Santorini with 4 other cruise ships

[ninjacat123]

26 minutes ago, mar214 said:

Margbem - thanks so much for posting! What time did you have to be back on board and what time did you get in line? You have to wonder if stopping in Santorini, as beautiful as it is, is worth the aggravation getting back to the ship!

I'm interested as well.  I know we are in Santorini later in October, but I reallllllly hope we don't have to walk (carefully) down the donkey trail.🤞

[Vineyard View]

We have decided to stick with the sailing yacht (or catamaran as some have been surprised with) through the ship.  This experience ends at 1430 and we are in port until 2100. While we have been to a number of Greek islands, we have not been to Santorini before and always wanted to go.   I guess we will play it by ear if we will explore anything on the island, but with 10k cruise passengers in that day it’s completely unappealing and quite frustrating that this is allowed. So I would rather have a great memory of my day there. I hope all of you going before us will post back here what your experiences are, and I sincerely hope that they are fantastic!

[fruitmachine]

1 hour ago, Vineyard View said:

 I guess we will play it by ear if we will explore anything on the island, but with 10k cruise passengers in that day it’s completely unappealing and quite frustrating that this is allowed. 

If they were to limit numbers to, say, 5,000 would you be content to find that you were one of the 5,000 not "allowed" to visit?

[ninjacat123]

28 minutes ago, fruitmachine said:

If they were to limit numbers to, say, 5,000 would you be content to find that you were one of the 5,000 not "allowed" to visit?

I could see Santorini selling a limited number of tickets to access the island, like the Acropolis or Colosseum.   

[fruitmachine]

2 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

I could see Santorini selling a limited number of tickets to access the island, like the Acropolis or Colosseum.   

Tuning a whole island into a gated attraction, for which you need to pay to get in (and which would then have a black-market in inflated-price tickets).  That's not a world that I want to visit.

[marazul]

1 hour ago, Vineyard View said:

We have decided to stick with the sailing yacht (or catamaran as some have been surprised with) through the ship.  This experience ends at 1430 and we are in port until 2100. While we have been to a number of Greek islands, we have not been to Santorini before and always wanted to go.   I guess we will play it by ear if we will explore anything on the island, but with 10k cruise passengers in that day it’s completely unappealing and quite frustrating that this is allowed. So I would rather have a great memory of my day there. I hope all of you going before us will post back here what your experiences are, and I sincerely hope that they are fantastic!

Could you change the timing of the catamaran to a later time? In that way you could take an early ship's tour starting at the ferry port,  take a taxi to catamaran port (Vlyhada?), and get dropped off at the tender port at the end. I know there are lots of ifs and wishful thinking, but maybe you can make it work. 

[Island2Girl]

16 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

I have used https://www.cruisemapper.com/ports

There are probably other sites as well.

Thank you!!

[mapleleaves]

2 hours ago, ninjacat123 said:

I could see Santorini selling a limited number of tickets to access the island, like the Acropolis or Colosseum.   

That kinda happened by default the first week in August.  I read this in an NCL trip report ....by 2pm there was such a bottleneck that tenders were stopped for an hour.  When the hour was up, it was still a mess, so the tenders were cancelled and no one else left the ship. Yikes

[ninjacat123]

9 minutes ago, mapleleaves said:

That kinda happened by default the first week in August.  I read this in an NCL trip report ....by 2pm there was such a bottleneck that tenders were stopped for an hour.  When the hour was up, it was still a mess, so the tenders were cancelled and no one else left the ship. Yikes

 

2 hours ago, fruitmachine said:

Tuning a whole island into a gated attraction, for which you need to pay to get in (and which would then have a black-market in inflated-price tickets).  That's not a world that I want to visit.

I'm not saying I'd want that to happen, just a possibility.

[Vineyard View]

Ports in Europe are doing just that. I honestly think in some places it makes so much sense to limit the number of ships daily….Dubrovnik, Amsterdam soon, Venice (UNESCO status was threatened). 

[margbem]

I will explain what we did for our day in Santorini which, after talking to fellow passengers the day after, we are so glad we did!

 

We took a ship’s excursion, “Fira on your own”, which took us by boat to the “other” harbour where the buses are. A bus took us to Fira where we left the group and did our own thing. We just told the guide we were doing this and she gave us some cable car tickets for our return journey. We then walked for about 1.5 hours towards Oia on the path on the top of the cliff - a lovely walk! We returned to Fira and at 12.30pm we met our taxi guide for a 6hour tour of the island. This was with Santorini Best Tours. Cost for two of us, €280. Our taxi took us all over, but not to Oia as we have already been and the guide said it is now horrendously busy. We went to a medieval village, to a beach for a swim, we visited 2 wineries for tastings.

 

At 6.30pm we were delivered back to Fira and at 6.40pm we got straight on to the cablecar with no line at all.

 

We were on the Seabourn Encore and we left at 11pm.

[margbem]

I will explain what we did for our day in Santorini which, after talking to fellow passengers the day after, we are so glad we did!

 

We took a ship’s excursion, “Fira on your own”, which took us by boat to the “other” harbour where the buses are. A bus took us to Fira where we left the group and did our own thing. We just told the guide we were doing this and she gave us some cable car tickets for our return journey. We then walked for about 1.5 hours towards Oia on the path on the top of the cliff - a lovely walk! We returned to Fira and at 12.30pm we met our taxi guide for a 6hour tour of the island. This was with Santorini Best Tours. Cost for two of us, €280. Our taxi took us all over, but not to Oia as we have already been and the guide said it is now horrendously busy. We went to a medieval village, to a beach for a swim, we visited 2 wineries for tastings.

 

At 6.30pm we were delivered back to Fira and at 6.40pm we got straight on to the cablecar with no line at all.

 

We were on the Seabourn Encore and we left at 11pm.

[kleibo]

On 9/28/2023 at 8:01 PM, ninjacat123 said:

Ah, I was thinking it was 2023. Oops! I’m doing a live review in two weeks so I’ll report on my experience in Santorini 👍😁

Ninja - I just read that some people have signed up for this - missing the up and down completely   https://www.sandrascruisetours.com/port.php?sid=79&pid=1010   I don;t know anything other that some passengers have booked it and I did see a wooden boat at the dock when we were there.

[marazul]

1 hour ago, kleibo said:

Ninja - I just read that some people have signed up for this - missing the up and down completely   https://www.sandrascruisetours.com/port.php?sid=79&pid=1010   I don;t know anything other that some passengers have booked it and I did see a wooden boat at the dock when we were there.

That is a smart tour operator! 

[ninjacat123]

1 hour ago, kleibo said:

Ninja - I just read that some people have signed up for this - missing the up and down completely   https://www.sandrascruisetours.com/port.php?sid=79&pid=1010   I don;t know anything other that some passengers have booked it and I did see a wooden boat at the dock when we were there.

 

7 minutes ago, marazul said:

That is a smart tour operator! 

Thank you kleibo for posting this!  It looks like a great solution to the "getting back to the ship" issue. @marazul did you look at the itinerary?  Any issues you can see?  TIA!!

[marazul]

12 minutes ago, ninjacat123 said:

 @marazul did you look at the itinerary?  Any issues you can see?  TIA!!

It's basic, but it would satisfy most people. For myself, I would skip the winery and spend less time in Fira, and go to Akrotiri instead.

[margbem]

On 10/2/2023 at 3:10 PM, margbem said:

I will explain what we did for our day in Santorini which, after talking to fellow passengers the day after, we are so glad we did!

 

We took a ship’s excursion, “Fira on your own”, which took us by boat to the “other” harbour where the buses are. A bus took us to Fira where we left the group and did our own thing. We just told the guide we were doing this and she gave us some cable car tickets for our return journey. We then walked for about 1.5 hours towards Oia on the path on the top of the cliff - a lovely walk! We returned to Fira and at 12.30pm we met our taxi guide for a 6hour tour of the island. This was with Santorini Best Tours. Cost for two of us, €280. Our taxi took us all over, but not to Oia as we have already been and the guide said it is now horrendously busy. We went to a medieval village, to a beach for a swim, we visited 2 wineries for tastings.

 

At 6.30pm we were delivered back to Fira and at 6.40pm we got straight on to the cablecar with no line at all.

 

We were on the Seabourn Encore and we left at 11pm.

Forgot to say that we went to Akrotiri too. Not to be missed!

[ninjacat123]

@kleibo @marazul I booked the excursion with Sandra's Cruise Tours for Santorini.  I will let you know how it goes!!

[erby2283]

12 hours ago, kleibo said:

Ninja - I just read that some people have signed up for this - missing the up and down completely   https://www.sandrascruisetours.com/port.php?sid=79&pid=1010   I don;t know anything other that some passengers have booked it and I did see a wooden boat at the dock when we were there.

Thanks for link - I saved it in my favorites for a possibility for Sept 2024.  I currently booked a ship excursion but this could be another nice option. We arrive at 8 and it could be nice to enjoy a little extra sleep - then again, we'd be on our own to get off in time to meet the excursion. At the same time, having it start at 10 reduces the stress of having to get on the first tenders.

[ninjacat123]

2 hours ago, erby2283 said:

Thanks for link - I saved it in my favorites for a possibility for Sept 2024.  I currently booked a ship excursion but this could be another nice option. We arrive at 8 and it could be nice to enjoy a little extra sleep - then again, we'd be on our own to get off in time to meet the excursion. At the same time, having it start at 10 reduces the stress of having to get on the first tenders.

I am so happy about not needing to worry about getting down the hill via cable car, or dodging donkeys.😁

[erby2283]

@ninjacat123 Yes! Let's just hope we can get some reviews on their excursion before then!  I did like how on their webpage you can key in your sailing and it will pull up all their excursions available in each port for your particular sailing.

[ninjacat123]

19 minutes ago, erby2283 said:

@ninjacat123 Yes! Let's just hope we can get some reviews on their excursion before then!  I did like how on their webpage you can key in your sailing and it will pull up all their excursions available in each port for your particular sailing.

I liked that too!  I asked  DH about the stops Sandras Amalfi drive tour compared to the Carnival excursion we have scheduled.  He would rather go to Sorrento than Ravello, so we are sticking with Carnival.  Sandra is a smart cookie and I'm keeping her tour company on my go to list.  We'll see after Santorini🤞

[Vineyard View]

Check out Ravello online. It sits above the town of Amalfi. Both are worth considering. We took a local bus from Amalfi up to Ravello. It was quite beautiful. Just a thought

 

Sorrento is a different vibe. Both are pretty wonderful but we felt that Amalfi/Ravello were less commercial. 

[mapleleaves]

On 10/3/2023 at 7:37 AM, ninjacat123 said:

 

Thank you kleibo for posting this!  It looks like a great solution to the "getting back to the ship" issue. @marazul did you look at the itinerary?  Any issues you can see?  TIA!!

 

Sounds like Sandras is a middleman, like Viator .  Viatour doesn't conduct any tours but sells tours provided by other vendors.

It will be interesting to see which local company Sandras uses in Santorini since you never see a local vendor advertising this option.  Perhaps someone finally organized the boats that provide the one-way trip from the dock to Amoudi for 30E.  I always thought it was odd they didn't capitalize on the return trip.  

But this is a great option and desperately needed. 

[ninjacat123]

On 10/3/2023 at 8:55 AM, kleibo said:

Ninja - I just read that some people have signed up for this - missing the up and down completely   https://www.sandrascruisetours.com/port.php?sid=79&pid=1010   I don;t know anything other that some passengers have booked it and I did see a wooden boat at the dock when we were there.

Do you remember what time the tenders started in the morning for the Old Port, otherwise known as Donkeyville😉