Greek Isle Review Royal Princess Sept. 17 - Sept. 24

[Rosethorn40]

We were on the same sailing as you, and I have enjoyed reading your perspective, and I think we have made many of the same observations of the various ports. In Elba we were originally scheduled for the tour you took, but in the end felt that the cost outweighed the value. However, based on your photos it appears that the winery visit was very nice.

[spiceyxi]

We were on the same sailing as you, and I have enjoyed reading your perspective, and I think we have made many of the same observations of the various ports. In Elba we were originally scheduled for the tour you took, but in the end felt that the cost outweighed the value. However, based on your photos it appears that the winery visit was very nice.

 

Thank you Rose. The value of this excursion is hard to justify as it came with a ~$160/pp list price. Both before and after the excursion I am not sure why it cost so much, but apparently I was willing to pay it for some reason. Maybe I am just foolish... I was very very surprised their was no Princess photographer along for the ride. They missed a great opportunity to sell tickets to this excursion. My wife was grateful the Princess rep wasn't involved as it looked like she had lice when we sat next to her on a tender in Kotor. My wife still has the clothes she was wearing next to her in quarantine.

 

Please feel free to let me (us) know if your experience differed to mine at any of the ports or if you have anything to add to my thoughts.

[Rosethorn40]

Thank you Rose.

 

Please feel free to let me (us) know if your experience differed to mine at any of the ports or if you have anything to add to my thoughts.

 

I have my own review thread going. Perhaps you would like to take a peak at my thoughts and photos?

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2408083

[spiceyxi]

I have my own review thread going. Perhaps you would like to take a peak at my thoughts and photos?

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2408083

 

Ah, I have been keeping track of your review. I was glad to hear that returning to Messina when we did turned out to be slightly less busy lines than at the peak.

[spiceyxi]

After going through the various ports and Princess specific information I want to visit my Pre and Post cruise plans.

 

For all of our flights we had used the Princess eZair program. The prices were great and the interaction between Princess and KLM was great. However, the interaction between Princess and Alitalia was terrible. Our original ticket was deemed void due to the time frame it was on-hold, but thankfully that meant Alitalia switched us to a direct Rome -> LA flight. Please note, that I did bid for our seats to be upgraded from Coach to Premium Economy. It was a miss spent 410 Euro as we lost the selection of our seats. I tried to choose specific Premium Economy seats online and it simply did not work. I then called Alitalia and they could do absolutely nothing. NOTHING. At the airport they were eventually able to switch our seats to something acceptable, but it took a lot of hassle. Whatever you do DO NOT try to upgrade your seats through Alitalia as you lose the ability to choose specific seats.

 

In any case here is a summary of our plans that I will go deeper into:

 

Athens September 12th - 17th:

Hotel: Arion (Astir Palace) Great Room and only 1 good server in the entire building.

Sights: Island Hoping, Acropolis Hill/Museum, Delphi and Nemea Wine Roads

 

Rome September 24th - 28th:

Hotel: Starhotels Michelangelo (Clean and modern hotel, but the room layout could be better)

Sights: Borghese gallery, Catacombs, Florence, Vatican Museum, the Colosseum and a Michelin star restaurant for lunch.

 

Pictures and details to follow over the next couple of days. As always let me know if you have any questions.

[spiceyxi]

I am skipping the first day in Athens as it was mostly resting and visiting the National Archaeological Museum. At the museum they make you check your bag in the coat check.

 

For our second day in Athens we decided to book an island hoping cruise which visited three separate islands; Hyrda, Poros & Aegina. We booked this through a company called Olympic Cruises which now goes by the name of Evermore Cruises. It was nice to be able to visit the separate islands, but next time I would have just taken a ship out to Hydra and enjoyed a full day there. The ship we took was not ideal due to the very small cramped toilet space. Plus, the staff was not very professional. They would sit around and take some prime seats to talk and smoke. Also, we noticed on multiple occasions the crew snacking on some of the bar snacks which were being distributed to the guests. They were handling money, touching their faces and grabbing food straight from the container/bag. The bar tender was very sick. Once we noticed this we did not eat or drink anything from the ship as we were concerned about getting sick so early on of our vacation.

 

Hydra was our favorite island for this cruise and we felt nicer than Santorini. It was very quiet, but their were a number of tourists there. My wife and I simply walked around and enjoyed the views and did souvenir shopping. A very pleasant hour.

 

In Poros we only had a small amount of time and took some time strolling the alleys and streets. Not much going on here, but it was nice to see. A lot of cars compared to Hydra which had almost none.

 

Aegina was a lot of fun as we got an easy stroll around and got to visit some ruins. These ruins were nice as you are free to roam and are able to climb on them essentially. A little archaeological museum is here as well. We had a nice lunch here and got to feed some of the local cats. Again, this was another place with great alleys to explore, shop and enjoy a drink or two.

 

The view when approaching Hydra.

 

The gorgeous view from Hydra.

 

A view of the port of Hydra from a hilltop.

 

Picturesque Poros.

 

Some of the ruins on Aegina you can freely explore.

 

Aegina is a very pretty island to visit if you have some extra time. This is the view from the ruins.

[Clarea]

Beautiful photos, thanks!

[Poipu1]

Thanks for the detailed review. I especially enjoy your photos of the smaller islands, anticipating a future visit.

[spiceyxi]

For the third day in Athens we decided to tour the Acropolis, Acropolis Museum and the Nemea wine roads. Along the way we had a brief stop at the Cornith Canal and a little shop that does hand made Grecian pottery. It was a great day out adventuring around the town and then out side of the city.

 

For this day we pre-booked with AthensTours.gr which offered the best value of the various day tours I found. I would book with this company again if I were to go to Greece. Great service at a good price, but you do use a (Mercedes E-Class) taxi cab for the tours for 2 people. Also, due to how far our hotel was out of town (30 minutes) it seemed that the standard tour didn't take into account the extra transportation time. For the Athens tour you get to watch an informational video and you get a little book to help you guide your way through the Acropolis.

 

I would highly highly recomend being able to see both the Acropolis Hill and the Acropolis Museum back to back. They work so well together and the museum is so well put together. Once at the museum go straight to the top and watch the video. Once the video is over take a tour of the top and make your way down. It is the best way to get the most of the museum.

 

The Cornith Canal was pretty far away and neat to see. I wouldn't have gone here on purpose, but it was neat to see on our way to the wine road. The Nemea wineries are a good amount away from Athens, but we got to visit one local winery and it was an absolute treat. The wine prices were a good value and tasting the local grapes was a fun experience. On the way we stopped at a little pottery shop. If my wife hadn't mentioned wanting one of the souvenir amphoras we had seen I would have skipped the stop. However, the place we visited made museum replicas that were hand painted and we purchased a small one (~2 glasses of wine) for about 30 or 40 Euros. A very unique gift to bring home.

 

I would recommend visiting the winery, but pre-arrange for a longer than expected day as it is a good distance away. I suspect our driver, Vassilios, felt bad for us and gave us a few extra stops on the way back though.

 

Some of the views from the Acropolis:

 

 

A sleepy dog at the top.

 

 

The canal

 

A sneak peek of the winery

[Maverick!]

Wonderful recap ! Brings back fantastic memories.

We did this same sailing on Princess a few years ago - my husband had proposed onboard as we sailed towards Santorini :).

 

Just wondering why was Naples replaced by Elba ?

[spiceyxi]

Wonderful recap ! Brings back fantastic memories.

We did this same sailing on Princess a few years ago - my husband had proposed onboard as we sailed towards Santorini :).

 

Just wondering why was Naples replaced by Elba ?

 

I am glad I could help bring back the memories.

 

They gave port congestion as the reason why Naples was dropped.

[Travlin grrl]

Great review and beautiful photos! It's fun seeing the places I missed and makes me want to go back again to check them out.

[cruisequeen4ever]

What was the reason you were given for dropping Malta? On our June cruise on the Royal, we had to skip Malta due to unusual winds.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

[spiceyxi]

What was the reason you were given for dropping Malta? On our June cruise on the Royal, we had to skip Malta due to unusual winds.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums

 

The Malta change was packaged in with the change of Kusadasi. Due to the security concerns in Turkey we switched to Kotor and due to the logistics of that change we switched from Malta to Corfu.

 

The worst part of the changes was that the sea day got moved from the third day to the second day. We had a week of vacation prior to the cruise start so we were ready for a break, but it would have been too early if we were just starting.

Edited October 7, 2016 by spiceyxi