calebandjess

We are definitely “tolerably fit,” haha. My main concern with the stairs is about slipperiness and avoiding donkeys. While in good physical health, I am quite accident prone, haha. I’ve heard of incidents occurring and can’t help but be a little nervous about traversing the steps. That being said, if it can give us an extra hour on the island as opposed to spending that time in line for the cable car, maybe it’s worth the risk? I know riding the mules down is controversial but would like any opinions on that, as well. Full Santorini experience? 😉 

I've read many of the posts about Santorini, so bear with me as I ask some more questions. 🙂 I really want to make the most out of our time on the island, which is obviously limited on a cruise. We'll be in Santorini on June 30 from 8 am-6 pm, and obviously have to take into consideration time for tendering and the cable car line. From what I've been able to gather from cruise timetable sites, we will be the first ship to arrive that morning, the next ship arrives an hour later, and the third ship arrives at 1 pm. We are also the first to leave, and the next boat does not leave until 8:30 pm. I'm hoping all this helps to alleviate line congestion for the cable car but am not getting my hopes up. 

So, with all that for some context, I am trying to put together a day of activities that allows us to take the best advantage of the day. I considered taking the boat from the tendering dock directly to Oia, and while that's not completely out of the question, now I'm leaning more toward taking the cable car up to do the hike over to Oia. Once in Oia, we'd like to explore the town a little but are not big shoppers and would mainly like to see the sites and ambiance and maybe even find the place that does fish pedicures. 🙂 Afterward, we'd like to head down to Ammoudi Bay, go swimming/cliff diving, and eat lunch at one of the fish taverns on the water. I am thinking perhaps an abbreviated version of the hike to Oia might be a better option though to get to lunch at a reasonable time? Is there a good bus stop to get off at in between Fira and Oia that would allow us to do half of the hike or so? Or even a good place for a taxi to drop us off at if that's a better option? I've referenced the Santorini Dave website but am interested in hearing about personal experiences. If we did half-ish of the hike, maybe we could even taxi over to the other side of the island to see some of the sites over there after visiting the Oia side. I've read about a water taxi near Akrotiri that takes you to see black, red, and white beaches for 10 euro, and that is something of interest to us. I'm aware I may be trying to cram too much into one day and am interested in hearing people's perspectives.

If we took the boat transfer over to Oia instead of doing the plan above, we could always do Ammoudi Bay first, followed by Oia, and then hike toward Fira, but what is making me lean the other way is that I'm really intrigued by eating lunch at one of the fish taverns right on the water at Ammoudi Bay, and, timing wise, that probably wouldn't work out because we'd be leaving Ammoudi Bay before lunch time if it was the first thing we did that day. If someone has another interesting dining experience they'd like to suggest as an alternative, I'm open to hearing it!

I know I have a lot of thoughts, so thanks for getting through this!  🙂 

35 minutes ago, Homosassa said:

June 30 is high season and I doubt that there will only be three ships at anchor.

 

We also checked for the number of ships for  Santorini on our cruise last summer.  We checked various port sites and thought we would be the first ship in and that there would only be four ships for the day.

 

Wrong, two ships were already anchored when we arrived and we counted eight ships during our stay (not all at once, some departed and others arrived).

 

Be prepared for the narrow passageways in Oia to resemble one of the circles of Hell as depicted in old wood cuttings of Dante's Inferno; a mass of people trudging up shoulder to shoulder from the bus parking area and throughout the town.

According to this website, only three ships will be anchored: https://www.cruisetimetables.com/visitingsantorinigreece-30jun2020.html (Note that there are five listed, but three are actually the same ship.) I'm hoping that it is correct but will be prepared for possible inaccuracies and more crowding. I've read plenty about the crowding in Oia and am prepared for it and refuse to allow it to ruin a trip to such a beautiful island. We don't actually plan to spend a significant amount of time in Oia (just enough for a "taster") but do want to go down below to Ammoudi Bay for cliff diving/swimming followed by lunch at one of the fish taverns right on the water. Ideally, I think I'd like to end our visit of that part of the island there and pay the extra expense to have a taxi return us to Fira. (I've read that restaurants in Ammoudi Bay are happy to call taxis for customers, so hopefully this plan works out.)

36 minutes ago, CruiserBruce said:

Not sure what @TAD2005 means by "special tenders". The ship's tenders aren't used at Santorini...it is required to use local tenders, which are, generally, larger than the ships, which allows for people to get off faster. Otherwise accurate. Last we were there, tender tickets were used.

Do you remember when tender tickets were handed out and how that process was handled, by any chance? I’ve done my research and am familiar with my options once getting onto shore but am trying to figure out what I can expect for actually getting to shore via tender. The earlier time we can get to tender the better. Just trying to establish some expectations for that process. 🙂

Hello, everyone! I'm asking this here instead of the Greece forum because I'm sure every cruise line handles tendering differently. We'll be in Santorini on June 30 from 8 am-6 pm and obviously want to take as much advantage of the day as possible. Fortunately, we are the first ship to arrive. (The second ship arrives an hour later, and the third ship doesn't arrive until 1 pm.) Does anyone have experience with how HAL handles tendering in Santorini? Is it first come first serve and wait in line, come at an earlier time for a tendering ticket, etc? I know this might be early to ask these types of questions, but I am a planner and have wanted to go to do a cruise like this for quite some time and just really want to have realistic expectations of how things will go down. At the moment, we are interested in doing the hike from Fira to Oia, or perhaps an abbreviated version, so we're not interested in getting priority tendering with a HAL excursion. I just want an idea of what our timeline will be as far as getting off the ship, onto the finicular, and into Fira. We considered taking one of the boats at the dock over to Oia and doing the hike in reverse, but we would like to spend a little time in Oia and don't think getting a later start on the hike is necessarily a good idea that time of year.

23 minutes ago, euro cruiser said:

I personally find the bus the most comfortable of the public transportation options.  The depot is close to the cruise port (550 meters/one-third of a mile on foot) and there's a ticket office right there, so it couldn't be easier.  There's a bus at 7:30 Monday - Friday (except in July) that gets you to Pompei at 8:15, well before the ruins open at 9 AM.

 

SITA schedule: https://www.sitasudtrasporti.it/archivio/Download/corse/sitasud/Campania/Salerno/ea8c2604-d4c8-4dbd-82e5-3057d40ccf33_5001_2019.pdf/0

Thank you! This is helpful, as well! 

Thank you! Very helpful!

I’ve seen lots of information about round trip taxis from Naples to Pompeii, but does anyone know if doing a one way trip is possible and the associated cost? We’re entertaining the idea of taking a taxi to Pompeii, taking the train to Sorrento afterward, and then taking a ferry back to Naples from Sorrento. I know there is a train and shuttle option, but we like the idea of traveling a little bit more comfortably for the first leg of the trip and being able to get to Pompeii right when it opens. We’ve looked at shore excursions but really don’t want to be “herded” and rushed through Pompeii so think doing it independently may be the best option. 

We’ll be doing our first HAL cruise on NA in June (12-night Mediterranean), so it’s good to read positive reviews! Did you tender any poets, besides the one you missed? I’m interested to know how tendering was handled. Tickets, or just show up and line up?

The cruise you’re looking for sounds really similar to what we have booked for next June. It’s the 12-night Greek Odyssey cruise through Holland America. It starts in Rome and ends with an overnight in Venice. Here is the order of of ports:

Rome (Civitavecchia)

Naples (excursions to the Amalfi Coast possible)

Santorini

Kusadasi, Turkey

Heraklion, Crete

Athens (long day from 7 am to 11 pm, so plenty of time to fit lots in)

Nafplio

Katakolon (Olympia)

Corfu

Kotor, Montenegro 

Venice

It’s a very port-intensive cruise, which is what drew us to it. We wanted to see as much as possible, and this delivered. We’re starting on the front end with a couple days in Rome and ending with a couple days in Dubrovnik once the cruise is over since we’d like to see Croatia and this cruise doesn’t stop there.