Happycrafter123

I’m sorry I haven’t been to the main dining room yet and every time I think to walk by they are closed and I don’t see menus posted outsides. Will try today.

Dinner at Ocean blue tonight was over the top amazing. Such great food and superlative service. I wish we could eat here every night!!

So far we have mainly collapsed in bed for exhausted sleep each evening but hoping tonight to watch the magic show, will report back (and give tour reviews for yesterday and today later). departing this port was easy peasy - no big customs clearance requirement, and tours seemed well staggered. This was the entrance at about 2:30, you can see folks trickling back and no wait, with all aboard for 3:30

Day 5 daily

Olympia was the best visit yet. More details later but some pics

Docked at katakolon which looks gorgeous. heading off to Olympia which is a 45 minute bus ride. Hopefully a better experience than the last two days-/weather is nice and this place is green and it’s pretty here, so hopeful. Appears to be 4 buses going on our itinerary, so about 100 people…

Photos from Athens and the Acropolis

We did walk up to the top of the acropolis the see the Parthenon. It was pretty and good views of Athens though an active archeological site so a lot of scaffolding and stuff. It took 1 1/2 hours from entry to exit with many pauses for photos and the guide to talk. our tour did not include the museum which I regretted. It was very slippery at the acropolis given the rocks and marble. Make sure you have shoes with very good grip. My running shoes are too worn on the base, apparently, for this so I kept slipping, it was like walking on ice in winter. Hubby had almost brand new shoes with close to factory level grip left so he was fine. I wanted comfortable shoes but wish I had taken a newer pair with good grippy soles. Similar issue to Santorini, it takes the fun out of the day when you keep slipping and have to watch the ground continuously rather than the sites. apart from this our tour drive around a lot. the tour was a small group tour and I would actually recommend it. You can not book on app. You would need to call and ask about it on the phone from NCL. It was only 16 people.

I hear the tender port of Santorini was hit and miss depending on your tender times and the rest folks just walk off so far we have docked on time each day. also there are excursions that pop up on board due to cancellations and also maybe some don’t make it to the app it seems. I just booked one using my tv in bedroom that did not show up in app for tomorrow. These do tend to be the more unusual and expensive options though.

Daily from yesterday

Decided to cancel several of our NCL tours given the last two days which were not enjoyable. We would rather spend more time on the ship than go through the hassle of what has been experienced so far. Open bar, a pool and hot tubs… maybe we will try out some napkin folding seminars lol! The line for the excursion desk is very long, and not moving fast. I notice no one has lined up for cruise next. The excursion desk has extremely limited hours. They opened at 5 and I made mistake of arriving late at 5:12. Looks like I will be late for my dinner reservation…..

It is hard to say. Right now there is only 1 ship in port, it would be worst if there were more. Also our sailing is not full, I have heard someone say we are less than 4K passengers (but have not validated that). make sure you have water and a hat when you go off the ship.

Other folks assumed the boat would not leave without them, and waited for the cable car. They were right, the ship did wait, but it is a bit risky. right now it is 3:08 and there is a huge line still of people waiting to go through Greek port security, so clearly they will not be sticking with the posted all aboard time.

Our second port day in Athens - I’ll give a tour review later, but wanted to update in the onboarding process. our tour was scheduled to end at 12:30 but just as with yesterday the NCL arranged tour brought us back over an hour late. We got back to the parking lot at port at 1:33. Ship was scheduled with a ‘all aboard’ time of 2:30z. Line to go through port security seemed huge and we cleared it at 2:14 after which we had to go through ship security. We went to buffet and at 2:44 we noticed line was even bigger, about double the size than when we were in it. See photos. tip- make sure you are back a couple hours before all aboard! so far yesterday and today the ship has seemed to accept that a large proportion will board late, there is no way to enforce an all aboard time when hundreds of people are in line to enter. in this case it seems the NCL excursions were poorly staggered and all got back late and at once, and Greek port authority only has two X-ray machines so it is very slow to flow through there.

Dinner at Cagneys was a good experience. We arrived late but they were accommodating. Service was quick and food excellent. For those of you gluten free though, be aware the gluten free French onion soup is just onion soup. I thought they would substitute the regular bread for gluten free bread and add on cheese like normal, but that was not the case. And crème brulle was very liquidy. If you are gluten free maybe try other options on the menu. starters were good for both: hubbys Onion soup looked amazing. Mine made me feel sad and left out , no cheese, should have picked something else. main courses were good though no green vegie garnishes for gluten free, nor any sauces available. Meat was perfectly cooked. hubby won on this one too. hubby’s dessert looked amazing. By this point I felt very jealous. crème brûle looked good but had not been properly set and was very liquidy, I did not wind up eating it after the first bite. in good news, wine selection was good. There was an excellent red Sangiovese from the Tuscany region included in the plus package as well as they had the ice wine available for desert.

Some photos from Santorini

Well, it was a challenging day. Santorini is a very small space with limited ways to enter or exit. There were 4 ships in port. The guide said this was the first day they had this many people since 2019. If you choose to disembark be prepared for mass crowds and bottlenecks. most importantly, be prepared for the problem that will be to get back to the ship. You must get to the ship tender spot via stairs, donkey, or gondolla. Gondolla takes 36 people at a time. while they say it can take an hour to get down that would be in non-peak periods, you really want to allow closer to 2 hours if you plan to take the cable car down. The donkeys were looking mistreated and badly cared for and coated in sweat, they looked miserable. I couldn’t bear to put them through more suffering. The stairs down are very slippery, there are no handrails, and you do not want to take the stairs if you have any physical limitations including fear of heights. my review of the NCL excursion: Santorini port: Greek style celebration Opa! - most importantly, they do not bring you back to the ship at the end of this excursion, they ditch you in the village, point you to the cable car, and wish you luck. They left us there (with about 250-300 other people from the same tour) at 7:15 and last tender was at 8:30. There was a very long line up like we see at ski mountains at peak time that was definitely over an hour. Most of our group walked down the stairs as we felt we would certainly miss our ship if we waited for the cable car. I normally book NCL excursions so I don’t have to worry about being stranded in a foreign port, but in this case they desert you and you are on your own to return. This was an incredibly bad experience. I thought I could do the walk and felt we had no choice as we would surely be stranded if we waited for the cable car. But as we went I realized my fear of heights would be a problem, also I am clumsy on stairs and was worried about falling and injury. I decided to take the donkey and sent my husband ahead walking as I felt it would be a safer option for me. I gave the donkey keeper guy $10 euros and he told me to wait by the donkeys. As I looked at them I knew I could not do that to them, they looked so sad and tired and sweaty and thirsty, like one more trip up and down might be their end, it seemed inhumane. So I let the guy keep my euros and started walking down alone. Between fear of missing the ship, fear of slipping and falling, and fear of heights, I started to slip in to a panic attack about half way down. I am so very very grateful that a kind family stopped to help and walk with me down, offering a hand to hold, it made all the difference. I think it is horrible that NCL does not take accountability to ensure our safe return to the ship. apart from that, the tour was incredibly boring. No headsets provided so you could not hear your guide, very little info on history or culture, it was like cattle being herded from one stop to the next, given two minutes for photos, then pushed along again. Views are outstanding, but hard to see them over the heads of all the other people. A private tour or even private cab would have led to a much better experience. the buffet lunch sucked. It was a large hall type venue where you might host a wedding. They crammed about 250-300 of us in there from multiple busses at the same time. Service was slow. We were there a long long long time. There were salads and bean stuff for vegetarians and being gluten free I felt there were safe looking options for me, but flavors were not great. Wine was not palatable. They were stingy with water. In good news, there were clean bathrooms we did not have to pay extra to use. all in all this excursion was a fail. But Santorini is definitely beautiful. The trick is figuring out how to best visit it. My recommendation would be to skip this NCL tour, just go on your own, take cable car up and down, go sit in one of the gorgeous deck restaurants with a view, and go back down very early. If you have time and like to shop there were many stores with nice looking things. Maybe hire a taxi to drive you around a bit, the land is interesting to see. At dinner I spoke with folks who said the volcano tour was good and they got back with lots of time— that tour goes to a different island so avoids the cable car / stairs issue. Another option to consider. Next stop will be Athens with a small group tour with NCL, hopefully it will be better. Will definitely be cancelling a couple of the planned excursions later this week.

Lots of announcements from captain and cruise director to keep us informed of where we are. 12:30 and folks are gathering. the Manhattan room is being used for the NCL excursions and it is packed. There was a spot on the other side of the floor by the theatre where they were accepting higher level latitudes and those with the priority service. Santorini is beautiful and we have perfect weather. Sunny but not too warm and a light breeze.

Tenders look easy to book in app see screen shots below, lower right hand option from main screen in app

Got the app fixed at the internet desk, so here is todays daily

Good news, we can change excursions. Bad news, virtually everything is sold out. Debating options with a ‘juice’ 😉 at vibe - the Vibe exclusive Dragonfly with NCL gin, Bacardi rum, passion fruit, dragon fruit and guava.

Saw a group heading off on the behind the scenes tour, today was for the higher latitudes level only, and apparently the only paid offering for lower latitudes levels was yesterday (first day of cruise.). I guess you snooze you lose on planning and booking things. If you want to do this make sure to inquire and register on embarcation day.

Excursion desk has been the longest line since we got on board. im going to see if they will let me exchange a couple though they have a sign saying non refundable after boarding—i thought we had until 48hr before arrival in each port . Am going to ask as hubby’s knee is not doing great and cinque terre seems overly ambitious. excursion desk opens at 9, and at 8:45 I’m already standing in a queu waiting for them to open.

just looking at photos of the day. We enjoyed eating on the waterfront deck for lunch at Wasabi. Another option right next to it that seemed very popular is the Ocean Blue to go. Ali a paid option and both only open on the one sea day.

Hubby attended a meet and greet and sounds like folks were doing it on the app, but I haven’t been able to get the app to work since we boarded. I will ask folks tomorrow how they got there tenders, see if I can get more details. For those with NCL tours no need to book a tender, and for those who got priority access no need to book either.