Santorini arriving at 1pm leaving at 10pm

I'm reading about the crowd problems that can occur when several ships are in port - if our ship arrives at 1pm and departs at 10pm would I be right in thinking the main crowds will have already gone up in the cable cars and will also have left by tea-time? Or do all ships arrive in the afternoon?

I'm also wondering whether we would have time to have an evening meal in a restaurant in Oia or Fira and watch the sunset? We will be there in June, not sure what time the sun goes down in June but is this doable? It's always been a dream of mine to have a romantic meal at sunset in Santorini. If it's doable, hs anyone got any recommendations for a decent traditional Greek restaurant with great views?

Many thanks

Since Santorini is a tender port, for a sailing at 10pm the "last-tender time" (the time you have to be on the pier) is likely to be 9pm.

The pier is accessed from Fira town by either the cablecar or the zig-zag path down the cliff.

Probably yours will be the only ship sailing about that time, but you need to be at the top cablecar station a bare minimum 30 minutes before last-tender time (ie 8.30pm) so that if there's an excessive line you can walk down the zig-zag path (about 25 mins at normal pace).

Sunset in June is around 8.10pm.

So you have a very small time window.

Definitely forget Oia at sunset, it's up to 30 minutes from Fira.

You could perhaps splurge on somewhere like The Athenian House or La Maison, both at Imerovigli, which is about halfway back to Fira, a 10 min drive from the cablecar station..

But both are super-expensive (I don't know if there's anywhere cheaper nearby), you'd have to time it so that by sunset you've finished & paid for your meal and are finishing your wine or mebbe enjoying digesifs, with a taxi driver ready and waiting to rush you to the cablecar..

Alternatively, hardly a romantic meal but a whole lot cheaper & easier & safer, adjacent the cablecar station there's a bar with gorgeous sunset views. Might be crowded with your shipmates.

From there you can keep an eye on the cablecar line, or choose the zig-zag path.

Not as romantic as perhaps you are looking for, but probably wiser in your timescale - after all, swimming back to the ship would give you indigestion after a gourmet dinner ;)

Just MHO as always

JB :)

We have been more than once, but the last time we were the only ship still there as we also had a late night sailing.

No need to go to Oia. Our ship was anchored in a spot which gave a great view of the sunset and there was a deck party so that we could enjoy watching it. I think we also had a local folk group board for music and dancing.

Another benefit in being last to sail was that we avoided the enormously long lines to descend the chair lift which we had seen earlier in the day.