pilarkitty

In case you think about walking up or down instead of doing the Cable car.

It is an experience!! You are walking on the same pathway as the donkeys and will probably be sharing the path with donkeys and their passengers. Also- the smell can be quite pungent. Also-could be slippery! The path is quite steep. It is doable but a challenge. About 30 minutes each way. Have done it-would do again as a experience but be prepared. Just so you know.

When you get back from Oia and are ready to head down again-give yourselves plenty of time-the lineups at the Cable car can be very long. When we were there we went up on the donkeys and walked back down.

Thanks for the info!

Do not know how the Jade operates but on our recent Royal visit the ships excursions tenders loaded at one door while others loaded elsewhere. We were off at about 8:20, tendered quickly and went up the CC with no line so that we had to wait awhile for our 9:00am guide and he was early. Remember the actual time on the cable car is only 2 1/2 mins. That's from a ship with 3600 passengers

After I posted this, my husband found some info on the Santorini port and it's exactly as you say. This makes me feel a lot better. I was thinking that all the people doing excursions were going to have to wait for the gondola along with everyone else. That would be a nightmare.

We should be fine, then. I expect that Norwegian will have a similar process as RC.

Thanks so much!

This is exactly what I was looking for. I got my Rick Steves travel book and I'm ready to go! I'm not really a fan of the HOHO busses, either. I've only done it in Munich, because I was super tight on time and needed a quick overview of the city.

Thank you everyone! I appreciate it.

Ok, swap that. We plan to hike from Fira to Oia hike and take a cab back.

The Jade has about 2200 people on it. We are in port with the Mac orchestra and celebrity reflection. Celebrity doesn't get in until 2 so we should be ok with that. Orchestra also gets there at 8 and holds 2500 people. So we are looking at 4724 people converging on the island at one time.

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What they said. It's an easy airport. You shouldn't have trouble.

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We really want to do the Oia to Fira hike in Santorini. I'm really not interested in doing any of the cruise ship excursions. We will be in Santorini from 8am to 5pm.

My question is as follows, if we dock at 8am, and they let the people off the ship who have purchased excursions first, what time should we expect to be at the top of the island? Since we are doing the hike, I prefer to take the gondola up. If that's too crowded, I will walk up. I really don't want to take the donkey ride up.

I think the hike takes about 4 hours and I want to make sure that we have enough time to do it and not be stranded on the island.

Thanks,

Monica

This is my first European cruise, but I've been to Europe a bunch of times. Typically, in the Caribbean, we take the ship excursions because we don't want the stress of potentially not making it back to the port on time. It's just easier.

We want to do the major sites in Athens and Norwegian is charging $189/person for the excursion that we want to do (Acropolis and museum), which is really expensive, in my opinion. We will be there from 8am to 6pm. My questions are as follows:

1. How easy is it to get a cab into Athens and back to the port to do it on our own? And, how much time will that realistically take to get into the city. ?

2. Is it worth doing the cruise ship tour, due to the guide and front of line access? Should we just suck it up and pay the $189/person?

3. How much of a pain in the butt is it to do the hop-on, hop-off bus from the pier?

4. Or, should we just take the subway? How long does that take and how often does it run?

We aren't afraid of doing some walking. I am concerned that we won't have enough time in the day. Thanks in advance.

Monica

I never had a problem. In fact, my carnivore relatives commented that the veg option looked better than meat. I just stay away from the specialty restaurants.

View from Cabin 9562

I'd be worried after seeing Kevin Trudeau's name on that list of speakers. Ha ha! He's the worst "snake oil salesman."

Monica