Piraeus 12pm -> 8pm and want to visit Acropolis - Anyway to avoid queues?

We're a family of four with kids aged 13 & 10 and will be arriving at the port Piraeus at midday, departing at 8pm on Tues 22nd August and really want to visit the Acropolis.

We plan to get the X80 bus into Athens, so will leave the ship at midday and head for that.

I've heard the queues for the Acropolis can be very long especially in the heat. We don't want to leave it late and risk missing the ship.

I was wondering if anyone had any experience of how long the X80 would take at lunch time and the queue lengths at around 1pm-2pm for the Acropolis in August. I was also wondering if we were to buy a multi site ticket at the Temple of Zeus would we save hours of queuing at a cost of 10 extra euros per adult, even if we didn't visit the Temple or is it possible to buy multi-site tickets at elsewhere and bypass the queues Theatre of Dionysus?

Last time we were in Athens we did the X-80, it worked beautifully. I can't remember exactly what time our ship got there, but I think it was Noon -800 also because I was excited to be able to stay & see the Acropolis at night/ sunset.

We did get off quickly & grabbed the 1st bus. We were to the Acropolis very fast, maybe 30 min or so) and just bought our tickets there. There were no large queues. I think most of the big crowds arrive in the morning and it thins out later in the day. I could be wrong but we haven't had any problems the 2 times we've gone.

The first time we went, we did the train (too far to walk!!) and we did stop at The Temple of Zeus to buy the dual ticket which got us in both places. It was really quick & no lines there either. This was about 9am, as our ship got in at 8:00. We did a quick tour thru there & headed to the Acropolis before the ship crowds arrived.

The Acropolis museum is just down the hill. They have a cafe' with wi fi. We were glad to go there to rest after a few hours walking around and when a storm suddenly hit. It was mid September, warm day. We huddled under 1 umbrella for a while, so be prepared.

No trouble on the return trip on the X-80. We stood at the bus stop and got right on the first bus. I've heard it can be busy, so you can always walk to Syntygma (sp?) square and get the X80 return bus from there.

Sorry I don't know anything about the Theatre of Dionysus.

We enjoyed the National Archeology museum better than the Acropolis museum. There was lots of cool artifacts like the statue of Zeus they recovered after 700 years under the seas. Beautiful bronze.

I know kids might think museums are boring, but we just did a quick look thru after our walk thru Plaka. Enjoy your trip. We'll be there in 2 weeks!

Using the comprehensive instructions found on how to get the X80 we went into Athens. We were first in the queue from the cruise although the bus stopped short (near the little sticker which says X80) but we still managed to get a seat.

The Acropolis stop is close to Arch of Hadrian and Temple of Zeus where we took a couple of photos and then went to the Acropolis which you seem to go to the less crowded ticket office near the Theater of Dionysus.

I found there was actually 2 queues for this with the 1 on the right half the size of the 1 on the left so worth if you're in a group sending someone to the front to check there isn't a smaller queue.

Way back waited 5 minutes and got a seat on the X80, have to say it all worked out really well and a great experience for the whole family.