HAL in Santorini: Fastest way to Oia?

[VA_Traveler]

Posting this on the HAL forum because I am looking for HAL-specific advice.

 

My family will be visiting Santorini at the end of June next summer on the Nieuw Amsterdam.   Our plan is to go straight to Oia, explore for a while, and then do the 6-mile hike to Fira where we will eat/explore and then return to the ship.  I am debating whether or not it is worthwhile to book HAL’s “Transfer to Oia” excursion so that we can be on an early tender.  We would then ditch the tour at Oia and make our own way back to the ship. 

I understand that the shore excursions tender first to a separate dock at Athinios, where buses are waiting to take them to Oia.  Then the ship moves over (correct?) and the non-excursion passengers tender to the dock below Fira, from where they either take the cable car up to Fira, or a boat straight to Oia.  If we don’t book the shore excursion, we would definitely take the boat to Oia.

Our top priority is getting to Oia as quickly as possible, so as to enjoy the town before the crowds descend and to begin our hike before it gets too terribly hot.  There will be four ships total in Santorini that day, nearly 8,000 passengers total, but HAL is first to arrive at 8 a.m., one hour before the next ship arrives.

This will be our first cruise on HAL and I have no experience with its tendering procedures.  My question is, how much earlier will we get to Oia on the shore excursion (bus from Athinios) than we will if we wait to tender with everyone else and take the boat from the regular dock?   We are NOT suite passengers and have no status, so we won’t have any priority on the tenders.  I have only tendered once (from Celebrity in Juneau) and will admit that I hated the process of standing in line for a tender ticket, so that is a consideration as well.

I realize that some of this will depend on how quickly the boats are loading up and leaving for Oia, but I would really appreciate any advice/insight that others who have done this with HAL in Santorini can provide.  It would cost significantly more to book the excursion, but it would be worth it to us if we can get at least a one-hour jump on the rest of the hordes descending on Oia.  But any less of a time advantage would probably not be worth the money.  What should we do??
 

[CruiserBruce]

If you take the ferry to Oia, you will beat most of the hordes, given you are the first ship in. Not sure the ship's excursion will go direct...they may stop elsewhere first.

 

When we were there the ferry wasn't running. We took the public transit bus, and still beat the majority of the crowds.

 

You have thought this through pretty well. Go with your ferry plan. 

[Friend100]

We did just that in our last cruise on the Koningsdam in August.  We were one of the first groups in the tender ticket lineup at B B King, probably 7:30am.  Got our ticket around 8am when they started.  We were in the 3rd group.  Tender started shortly after 9am I think.  We were at the old port 9:30am, and purchased the Transfer to Oia package.  As we were the only ship at Santorini that morning, we had to wait for more passengers before the boat was full.  I can't remember exactly when the boat took off.  When we got to the destination port, still had to take a bus to go uphill to Oia.  We were at the bus parking lot at Oia around 10:45am.

Edited September 19, 2019 by Friend100

[TAD2005]

Your ship will anchor in one place, almost equidistant from Athinos dock and the dock below Thira (Fira).   The ship will not move once anchored.   

If you book a ship tour, they will put you on a specific tender which will take you to the Athinos dock.  That is the only dock on that side of the island that is accessable to tour buses.   The road goes all the way down to the dock.   If you do a DIY tour, or private tour, your tender will take you to the dock below the town of Fira.   From there you have 3 ways to get up the 800 ft cliff to the town,  walk, donkey ride, or cable car.

But, if you want to go directly to Oia, the best way is to take a regular tender from the ship to the Fira dock.  When you get off the tender, you will see big signs for ferries to Oia.   The price includes the ferry to the dock at Oia, plus the short bus ride from the Oia dock up to the town.  Also included is the bus ride back to Fira, but you wanted to bypass the return bus and do the hike back to town.   The price is around 25 Euros per person for the ferry and bus.   You will have to buy a cable car ticket to get from Fira back down the cliff to the Fira dock for the tender ride back to the ship.

The long line for the cable car ride back down the cliff is the worst part of the day.  depending in the number of ships in port that day, you may have a 60 - 90 minute line to wait in to get to the cable car boarding station.   If you decide to walk down the steps, be very careful of the passing donkeys and also watch where you step, because there are lots of piles of donkey poo on the steps.   We did exactly this DIY tour in October 2017 on the Westerdam.

[CruiserBruce]

2 hours ago, TAD2005 said:

Your ship will anchor in one place, almost equidistant from Athinos dock and the dock below Thira (Fira).   The ship will not move once anchored.   

 

Neither of those are true, at least not always.

 

First, the caldera is pretty deep, so anchors are not typically used. Thrusters are used to hold the ship in place.

 

Second, in our visits there, the ship has moved after dropping pax at Athinos. It sailed slowly for abouy 20 minutes or so, to off the dock area below Fira.

[cruisemom42]

2 hours ago, CruiserBruce said:

Neither of those are true, at least not always.

 

First, the caldera is pretty deep, so anchors are not typically used. Thrusters are used to hold the ship in place.

 

Second, in our visits there, the ship has moved after dropping pax at Athinos. It sailed slowly for abouy 20 minutes or so, to off the dock area below Fira.

 

I also had the same experience. Our ship moved between tendering tour passengers off and then tendering remaining passengers to Fira. Which can add to the amount of time it would take the OP to reach Oia (e.g., because of the interruption of the ship moving, and also because the ship would have to set up for tendering a second time...)

 

Given their plan, if they really want to accomplish it, I do think taking the "Transfer to Oia" (which is unlikely to have any other stops, surely?) would probably get them to Oia an hour earlier. I can't say that definitively, but my sense is that an hour is about what they'd gain.

Edited September 20, 2019 by cruisemom42

[VA_Traveler]

Thanks so much to all of you for offering your advice -- every single one of these responses is helpful to me.  I am still not sure what we will end up doing, but you have given me much helpful information to work with.  We are really looking forward to our first cruise on HAL!  

[Friend100]

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