anyone been to santorini?

[evgal/nj]

will be in santorini 10/2010, 4pm-11pm, have posted on the greece board , looking for info on what to do @ nite in santorini. we had planned to rent a car but we're a little apprehensive to drive @ nite. cruisers that have replied seem to think santorini cable cars will be difficult with wheelchair since there are steep steps approaching the cars. dh can walk some & we will have a folding wheelchair.

apparently even if we take a ship tour & tender to a area accessable by car/bus, the only way home is by the cable cars,, donkey,or walking down a step winding dirt path behind the donkeys lol.

has anyone been to santorini? @ nite?
karen

[katisdale]

I have been to Santorini on the Royal Princess. They offered an "easy" Santorini tour. We did tender but not to the cable car area. We were taken to a different area that had no steps - except up into the tour bus. We went all over the island - it was about a 3 hour tour. At the end we had the choice of walking into the town at the top of the island and taking the cable car down to the normal dock area. We stayed on the bus and went back to the separate dock area and then back to the ship. I enjoyed the tour. The Island is beautiful. We stopped at a winery for a tasting. I was using a rollator then.

[usavvy2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oia,_Greece quotes having the most famous sunset in the world...

Fira is a short cab ride to Oia which are touted as having the most magnificient sunsets in the world so I would recommend going to Oia and watching the sunset from there as long as you can figure out what you can manage as far as getting back to the ship.

Here's a dark pix of the cable car operation (from the ship looking up). These people are on the top tier of steps (which means they're closest for getting off the car at the top to the street level but they had to climb to get to their tier at the ship level.

[usavvy2]

a pix of the cobblestone alley we ended up in. ouch! these were probably the worse we saw and they weren't like this everywhere.

[leoandhugh]

Without a doubt, Santorini is the most inaccessible port of call we have encountered world wide (unless you can get a tender to and from the landing mentioned above) We use either a folding wheelchair or a scooter (scooter for onboard ship) If the only tendering is to the base of the cable car, you are faced with 15-20 steep steps to get to the base of the cable car, or walking up a very steep gravel grade or riding a donkey - none of which are compatible with a wheelchair. That same wheelchair has been on the Great Wall, to the Pyramids, the Acropolis, the mosques of Istanbul, the Forbidden City in Beijing, so it is not a case of we don't go to the limit, but we met our match at Santorini

[usavvy2]

in this pix of Santorini's shoreline, you can see the donkey path. ..... not for me! And the walkers use the same path so they have to "step lightly" or they'd have a donkey souvenir they didn't expect.

in this pix of Tony's rental car, you can see it doesn't look like Hertz in America!

in the Oia Donkeys pix, you can see the smoothness of this particular street in Oia.

not sure what happened to the attachments! Guess I'll have to try again.

[usavvy2]

trying to upload those 3 pix again. let's see if it works...

[kitty9]

I totally agree with Leoandhugh. Santorini is terrible for anyone with ambulatory concerns. First, you have to tender, then you have a bit of a walk to the funicular (that's what they call the cable car), and then very steep, concrete steps to access the levels for entering the individual cars. I don't see how this can be done in a wheelchair. The "steps" are a total of 600, dirt and poop covered stairs, so forget those.

Once you get to the city, there are steps everywhere and stone walkways that are terribly uneven.

[usavvy2]

Originally Posted by kitty9

I totally agree with Leoandhugh. Santorini is terrible for anyone with ambulatory concerns. First, you have to tender, then you have a bit of a walk to the funicular (that's what they call the cable car), and then very steep, concrete steps to access the levels for entering the individual cars. I don't see how this can be done in a wheelchair. The "steps" are a total of 600, dirt and poop covered stairs, so forget those.

Once you get to the city, there are steps everywhere and stone walkways that are terribly uneven.

me too

[evgal/nj]

WOW! i thought our biggest problem was trying to figure out how to SEE this beautiful island in the dark, lol

thanks to everyone for the replies & the pix's, you all are so generous. i think i'll call ncl & ask how they handle mobility issues in santorini, it doesn't seem fair that our only choice is to take a ship tour & go strait back to the ship. although we don't like to take ship tours if possible, we'd be willing to do one to avoid the cable car/steps barriers. but than having to go right back to the ship..... i'll post back & let you know what they say.

since you all have been to santorini any thoughts on mykonos,iraklion [we'll only be in iraklion 7a-12n] ? we tenatively have planned to rent a car & tour around with another couple, we rented a car last yr in corfu & had a wonderful day! we like the car rental /diy tour option b/c its easier for dh then trying to "keep up" with the tours.

[kitty9]

Please, one word of warning. Unfortunately, you cannot trust what they say over the telephone. Most of those agents have never set foot on a ship, they don't at all understand mobility issues and could very well give you bad information. That's one of the major complaints that we have with regards to cruise ships and their tours. You must realize that they rate these trips and don't use a mobility challenged person to rate them---it's all done by able bodied persons. So what's a good and easy trip for an able bodied person, usually isn't for those of us with mobility concerns.

[evgal/nj]

i've spent a frustrating afternoon talking to various people @ncl.
i first called the reservation dept b/c thats the only # i had.
they sent me to the shore excersion desk. i explained the problem with santorini & asked if we could get off ship with the tour pax b/c it would be safer. she told me only the tour desk staff on the ship could help with this requst. i said great ! i'll talk to them. was told i'd have to wait till i got on board!
well our cruise is over 1 yr away, if we wait till we get on board we can't make plans. i was told they'd talk to a supervisor & email me. they also suggested contacting special needs dept. they gave me a # which turned out to be the # of the company that rents equiptment for special needs. lol
so..... i called back. seems you can't TALK to anyone in special needs, they only communicate by email. i was finally given the email address of the ship coordinator on the gem,
so i've have sent emails to the gems coodinator & special needs dept.
& am also waiting for a reply from the supervisor of the ship tours dept.
let you know what they say.
karen

[ILoveScotland]

I've been to Santorini twice. The first time DH was on the cruise. He was using a scooter on the ship, and we had a wheelchair for ports. He'd been to Santorini before we married and knew he couldn't get around and that I couldn't push him- as I'd done in Rome and Athens and would in Istanbul, Odessa, and other ports. We didn't even try for the ship's tour as I wanted to wander alone up to Oia which I did - and did a second time when I was alone without DH.

Not only is getting to the top a problem, the streets often have steps and are steep. As Hugh said it is just impossible even for experienced travelers, and he and Leo are 1000% times more experienced than I am.