Hi Neil
We did Syria combined with a trip to Lebanon last time with Louis Cruise Lines. But, we were hoping to book the day excursion to Crac des Chevaliers fort onboard ship, not realising places were so limited as all the Cypriots tend to go for shopping and there are very few coach seats booked for the excursion - so, that is our main reason to go back.
This time - we will just do the Syria trip and are considering late October. However, it now looks like you get to Syria early Saturday morning with an overnight stay at the port and the excursion to the fort is the following day (Sunday). So, it looks like there will be lots of shopping to be done too! The ship leaves Limassol on Friday teatime & arrives back on Monday morning.
There are mini-buses laid on to take you from the ship to the huge Duty Free shops further along the port and also buses that take you into the main shopping areas of Latakia.
We found it very easy and had a great day wandering around the souk, in the duty free - back on board for our lunch then back off again for some more shopping.
Customs at Limassol port do tend to pick on the Cypriots when they arrive back from these trips as they know they've gone out looking for bargains.
So one big tip would be to dress like you are a tourist for your return to Limassol
Get your shorts and flip flops out and mutter things like "did they say there was a coach to take us back to the hotel"