Corfu, Mykonos, Santorini, Olympia. On own or tour

Hi, we are going next week on the Greek isle cruise with Norwegian Jade

We did not book any excursions yet. Which islands should we take a private tour and which should we do on our own.

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Thank you ver much!

Rita

we booked taxi tours in Corfu Santorini and Olimpia because we wanted an overview of the islands/scenic tour

in Mykonos you can just wander round the main town

We prefer DIY and we have visited all four on our own. Mykonos is easy to just wander around town by yourself, unless you want to visit a beach.

Corfu on our first visit we stayed in town to visit the fortresses and other sights; on our second visit we rented a car. It was easy driving once out of the large main town and a very beautiful island with good roads.

Santorini it also is easy to DIY. We have rented cars three times, and on our latest visit in May drove to Ancient Akrotiri, which is a fantastic sight. You can hire a guide at the entrance who really is very knowledgeable. Car rental from Tony's (five minutes from the cable car terminus) cost only 40 Euros for a brand new automatic.

We also rented a car in Katakolon right across the street from the dock and did the very easy drive (less than 30 minutes) to and from Olympia. Visit the museum first, which is excellent, and will help understand the site, which is very ruined ruins! :)

I cannot drive a stick shift, but if you book in advance, you can rent automatic vehicles for your visits to Corfu, Santorini and Katakolon.

We rented a car in Corfu, went to town and Palaiokastritsa Beach. Had a great lunch at the restaurant overlooking the beach, sat outside for a great view. There is also a restaurant at the top of the hill in Lakones overlooking the beach with incredible views of the 3 beaches in the area. Had to take glass elevator to enter restaurant, Castellino's.

Also took boat ride at beach to the small grotto's.

Just make sure have GPS, and note the location of the port for the return trip.

In Santorini we took the ferry service to Oia...takes you to the more scenic town at the other end of the island, bus picks you up at the bottom and takes you to the town. Then they have a transfer bus to Fira.

We liked it because it was relatively less crowded at Oia at first, as we were leaving the huge crowds were just getting there.

Just make sure you make note of where they tell you they will pick you up at Oia. After exiting town, there were many, many busses, but only one was for this tour.

We took the cable car down...very easy ride.

Mykonos: We bought a day pass for St John resort. Was not cheap...but had a great meal, relaxing time at the infinity pool, almost private ocean beach. Included transportation from ship, and then can ask to be dropped off in town on the way back.

That was a great relaxed day...

We have been to the OPs ports multiple times and do all those ports DIY. On Santorini and Corfu, what we do depends on our mood but we often rent a car in those places. But on Santorini if we only want to spend time in Fira and Oia we will use the local bus line.

As to Mykonos, for DW and I that is a beach day and we head over to the bus station near the windmills and grab the bus out to Paradise Beach. Later we will return to town to do some shopping/browsing and enjoy a drink/snack at one of the cafes on the harbor. Delos is also an option here, and if your ship gets in port early enough it is cheaper to use the local tour boat versus paying the big bucks for the ship tour. But this is all dependent on the hours you are in port.

Katakolon is a bit of a challenge. On our first visit (many years ago when cruise line excursions were reasonably priced) we took a tour to Olimpia (not overly impressed with the site but did enjoy the museum). But these days, if we have a full port day we simply rent a car and explore the region. It used to be possible to take an inexpensive train to Olimpia, but not sure if that train line is still operating.

Corfu is a pretty large island. Depending on our mood we will rent a car at the port and drive all over the island..or sometimes we will just walk into Corfu Town and spend a few hours in the city.

Hank

Mykonos, Santorini and Corfu are straight forward DIY and there is a lot of info on this board on how to do it. While Olympia is easy to get to on your own I would recommend at least a guide book to tell you what you are looking at. There is a very good book that has overlays to show what each of the ruins looked like centuries ago.

Is it true that the best way to do Santorini if other ships are also in port is through the cruise excursions. You will be tendered off the ship first, I am told?

Is it true that the best way to do Santorini if other ships are also in port is through the cruise excursions. You will be tendered off the ship first, I am told?

well what happens is that the ship excursions are tendered to a separate landing place where coaches can transport up side of cliff via series of hair pin bends

independent travellers are tendered from a separate area of the ship to base of cliff at Fira from where you can take cable car,donkey ride or walk.Alternatively there are motor boat transfers to Oia

tender operations are run by longshoremen of Santorini independent of ship

so because there are 2 separate tendering operations you don't necessarily got off first with a ship tour [still going to be meeting in ships theatre and waiting for your groups turn]

however if independent travellers and no priority tender through being suite guest or high member in rewards programme the way to get off first is to queue ASAP for a tender ticket

Agree that in Mykonos, you can just wander. We had a great time.

In Santorini, we had planned to rent a car but ended up renting a four-wheeler (or ATV or whatever it's called). It was slower and less comfortable than a car, but my husband loved it. We mainly concentrated on the northern part of island, plus Oia. Oia is not to be missed in my opinion. You can catch a public bus up there or take a taxi from Fira, the town that is at the top of the cable car. You can also take the boat transfer mentioned already. It's easy to drive there if you rent a car. There aren't all that many roads on the island, and the island really isn't all that big. You DO need an international driver's license to drive in Greece, however.

Akrotiri is far south, but really, with a car I would guess you could go there AND get up to Oia. Fira itself has some nice sights but I vote for getting to Oia. Tom Sheridan of Tom's Port Guides has great info on Santorini. His site is online.

Everyone seems to end up in Fira, so if there are a lot of cruise ships in town with you, the recommendation is to not cut your trip back down the cliffs on the cable car too short, as there can be long lines in the afternoon. Of course, you can always walk down the donkey path....See santoriniport.com for a brief description of how to get up to Fira. It does not mention the boat trip to Oia, however, but you can find info on Cruise Critic about that.

Tom's Port Guides may be available for the other places you mention. We do almost all of our exploring on a DIY basis, seldom taking a ship's excursion or an expensive, private excursion unless there is no way to see what we want to see by DIYing with buses, trains, walking, etc. hese guides, plus a lot of other research, have helped us have incredible adventures everywhere we go.

To see how many cruise pax will be in Santorini with you, you can check cruisett.com or cruisetimetables.com. I have yet to find an official port website for the island, however.

 

Katakolon is a bit of a challenge. On our first visit (many years ago when cruise line excursions were reasonably priced) we took a tour to Olimpia (not overly impressed with the site but did enjoy the museum). But these days, if we have a full port day we simply rent a car and explore the region. It used to be possible to take an inexpensive train to Olimpia, but not sure if that train line is still operating.

Hank, we are going in August... have had two quotes from 1) a driver 2) a tour guide. The driver will cost 200E and will give us some books to look at as we go in. Later he'll drive us to a winery. The guide is 420 E but guides us through the ruins. Later we stop at a restaurant for lunch. It'll just be 5 of us splitting the cost in half... your comment about not being impressed mirrors my opinion when looking at the online photos. We are having a guided tour of Ephesus earlier in the trip, so I'm wondering if a driver is the better choice. :confused: