Trying to understand tendering at Mykonis & Santorini

[sallywingate]

We have not cruised in years. My husband & I will be on the Galaxy the end of June cruising eastern Med. Could someone explain the process as to how the people all get off the ship to enjoy the islands? Do you have a ticket? Do we all stand in a cattle line and wait for a small boat to pick up all 2000 of us? Is there a way that we should plan our adventure so that we are not the last people to get off of the ship? Any hints as to how to be one of the first off rather than one of the last? Thanks, Sally :confused:

[raymac46]

Normally you go to the Celebrity theater and get a tender ticket. When your group's ticket number is called you go down to the gangway as a group and on to the tender.

Certain folks have priority tendering (if you are on a ship's excursion or a Celebrity Captain's Club Elite member) so they'll go first. Get down to the theater early (maybe 15 minutes before they say you should go.)

In both Mykonos and Santorini they had large local tenders in addition to the ship's tenders so it went pretty fast.

[Fblack]

Tendering is not fun. Luckily I am an Elite member and got priority tickets. We just went to Michaels club when we were ready to leave and waited 5 minutes and got right on the next tender. People on tours get priority too.

 

Santorini is different. They have two tender areas. First the ship stops and lets off people on tours. Then the ship moves to a second anchoring area and the tenders start taking off everyone else.

[PurpleCow]

I've been to Mykonos, albiet on a different line, but we were docked.

[omeinv]

I can't imagine anyone enjoys tendering, but my experience has been that if you can delay going ashore until the initial rush dies down, it's not too bad. That typically takes about 90 minutes to 2 hours. Of course I've only sailed on the (relatively) smaller Celebrity ships, and that may skew my experience.

 

Also, my experience has been that they generall run enough tender boats to expedite things, and at many ports supplement the ship's boats with local charters.

 

Finally, if there's a bright side to tendering at all, it may be that usually it puts you ashore where you want to be, instead of at the end of a pier. it does little good to be docked, if you merely have to "tender" into town on shuttle buses.

 

Harris

Denver, CO

[kitty9]

Another good thing about those tender ports is that those towns aren't that huge, they're easy to get around and you don't waste a lot of time getting to places of interest. Even if you're on one of the later tenders, you're really not going to lose that much time. Santorini is very compact and easy to walk around, so it doesn't take hours to see the area. Same with Mykonos.

[leoandhugh]

There is a new pier at Mykonos and also an older one; depending on how may ships are in port that day, you may not have to tender.

[uktog]

I actually like some aspects of tendering - I usually get my best photos of the ship then and as we are just off shore, I have plenty time to compose my photos of the port.

One word of warning, even if you are not prone to seasickness, if you are among the first persons loaded in the tender you will be rocked around for 10 mins or so before you go off as it tends to take a while to get 150 or so people onto a tender as the crew are very careful about helping people on. DH is never seasick but he was very green when we were tendering at Helsingborg. He was fine at other ports but we were maybe coming onto the tender about 5 mins through boarding. No problem on the way back though

A

[tom_uk]

I took some pictures showing certain aspects of the tender process at Santorini.

 

Santorini Cablecars/tendering (2006) : http://www.*****/travelpage/aspgallery/view_ad.asp?Ad_ID=2737

 

The two occasions I've been to Mykonos (both times on Galaxy) we docked at Tourlas, the new harbour a mile or so out of town, and got a shuttle bus into town. Celebrity charged for the shuttle bus.

 

I blogged while I was on the most recent cruise on Galaxy here:-

 

Galaxy cruise 2007: http://tomtotley.wordpress.com/category/galaxy-2007/

[Jade13]

We have not cruised in years. My husband & I will be on the Galaxy the end of June cruising eastern Med. Could someone explain the process as to how the people all get off the ship to enjoy the islands? Do you have a ticket? Do we all stand in a cattle line and wait for a small boat to pick up all 2000 of us? Is there a way that we should plan our adventure so that we are not the last people to get off of the ship? Any hints as to how to be one of the first off rather than one of the last? Thanks, Sally :confused:

 

I was on the Century for Grand Cayman and the first few tenders were empty. The Captain announced multiple times (around 7:00-7:30am) tat if anyone wanted to get off there was no line and to just go).

[TravelerThom]

I've been to Mykonos, albiet on a different line, but we were docked.

I too have docked at Mykinos [2006, Louis Line] and that dock was several miles from town and required purchasing a bus ticket to and from town - docking is not always better than tendering:(. [Case in point - one used to tender in Sint Maartin; now you dock and have either a long walk to town or can PURCHASE a ride from the dock on a tender that takes you to where you used to get for free.]

[hcat]

TomUK--

those photos really give me a nervous stomach--we will be taking the cable car over the donkeys but I will keep my eyes closed going both ways--afraid of heights & the whole affair looks rickety to me...

 

I imagine the bigger problem is when everyone tries to take the cable car back down & then re-tender back to the ship..our cruise will be on Solstice with a huge amount of pax in the same port just on that ship....I regret not having done this itin on Galaxy when we had the chance--about 1000 fewer pax, I think...

[agabbymama]

TomUK--

those photos really give me a nervous stomach--we will be taking the cable car over the donkeys but I will keep my eyes closed going both ways--afraid of heights & the whole affair looks rickety to me...

 

I imagine the bigger problem is when everyone tries to take the cable car back down & then re-tender back to the ship..our cruise will be on Solstice with a huge amount of pax in the same port just on that ship....I regret not having done this itin on Galaxy when we had the chance--about 1000 fewer pax, I think...

 

 

I also have a fear of heights and being suspended in mid-air. Princess offers a tour that takes you to another landing where buses are waiting to take you up the mountain, rather than the donkeys or cable cars. Then at the conclusion of the tour, you can either be let off up top in town and walk down or ride the donkey down, or just stay on the bus and go back down to the tender dock. You might want to see if Celebrity has a similar tour.

[Lsimon]

I also have a fear of heights and being suspended in mid-air. Princess offers a tour that takes you to another landing where buses are waiting to take you up the mountain, rather than the donkeys or cable cars. Then at the conclusion of the tour, you can either be let off up top in town and walk down or ride the donkey down, or just stay on the bus and go back down to the tender dock. You might want to see if Celebrity has a similar tour.

 

I believe that on most, if not all, of the ship's tours at Santorini last fall (Millennium cruise) the ship's excursion people were tendered to the spot where they boarded buss es for the trip up the cliff and on to their destination. It would have been difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a group to get to the normal tender point, up the cliff on donkey or cable car, and then a couple blocks to the buses - all while keeping the group together. But I also think that all the ship excursions ended with a drop off in Fira (the town by the main tender port) with a ticket to the cable car and left on your own to travel down and tender to the port.

 

We took a morning tour and traveled this way, then explored on our own to the village of Oia in the afternoon. We read that this was a great way to avoid the lines for the cable cars in the morning, but on our trip we were the only ship in port and I heard there wasn't much of a line in any event. Might have been a different story if there were several ships in port.

 

Here is a link to pictures showing the cliffs and port for the bus ride up and the port for the cable car, donkey or foot path. you can click back to some earlier pictures of the bus and cable car rides and lots in between.

[hcat]

Than you all-- We will definitely be doing a celebrity Excursion so if we get the bus that solves going up--I will be afraid the bus will fall off the road but is better than donkey or cable car--going down--perhaps a cocktail will help!

[leoandhugh]

If one cocktail will help, then two will really do the job. Down the hatch and up the hill!!:)

[Lsimon]

Forget the cocktails in Santorini - just order the cheap house wine and it will be great (at least it was for us) and maybe a glass of Ouzo. We were impressed at how good the house wines were at restaurants throughout the Med when we cruised there.

[agabbymama]

This is a direct quote from the Princess EZ Santorini tour on their excursion page

 

"This tour ends at Athinios Port where you will be tendered back to the ship. Before returning to Athinios at the end of the tour, passengers have the option of remaining in Fira and returning to the harbor via cable car. Passengers who take the option of remaining in Fira must take into consideration that to reach the cable car, they must travel a considerable distance uphill over narrow cobblestone streets and steps."

 

So check out the excursions on your cruiseline's webpage and go from there. I find I can close my eyes on the bus and not suffer nearly as bad as trying to force myself into a gondola for descent up/down the side of the caldera.

[The Big Booper]

Our Brilliance cruise last year was scheduled to stop at Mykonos and Santorini. The water was so rough at Mykonos that even after docking and tying up the ship was bouncing so much that the stop was cancelled. This happens at Mykonos so be prepared to possibly have the port skipped.

 

At Santorini we anchored in the harbor and the tendering in was ok. The problem was getting back down from the cliffs to the tender piers. There is a single path up and down the cliffs shared by the donkeys and the people. The alternative is to take the cable cars down so in the late afternoon there is a long line for the cable cars and it can take over an hour to get down from the hill to dockside.

 

If you choose to go riding a donkey down the path or walking it, you and the donkey poo will be on the stairway down and if you choose to ride the donkey down he/she will be sharing his smell with you. One woman we met took a 40 minute shower before she felt the donkey aroma was gone.

 

And the donkeys are fed at the bottom of the hill so they charge down. Little bit of a thrill ride here. We were forewarned and got to the cable car at 2 PM for the ride down, not crowded then.

 

And if there are 2 or 3 ships anchored..........

[Lsimon]

...The alternative is to take the cable cars down so in the late afternoon there is a long line for the cable cars and it can take over an hour to get down from the hill to dockside....

 

On our cruise we were fortunate enough to have only one ship in port and the line for the cable car in late afternoon, which I'd imagine is prime time, was very short.

[tmyq]

We too had to tender in to Santorini, the Seas were calm so we didn't have any problems, We did the Volcano shore excursion there and would not recommend this to anyone not fit. The elderly especially. The walk up was steep and long and we lost about half our people who gave up about half way up. Once we did get up the view was great and we got some terrific pictures but definateley would not do it again. Mykonos although the ship tendered we had calm seas and were dropped off right in town so we did not need any transfers. We went to Paradise beach and had a nice relaxing day there. BEWARE! if you decide to go to the beach ask first which one is the Nude, Topless, and Family. We were at the Nude had a few surprises but hey! didn't mind. After the beach we came back in town and had a nice dinner then back to the ship.

 

J