Has anyone used either of these companies for an Athens tour?

Piraeus Express Bus and Katakolon Express both offer guided tours from Piraeus dock to Athens for 35 Euro. Can anyone recommend either of them?

We have booked a all day Athens tour with PK Travel. Not as cheap as €35 but it looks like a fun day.

I didn't have a tour with these companies but a friend of mine used katakolo express. He told me that service was very poor. Why don't you try to find a travel agency offering these kind of shore excursion? Also find some friends in the cruise to pay less.

I was looking at that 35 Euro tour with also. It almost sounds like one of those "if it sounds too good to be true, it is". I'd love to hear recent feedback from someone who has taken it.

Another vote for PK Travel aka Athens by Taxi. Have used them twice. Excellent.

We are going with Piraeus Express. Any pros and cons?

I booked a private group tour for 14 of us from the ship through Private Greece Tours. It wasn't $35 each but it was well worth the price. I know others that have used PK Travel and had a great tour too.

You may want to check out TripAdvisor - these companies are rated #1 and #3and you can read some reviews to help you make a choice. Post to your roll call thread and get others to join you to make it more reasonable :)

I was looking at that 35 Euro tour with also. It almost sounds like one of those "if it sounds too good to be true, it is". I'd love to hear recent feedback from someone who has taken it.

We have booked with Piraeus Express in July. Hoping it is a good tour.

I just checked out the Piraeus Express Bus website and it looks good and there are very good reviews on TripAdvisor :)

Do you know if the price includes entrance to the Acropolis and Parthenon? We bought our Athens City Pass there last time and it covered entrance to the sites in town that we would be visiting. I think it was 12 euros per person.

The price for this tour is low so I'm guessing that you pay upon arrival at each site? If so, those prices need to be added to the price of the tour.

This looks like a nice option for our day in Athens next year but not sure about the total price?

Most of the other Athens tours that I got quotes from exclude entrance fees and lunch, so the Piraeus Express Bus price quote can be used to compare with others (apples with apples). The best price I got for a semiprivate Athens tour with a driver/guide but no on-site tour guide is 170-180euros for 4 pax or 42.5-45pp for a 9h all-day tour. But the Piraeus Express Bus tour is only 6h long; hence its pricing is in the same ball park and not, as some have claimed, in the too good to be true realm.

The best part of the cost arrangement of Piraeus Express Bus tour is that no pre-payments are required. All the shore excursions that I've booked before, in Ephesus, Turkey, and even in St. Petersburg, Russia, have been done with no pre-payments.

I am planning to take this Piraeus Express Bus tour with on-site tour guide in October, and hope to be able to report back. One last tip: if you're a cruise critic member, you can get a 10% discount, which would pay for the tip. ;-)

Piraeus Express Bus and Katakolon Express both offer guided tours from Piraeus dock to Athens for 35 Euro. Can anyone recommend either of them?

Not sure who our company was but we booked through Viator and were never disappointed in any of our locations, except Rome. Did not care for our tour guide.

I used them for Olympia and it was a "you get what you pay for" thing. I think the commentary on the way there was good and Mark was exceptionally smart and kind and fluent in so many languages. We didn't use the guide at the site. I basically saw it as a ride to and from Olympia with a bit of instruction. It was 20 euros - I didn't expect more. They do not start on time which is frustrating and while they return well in advance of the time the cruise ship Leaves they don't return on time. I hate that but I accept it for 20 euros. I didn't do Athens but friends did. They felt that they had committed to an incredible number of people and it was too much. They were glad for the day to be done.

We used Hellenic Private Tours and they were fantastic! You can e-mail them at info@hellenicprivatetours.com We did the 1/2 day tour which was 50E each. We went to the Acropolis, The Temple of Zeus, the changing of the guards, the old palace, the Catholic Cathedral and instead of free time for shopping we saw quite a few other interesting things around the city before we were brought back to the ship. Well worth the money....wonderful guide, only 10 people and a mini van & driver.

We tried to use Piraeus Express bus in Athens. I had booked them a little over a week before our cruise. I was already on vacation in Venice when they sent me an email to cancel, saying that my ship got in too late (we were there 12-8p). They sent the email late in the day the day before the cruise left, we got the email the day the ship left port (yes, the cancelled basically day of the cruise and 4 days before we were to be in port). I was left without a plan so because of this cancellation we were either going to have to do it on our own (without putting any planning into that and it was now day of, or pay for internet on ship to try to plan something) or pony up the big bucks for the ship tour (I hate massive group tours). So it ended up leaving us stuck, we ended up doing the ship tour which was not terrible, but certainly ended up costing us a lot more. SO I cannot recommend them because they cancelled last minute leaving us in a lurch.

I used George at Georgestaxiservice. Was fantastic

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We did a full day Athens tour with PK Travel a few years ago. Wonderful guide, great tour.

For anyone that used semi private tours from PK or Hellenic, did it include a guided tour of The Acropolis? I know we pay our own entry fee, but did it include an informative guided tour?

I'm confused the PK site also offers a walking tour of the Acropolis that specifically mentions a licensed guide versus the full day tour that doesn't actually say that.

Thanks!

For anyone that used semi private tours from PK or Hellenic, did it include a guided tour of The Acropolis? I know we pay our own entry fee, but did it include an informative guided tour?

 

I'm confused the PK site also offers a walking tour of the Acropolis that specifically mentions a licensed guide versus the full day tour that doesn't actually say that.

 

Thanks!

We are using PK tours in March. We do have a private tour for 4.. we have to pay additional for Guide. Drivers are knowledgeable but cannot go into sites. No prepayment is required and the communication has been excellent.

I used george taxi at http://www.taxigreece.com. They are on Facebook also.

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You really don't need a tour for Athens. With a decent map is extremely easy to DIY. Just get to the city from the port and head for the Plaka District.

You really don't need a tour for Athens. With a decent map is extremely easy to DIY. Just get to the city from the port and head for the Plaka District.

Are there shuttle or taxis at the port to take you into Athens? It’s our first time in this city, so not sure how far it is from port to city. TIA.

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Are there shuttle or taxis at the port to take you into Athens? It’s our first time in this city, so not sure how far it is from port to city. TIA.

 

 

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It's a ways from the port to the city. The X80 bus runs from the port to Athens. You can also preschedule transport through welcome pick ups. There should also be cabs.

Taxi's are available at the main terminal entrance. Depending upon where you dock, you will either take a port provided shuttle to the main terminal or you will dock along side it. Once you exit, the taxi's line up on your left.

This past October we walked out and hired a taxi to drive us (3 persons) to the Acropolis Museum area and then come back 2 hours later to pick us up and return to the ship. Total cost roundtrip was 60 Euro. It takes 20-30 minutes to get to the Acropolis from the port. Our driver took some of the back roads on the way from the port to give us a tour/view of Pireaus as well which we enjoyed. Spoke excellent English which we made sure of before accepting his taxi.

If you don't mind doing it a bit on your own, then take a bus (or taxi) to the metro station in Pireaus and take it to the Accropoli stop. I think you have to change lines once (it was easy). Then look around the agora and shopping after seeing the Accropolis and take the return metro from the Monistroki stop. I think it goes back without changes.

There are also 3 different hop on hop off buses you can take from the pier that are ok but you always have the problems of waiting for the next bus to eventually come along.

We did a private driver and had the Acropolis to ourselves before the tour buses started rolling in. Next was the changing of the guards by ourselves. Kept missing all the crowds. Our table mates were envious. They left their group from the ship and went back to the boat. I used http://www.georgetaxiservice.com

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Piraeus Express Bus and Katakolon Express both offer guided tours from Piraeus dock to Athens for 35 Euro. Can anyone recommend either of them?

We used Private Greece Tours and we were very happy with their services.We had two days in Athens prior to boarding. On the first day, we booked an Athens Full Day Tour, together with three other people, a total of 8. We all liked it so much (kids too!) that we booked the Delphi Full Day Tour, just the family, for our second day. Our driver was so much fun and so informative. Mind you, drivers can’t enter the sites (we already knew this), but at the end of the tour we all agreed that a guide wasn’t necessary. We definitely recommend Private Greece Tours.