Help--earliest flight time when disembarking Athens port

[NoWhiners]

Hi All

 

I have searched the Greece ports pages and can only find this question posted with no answers, so I am turning to the larger community for help. We are taking the Prinsendam on the Black Sea cruise in October. I am trying to book our airfare (costs a LOT!) and trying to decide what the earliest time we can make a flight might be on disembarkation day. We can get a good flight that leaves Athens at 12:40 pm, which would be great, if there is enough time. We would set up a private taxi to get us and take us to the airport. I have read that it takes about an hour to get to the airport from the port and that traffic an be heavy. This will be on on Monday (Oct 14, 2013).

 

Does anyone have any experience with this and can provide some insight?

 

Thanks for any help

ML

[bcnvcanada]

You are cutting it close, try for a later flight. Today there is a general strike in Athens, all transportation is closed, including some things at the airport. Your airline will work with you if this happens to you. We had a problem last November with a three days general strike. At the airport, they usually stike from 4 hours at a time. I would advise you keep up on the Greece board, we found it very helpful. Strike notices are posted usually in advance. Will you be taking HAL transfers? If you are they may be able to get you to the airport on time to do a 12:30 check in. Don't let this worry you, all in the end works out. Enjoy your crusise.

[NoWhiners]

bcnvcanada

 

Thanks for the info, I was thinking it might be close. We don't have a lot of choices leaving Athens for some reason (at least not that don't require 18-20 hour layovers somewhere in Europe). I was initially thinking we would return home the next day, to reduce the stress. I was thinking of not using HAL transfer, since it is pretty expensive and we can get a private car for about the same. I have been reading the Greece/Russia boards every day and have gotten a ton of info from them already, so that is also good advice. In fact, we have already booked a private tour in Sochi using some of this info. I haven't been seeing as much news about strikes in Greece and was hoping things had calmed down a bit,

 

Thanks again, and we will enjoy the cruise. DH has been wanting to do this for some time and we have never been on Prisendam.

 

ML

[jaspersmycat]

We went on a Black Sea cruise Oct 2011 and disembarked in Athens at 8am. We had a private taxi take us to the airport. That day there was a general transportation strike but the driver still got us to the airport by 9:15am. Our flight to Paris was at noon.

 

Many flights were cancelled that day but our flight on Aegean Air was only delayed 20 minutes.

 

I'd try for the 12:40pm flight if I were you but realize in Greece anything can happen. Also, Athens airport is not a great place to sit around for many hours.

[NoWhiners]

Elise

 

Thanks for the advice. I never considered what it was like sitting around Athens airport. I am wondering how long it takes to check in and clear through security, and I guess Customs--is it as long and dumb as in the US? We would really like to fly home the day we get off the ship, I just don't know how much time to allow to get off, find our private car, then get to airport. I was thinking we could walk our bags off ourselves to save time, but is this even allowed in Europe? (This is our first cruise someplace this exotic. Only Alaska, Panama Canal, and Caribbean, and all of these had us getting off in US or Canada).

 

So many questions, good thing we have some time.

 

Thanks again

ML

[jaspersmycat]

We walked our bags off. I don't remember any customs at the dock. I do know that our driver was standing within a 100 ft of the gangway and we were in the car and moving within 10 minutes of getting off the ship.

 

Security at the airport was also very quick.

[SilvertoGold]

We had a HAL transfer with a short tour of Athens and still got to the airport by 11am.

Without a strike, you should be able to get there by 10 am, but...

 

It is not a bad airport to spend a little time in, spacious and comfortable, so book a flight after about 2pm and you won't have to worry!

[Mtn2Sea]

About 5 years ago, we had a 10:30 flight from Athens. Although we made it, I would never do it again, especially with today's conditions in Greece. We did the self disembarkation and I had pre-arranged transportation to the airport. The ship cleared at 7 AM and we were off by 7:10! There was virtually no one in the terminal building when we walked through with our luggage. This was the first time we had flown out of Athens. The air terminal was very busy, so I immediately started asking for directions. Once we found the proper line, it took about 30 minutes to get to the desk. We had a 20 minute wait at the gate before they called our flight. All this occurred before I knew about the sage advice that can be found on Cruise Critic. We were so stressed by this experience that we arranged to stay in Athens a few days after our cruise the next year.

[NoWhiners]

jasper

 

thanks for the additional info--a big help. I think we will go for it!!

 

Wish i was there now--weather turned ugly today. Lots of wind, a little rain, but supposed to be done by midnight. Spring is trying to bust out...

 

ML

[NoWhiners]

We had a HAL transfer with a short tour of Athens and still got to the airport by 11am.

Without a strike, you should be able to get there by 10 am, but...

 

It is not a bad airport to spend a little time in, spacious and comfortable, so book a flight after about 2pm and you won't have to worry!

 

Silver

 

Thanks for this. So far, we only have options of leaving at 7:05 am or 12:40. It seems like we can make 12:40, if we don't dawdle and pre-arrange transport.

 

I won't stress if we have an afternoon flight. before noon, we will just have to stay another night--but I have a plan!!

 

ML