Greek Isles Cruise

I am thinking about a cruise on Windstar to the Greek Isles. Could someone suggest the best cruise?

Most of the Windstar Greek Isles cruises have the same itinerary which hits some of the major (in terms of tourist interest) Greek Islands like Santorini and Rhodes. I think all the 2005 cruises use this itinerary but they are pretty close to fully booked. We picked the Istanbul - Athens direction because we wanted to spend more time in Istanbul and it seemed better to do that before the cruise. Port times vary between the two directions and the late night in Santorini sounds like a good idea. We will be on the June 4 cruise and can give more information after that.

In 2006, it looks like some of the Istanbul Athens runs have a different set of ports - mostly names I don't recognize though I expect they are nice too. Perhaps they did this so people could do a back-to-back without repeating ports.

The two ships doing Greek Isles are basically twins - Wind Star and Wind Spirit.

My wife and I are considering a Windstar cruise, along with another couple in May 2006. The wife in the other couple is very prone to seasickness. What has been the experience of those who have gone on a Windstar cruise in the Greek Isles? The other option is Oceania. Any thoughts on comparing the two?:)

We were on the June 4 Istanbul to Athens cruise. The sailing was the smoothest of the three cruises I've been on (the other two were Southern Caribbean). More than 95% of the time it was extremely smooth - there was a little chop when we got out of the straights into the Aegean. We were under sail power for most of the sea day and that sailing was great.

My other two cruises were the Wind Surf and the Celebrity Constellation, both in December in the Caribbean. One would think there would be a difference in stability given the large size difference, but the amount of motion on both was about the same. The sails have some stabilizing effect and the Windstar ships do have stabilizers.

I'm somewhat bothered by sea motion. I don't normally get very sea sick but I get that vague uncomfortable feeling. On this cruise I had none of that. On the Wind Surf, I found I was fine as long as I didn't get seated in the very front of the dining room (which is in the very bow of the ship - on the Wind Star and Wind Spirit it doesn't go quite that far forward).

I haven't been on Oceania yet. For me the difference is Windstar has a lot of 1 week Greek Isles dates available with two ships running back and forth for weeks. With some extra time in Istanbul and Athens it turns into a two week trip with enough choice in dates that I can fit it into my schedule.

Oceania tends to run longer cruises and they tend to do a lot more itineraries and some have more sea days then I want. So far I haven't been able to find an itinerary I want on dates I can do. I would like to try them but they are a lot harder to fit into my schedule. They do have some very attractive prices for 2006.