Private Greece Tours

Anyone used Private Greece Tours for seeing Athens and/or transfers from the airport to hotel and hotel to port?

My husband and I have Nikos booked for a 6 hour private tour of Athens for the day of our cruise in October. We are arriving the day before and Nikos is picking us up at our hotel and then dropping us off at the ship after the tour. I looked up a lot of guides and he came highly recommended by cruise critic and tripadvisor. He was also very easy to work with in all the planning of what we wanted to see. Hope this helps.

We used Private Greece Tours on our recent cruise - early port pick-up, day-long tour w/lunch stop and drop off at airport.

Our itinerary was a little different because we had spent considerable time in Athens in the past, so after visiting the new Acropolis Museum we headed out into the countryside and visited Marathon and Vavrona. Nikos was able to customize a tour that was exactly what we wanted. Our driver was Manos (Nikos was already booked). Manos was a very knowledgeable driver with great English and we enjoyed every minute of our day. He even went out of his way to find a little Greek Orthodox Chapel for us to visit.

Based on our experience, I would highly recommend Private Greece Tours.

I would highly recommend Private Greece Tours. We used them on our day in Athens in May. We were on the Navigator of the Seas and didn't want to take a ship excursion. Lambros was our driver and he was fantastic!!! We were picked up at 8:00, before all the ship excursions, and were at the Acropolis before all the crowds. He had us call him when we were ready to come back down to the parking lot and he was waiting for us. This was great, because we were able to stay until we were ready to leave. As we were coming back to the parking lot. all the cruise tours were arriving and it was VERY CROWDED at that time......We spent the entire day touring Athens with Lambros and had a great time!!! I would not hestitate to contact Nikos and schedule your tour with this great company!!!!

Barbara

Thanks for the feedback. I've contacted Nikos and I think his company's service is just was I was looking for.:D

We also had our 1/2 day tour of Athens with Niko and happy with the four hour tour.

I got information from Private Greek Tour this week. I noticed that to add a guide to the tour was an extra charge. The information also stated that the driver would be very well informed but could not go into the sites, because he was not an official tour guide. My question is did anyone opt not to hire the additional tour guide and just use the driver??

I got information from Private Greek Tour this week. I noticed that to add a guide to the tour was an extra charge. The information also stated that the driver would be very well informed but could not go into the sites, because he was not an official tour guide. My question is did anyone opt not to hire the additional tour guide and just use the driver??

Yes, but we haven't toured yet so can't comment on its value. We have done it so as to get best value from the limited time there as the guide can take us direct to best sites rather than get dropped off and be simply told where to go. It may be excessive but won't know till after we do it in a couple of months.

Is it normal for these companies to request passport and CC details by reservation form / email? or is it best to phone them.

We used Nikos's company during our recent cruise and were happy with the driver, Ilias (Elias). We also separately found a guide for the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum (through viator). Although expensive to do things that way, the day worked well. We saw a lot and felt like we understood the archeological sites on the Acropolis much better than if we had just been dropped off. Elias brought us to see the changing of the guard, a view from of the Acropolis from the mountain nearby, the Temple of Zeus, the Panhellenic stadium, and the Plaka (he found a very good restaurant for us for lunch, probably the best we visited in Greece). He also brought us to an outstanding ice cream/bakery on the way back to the ship. The communication between Elias and the guide worked well. The guide was waiting for us at the Acropolis entrance first thing in the morning.

Prior to our leaving we provided credit card information to reserve our tour, in separate emails, for security... We sent part of the number in one email and the other part of the number in a separate email.

We did not have a guide, just our driver and it was fine. Lambros, our driver, gave us maps and information before we went up to the Acropolis. We didn't feel the need for a guide, especially at the huge additional cost. I had to give Nikos my passport number before we left, but didn't have to give passpost numbers for our others.

I would be glad to andwers any more questions about Private Greece Tours.

Barbara

We will be in Athens one day in Sept. should we get a guide or just a driver?

We will be in Athens one day in Sept. should we get a guide or just a driver?

The thing we considered before booking the guide as well was the limited time we had in Athens. We thought we would get more out of the day with the guide and driver. After all, it is not much when you consider the total cost of the trip, but then I know the $ do add up.

And if you're there on a busy day (aren't most of them busy??) you can usually find a guide at the Acropolis putting together an ad-hoc group and as I recall, the price was fairly reasonable. Just discuss the fee and duration before you go and you'll be fine...

That said, a good guidebook will do quite well, too, but you'll certainly miss some of the details. It all depends on how in-depth you want to go.

We did not have a guide found our driver from Athens by Taxi was very knowledgeable with info before we went into sites. Also had Rick Steve's Ports of call book with us. The very best thing was the FREE down load on our iPhone and iPad of Rick Steve's tours around The Acropolis put in our ear buds and had our own private tour guide great. He has free guides for many places in Europe. You do not have to pay extra for a guide. ;)

We used Private Greece Tours in June 2012 and were very happy. Our itinerary was changed during the cruise and we arrived in Athens 3 days early. Nikos emailed me to advise he would still meet us as scheduled before I even had a chance to contact him.

I believe that guides for the Acropolis are only available on site. Nikos got us to the Acropolis before the cruise ship buses arrived so it wasn't as busy at the start.We downloaded Rick Steeves guided tours on an iPod for sites in Athens and Rome so didn't need a guide.

Another advantage of the smaller vehicles is access to locations like St. George church pictured above. We went to the top of the hill seen in the other picture while our table mates who took the ship's tour only saw it from below.

We also stopped to watch the changing of the guard -check out my youtube video -google eetonaee - changing of the guard Athens.

Our friends on the bus only did a drive by.

And here is a picture of the very new mini bus we rode in -

Eetonaee, how many of you were there, the vehicle looks good. We have 8 in our group.

Eetonaee, how many of you were there, the vehicle looks good. We have 8 in our group.

It's over a year ago and we did a lot of private tours on our 10 day cruise but I believe there were 14 of us.

On our Roll Call we would propose various tours to others who then signed up. I organized tours for Athens, Rhodes, and Ephesus as well as a Rome to port shuttle for 7 couples staying in 3 different parts of Rome.

I participated in a Pompeii - Amalfi Coast tour organized by someone else on our Roll Call.

Is it normal for these companies to request passport and CC details by reservation form / email? or is it best to phone them.

I don't recall sending Nikos any information other than name and contact information.

Each participant paid him directly after the tour ended - usually with USD or Euro - based on a price per person we agreed to.

In conjunction with an Oceania Insignia cruise of the Black Sea (Athens-Istanbul May 29, 2014), my husband and I decided to fly into Athens early in order to revisit many of the sites we had seen in the 70s and 80s. We also wanted to go to Meteora (monasteries in the rocks) and Santorini. Not that I'm a snob, but we didn't want to take sightseeing tours with hordes of others, especially with the possibility of another language being spoken besides English.

After some research, we were lucky to find Travel2Greece by Travelive (http://www.travel2greece.com/). After several e-mails between the 2 of us to tweak the program, Senior Mgr of Sales & Client Services Marina Kiriazi (marina@travelive.com), came up with a customized program which included:

• Initial private transfer from the airport to our Athens hotel (which I arranged thru booking.com),

• Private half-day Athens sightseeing tour,

• Private 2-day (1 overnight) trip to Delphi/Meteora,

• 2 nights in Santorini (El Greco sea view suite) with private transfers/plane/half-day sightseeing tour (in a van with no more than 6 people),

• Private transfer Athens-Piraeus on the day of Insignia's embarkation.

Total cost: $3,678.

The insurance broker Travelive suggested was more expensive than the company I found on http://www.insuremytrip.com so we ended up paying an additional $384.21 for both of us (at the time we reserved, we were 69/79 respectively).

how does one get in touch with Nikos or any of the other driver for the Athens tour? Sorry, im new to this, though I have worked in Athens once before, & cant wait to chomp into some local lamb, thx

Check out there website and there is an email link to contact him regarding tours

http://www.privategreecetours.com

We selected Private Greece Tours based on recommendations on CC and because of their competitive pricing. We arranged for pick up from our cruise ship and a half day's sightseeing with airport drop off. There was some discussion back and forth as to the number of folks we had and I told Nikos I wasn't sure if it would be 4 or 6. He quoted a price for a van and it was quite reasonable. I told him the van would be fine. The day before we landed, I shot him an email telling him there would be 4 of us after all.

When we landed, a very nice driver was waiting with his Mercedes taxi. No way that would accommodate 4 people and their luggage from a month of traveling in Europe. We spoke to Nikos who explained that in his mind, 4 people meant a car was needed. After some back and forth, he sent a huge van and knocked 50€ off the price for the inconvenience. Our first driver repeatedly refused any remuneration for having come to the dock, lost the fare for the day, and waiting with us for our bigger vehicle to arrive.

The rest of the day was fine. Our new driver told us he would be happy to take us to Corinth, but that it would be a lot of driving. He recommended we go to Cape Sounion instead as less driving was involved. He was probably right, and if we ever land in Athens again, I think that's what we will do, but I am glad we saw Corinth which has an amazing museum and very picturesque ruins.

Wold I use Private Greece Tours again? Most likely. other than the early communication problem, it was an excellent experience. The driver was knowledgable, drove safely, and got us to the airport on time.

Hi, all. We are going on our first Med cruise on the Regal Princess next Aug. I would like to do a private tour, possibly with Private Greece Tours which comes highly recommended here. However, with two teens along, I'm thinking that a full day tour of museums and ruins might not be the way to go. Could one see the main historical ruins/sites in half a day? What would you recommend for the other part of the day? We are very much into local food, culture, scenic drives, shopping, quaint villages. Soaking up the local culture, etc.

Thank you!

Hsaroya, I would ask Nikos, he helped organize our day with him. We were first at the Acropolis. Would book him again for sure. We also had a private guide who Nikos organized and he was very good. We were there in Sept, had a port stop for a day.