Pearl - Freestyle Dailies - Greek Cruise - Trieste to Athens - Anyone have them

[sbnuggie]

Good Evening,

 

Doing the Greek Isle cruise end of August, looking to see if anyone has the dailies yet for this cruise, I know it just started the cruises earlier this month but hoping someone has them for us.  Thanks so much

[aloha_DC]

Doing this in October so would be excited to see as well

[Scubadoc]

I don’t think this cruise goes to Athens does it? Isn’t it Trieste to Trieste? We are on the September 6 sailing

[sbnuggie]

On 7/1/2024 at 4:35 PM, Scubadoc said:

I don’t think this cruise goes to Athens does it? Isn’t it Trieste to Trieste? We are on the September 6 sailing

No it does a series of one way's all through the summer and into fall.  She does 2 9 day one way's than 10 day round trip.

[IEfromGT05]

On 6/30/2024 at 9:42 PM, sbnuggie said:

Good Evening,

 

Doing the Greek Isle cruise end of August, looking to see if anyone has the dailies yet for this cruise, I know it just started the cruises earlier this month but hoping someone has them for us.  Thanks so much

Just got off a cruise going the opposite direction. Attached are the dailies for that one (not sure how helpful that will be)

Day 3 - Mykonos.pdf Day 2 - Santorini.pdf Day 9 - Ravenna.pdf Day 8 - Split.pdf Day 7- Kotor.pdf Day 6 - Dubrovnik.pdf Day 5 - Corfu.pdf Day 4 - Zakynthos.pdf

[sbnuggie]

Awesome, thank you for posting this, we are visiting the same ports so we have some idea of things like last tender times, opening for dining rooms etc.... hopefully someone on the same direction will post theirs.  Thanks again for paying it forward and posting these

[aloha_DC]

Thank you!! These are really helpful and interesting! We’re planning to just solo tour in Kotor, Dubrovnik, Mykonos and maybe Corfu. Any tips or favorites?

[PearlWings]

Hello! We'll be on the Pearl and still researching something for Zakynthos. Do you have any tips? Wanted to do a boat/land tour but not sure we'll have time and there are private boat tours but are pricey so still considering. Has any one found a small group tour that may fit our schedule there since it may take time to disembark ? Preferable if it leaves the main port but I know most smaller boats leave at the northern part of island. Thanks!

[sbnuggie]

Our Pearl faceb00k group arranged a private tour for groups of about 15 with a company called nefis travel.  Unfortunately they were out of space.  Zak has proven to be challenging to plan for.  Shipwreck beach is on the far northwest corner of island and we dock/tender on the southeast corner so getting there is challenging.  We are still stumped as to what to do.

[IEfromGT05]

On 7/16/2024 at 7:05 AM, aloha_DC said:

Thank you!! These are really helpful and interesting! We’re planning to just solo tour in Kotor, Dubrovnik, Mykonos and maybe Corfu. Any tips or favorites?

 

15 hours ago, PearlWings said:

Hello! We'll be on the Pearl and still researching something for Zakynthos. Do you have any tips? Wanted to do a boat/land tour but not sure we'll have time and there are private boat tours but are pricey so still considering. Has any one found a small group tour that may fit our schedule there since it may take time to disembark ? Preferable if it leaves the main port but I know most smaller boats leave at the northern part of island. Thanks!

Here's what we did:

Kotor: We booked a tour through Viator ("Lady of the Rocks and Blue Cave - Kotor Boat Tour "). It was great. You end up on a small boat with 10-12 people, so a lot probably depends on your captain, but I really liked ours. It was just a very beautiful boat ride through the bay, the soviet sub tunnels were interesting, and the blue caves were very cool to see. There were plenty of people getting off the ship and buying a ticket for the exact same thing we did, so you probably don't need to pre-book unless you want to.

Dubrovnik: My favorite day. We didn't pre-book anything. We got off the ship first thing and took a taxi to Old Town (it was 18 euro for the taxi...the ship also offers a shuttle for $20/each). We paid to walk around the walls (35 euros) and did that for a couple hours. We then took the cable car up for some great views. There was a small museum up there as well (5 euros?) with a few artifacts, maps, etc from the Siege of Dubrovink in the early 90s that I found interesting. I wish I had read up on it before we went because some of the english translation within the museum was a little iffy. I was very young in 1991 so don't have a lot of memories of it happening. We then went back down and found a great restaurant for lunch (don't remember the name, sorry) in one of the alleys. I would definitely recommend doing the walls and walking around the Old town as early as you can - one because it was hot and two because by the time we finished lunch, it was absolutely packed. Plenty of taxis to take you back to the ship as well.

Mykonos: We did the NCL excursion to Delos which I found really interesting. Our guide was pretty good which helped. You can also book this yourself. Not sure how true this is, but our guide said since we booked through NCL we got there earlier than most of the other tours. It was pretty empty when we got there, and it was starting to get busy when we left. After the tour, we walked around Mykonos for a few hours and grabbed another good lunch.

Corfu: We did the NCL beach break here. We were looking for a "chill" day since there were no sea days. This was just a bus to a local beach club. The beach club assigned all the cruise passengers beach chairs in the back (some even on the grass behind the beach where you couldn't even see the water). They left the better chairs for customers walking up and paying. We ended up going to the beach club next door and paying 20 euros for a better chair.

Zakynthos: This one I wish had just been our chill day, and that we had done something different in Corfu. We ran into some of the same issues you are facing trying to plan. We wanted to do one of the boat tours, but with the schedule getting adjusted it was hard to find a tour that met our timeline and wasn't a private charter (it was just 2 of us, so we didn't want to pay for a boat for just ourselves). We ended up doing the Panoramic Zakynthos through NCL, and it was not great. Our guide wasn't very good, and it was a lot of bus time to see some not that exciting things. Not sure if it was just a one time hiccup, but our tender line getting back on the ship was also very long (+1 hour).

Overall, Dubrovnik, Kotor, and Mykonos were my 3 favorite stops, in that order. If I had it to do it over again, I would've done something different in Corfu and made Zakynthos either a sea day or a light day to just stroll through the town on our own.

Hope that helps!

 

Edited July 17 by IEfromGT05
typos

[kristicruise]

On 7/15/2024 at 3:42 PM, IEfromGT05 said:

Just got off a cruise going the opposite direction. Attached are the dailies for that one (not sure how helpful that will be)

Day 3 - Mykonos.pdf 658.22 kB · 14 downloads Day 2 - Santorini.pdf 619.15 kB · 17 downloads Day 9 - Ravenna.pdf 546.57 kB · 11 downloads Day 8 - Split.pdf 678.89 kB · 8 downloads Day 7- Kotor.pdf 624.29 kB · 10 downloads Day 6 - Dubrovnik.pdf 573.41 kB · 10 downloads Day 5 - Corfu.pdf 597.82 kB · 8 downloads Day 4 - Zakynthos.pdf 657.84 kB · 10 downloads

I am trying to plan our transfer to Venice from Trieste at the end of this same cruise.  About what time do you think I should call for the transfer?  How long did it take to get off the ship at the end of the cruise?  Thank you  

 

[IEfromGT05]

1 hour ago, kristicruise said:

I am trying to plan our transfer to Venice from Trieste at the end of this same cruise.  About what time do you think I should call for the transfer?  How long did it take to get off the ship at the end of the cruise?  Thank you  

 

We used an NCL transfer that left before 6 AM...it was really easy for us to get out, no idea how long it took other people, sorry!

[aloha_DC]

10 hours ago, IEfromGT05 said:

 

Here's what we did:

Kotor: We booked a tour through Viator ("Lady of the Rocks and Blue Cave - Kotor Boat Tour "). It was great. You end up on a small boat with 10-12 people, so a lot probably depends on your captain, but I really liked ours. It was just a very beautiful boat ride through the bay, the soviet sub tunnels were interesting, and the blue caves were very cool to see. There were plenty of people getting off the ship and buying a ticket for the exact same thing we did, so you probably don't need to pre-book unless you want to.

Dubrovnik: My favorite day. We didn't pre-book anything. We got off the ship first thing and took a taxi to Old Town (it was 18 euro for the taxi...the ship also offers a shuttle for $20/each). We paid to walk around the walls (35 euros) and did that for a couple hours. We then took the cable car up for some great views. There was a small museum up there as well (5 euros?) with a few artifacts, maps, etc from the Siege of Dubrovink in the early 90s that I found interesting. I wish I had read up on it before we went because some of the english translation within the museum was a little iffy. I was very young in 1991 so don't have a lot of memories of it happening. We then went back down and found a great restaurant for lunch (don't remember the name, sorry) in one of the alleys. I would definitely recommend doing the walls and walking around the Old town as early as you can - one because it was hot and two because by the time we finished lunch, it was absolutely packed. Plenty of taxis to take you back to the ship as well.

Mykonos: We did the NCL excursion to Delos which I found really interesting. Our guide was pretty good which helped. You can also book this yourself. Not sure how true this is, but our guide said since we booked through NCL we got there earlier than most of the other tours. It was pretty empty when we got there, and it was starting to get busy when we left. After the tour, we walked around Mykonos for a few hours and grabbed another good lunch.

Corfu: We did the NCL beach break here. We were looking for a "chill" day since there were no sea days. This was just a bus to a local beach club. The beach club assigned all the cruise passengers beach chairs in the back (some even on the grass behind the beach where you couldn't even see the water). They left the better chairs for customers walking up and paying. We ended up going to the beach club next door and paying 20 euros for a better chair.

Zakynthos: This one I wish had just been our chill day, and that we had done something different in Corfu. We ran into some of the same issues you are facing trying to plan. We wanted to do one of the boat tours, but with the schedule getting adjusted it was hard to find a tour that met our timeline and wasn't a private charter (it was just 2 of us, so we didn't want to pay for a boat for just ourselves). We ended up doing the Panoramic Zakynthos through NCL, and it was not great. Our guide wasn't very good, and it was a lot of bus time to see some not that exciting things. Not sure if it was just a one time hiccup, but our tender line getting back on the ship was also very long (+1 hour).

Overall, Dubrovnik, Kotor, and Mykonos were my 3 favorite stops, in that order. If I had it to do it over again, I would've done something different in Corfu and made Zakynthos either a sea day or a light day to just stroll through the town on our own.

Hope that helps!

 

Thank you so much that’s so helpful!

[PearlWings]

@IEfromGT05 Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Yes we're gonna do a mix of tours and exploring on our own as well. Yes totally , finding the same thing hard to match the timeline.  Zakynthos is the one that has been challenging to plan for due to time constraints and so much to explore. How long did it take with the tender boats for that port and was it delayed? 

[IEfromGT05]

12 hours ago, PearlWings said:

@IEfromGT05 Thank you so much for sharing your experience. Yes we're gonna do a mix of tours and exploring on our own as well. Yes totally , finding the same thing hard to match the timeline.  Zakynthos is the one that has been challenging to plan for due to time constraints and so much to explore. How long did it take with the tender boats for that port and was it delayed? 

We were on an NCL excursion, so we had priority tender tickets. It seemed like we got out pretty quickly. I would also assume since there's not a lot of NCL excursions going out in Zakynthos, you wouldn't have to wait too long for the first other non NCL or priority excursion tender tickets to be called. But thats just a guess.

I don't remember it being particularly long to get to shore (15 minutes?). There is a little bit of a walk from where the tender docks to the actual town (maybe 5 minutes?).

[redmomof4]

I’m replying so I can come back and look at these later! 

[redmomof4]

Didn’t we used to be able to request tender tickets on the kiosks or the NCL app? 

[Mbrog3]

On 7/15/2024 at 4:42 PM, IEfromGT05 said:

Just got off a cruise going the opposite direction. Attached are the dailies for that one (not sure how helpful that will be)

Day 3 - Mykonos.pdf 658.22 kB · 43 downloads Day 2 - Santorini.pdf 619.15 kB · 41 downloads Day 9 - Ravenna.pdf 546.57 kB · 28 downloads Day 8 - Split.pdf 678.89 kB · 21 downloads Day 7- Kotor.pdf 624.29 kB · 23 downloads Day 6 - Dubrovnik.pdf 573.41 kB · 38 downloads Day 5 - Corfu.pdf 597.82 kB · 24 downloads Day 4 - Zakynthos.pdf 657.84 kB · 18 downloads

We are on this cruise going the opposite direction in September. We have a sunset excursion planned in Santorini. Wondering what the time was you needed to be back on board if you remember. Ship is scheduled to depart at 10pm. Thanks.

[Chocolate Teapot]

On 7/18/2024 at 2:13 PM, IEfromGT05 said:

We were on an NCL excursion, so we had priority tender tickets. It seemed like we got out pretty quickly. I would also assume since there's not a lot of NCL excursions going out in Zakynthos, you wouldn't have to wait too long for the first other non NCL or priority excursion tender tickets to be called. But thats just a guess.

I don't remember it being particularly long to get to shore (15 minutes?). There is a little bit of a walk from where the tender docks to the actual town (maybe 5 minutes?).

I was on the last Pearl sailing and there was almost a mutiny at Zakynthos!

 

Well, not quite, but as it's a tender port, there was a long wait in very hot weather for tender boats with no shade on the quayside. To add insult to injury, an MSC ship was also in and appeared to be transferring their passengers much more quickly and they also had the tents to stand under. 

 

A long queue is bearable if you can see a constant supply of tender boats and people being moved quickly, but that was not the case here, and many people were (understandably) complaining. 

[sbnuggie]

Okay, just replying to my own post after our cruise.  Here are the Freestyle Dailies for Athens - Trieste 9 day Pearl

Day 1 - Embarkation.pdf Day 2 - Santorini.pdf Day 3 - Mykonos.pdf Day 4 - Zakynthos.pdf Day 5 - Corfu.pdf Day 6 - Dubrovnik.pdf Day 7 - Kotor.pdf Day 8 - Split.pdf Day 9 - Ravenna.pdf Disembarkation - Trieste.pdf