay cruise before

Kusadasi is the main cruise gateway to Ephesus. Ege Port Kusadasi handled 995,303 cruise passengers and 617 cruise calls in 2025.

A previous denial involving gay cruise tourists at Kusadasi drew a national apology. In 2000, then-Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu apologized after police blocked more than 800 gay tourists on a cruise liner from visiting Kusadasi and Ephesus, saying, “We cannot discriminate according to people’s sexual preference.”

Same-sex relations are not criminalized in Turkey, but LGBTQ+ public events have faced repeated restrictions. Istanbul Pride, which previously drew thousands of marchers, has been banned every year since 2015, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly used hostile language toward LGBTQ+ people.

The Turkish government had not provided a separate comment beyond the provincial statements. Patti LuPone, the Tony Award-winning performer scheduled to appear on the ship, said she was still sailing and was “ready to perform” for guests who “deserve so much better than this.”