Santorini Car Hire

[Jdell]

I was on their site looking into renting a car for the day and there seem to be multiple pick up/drop off locations. One listed Fira, which I assume requires that you take the cable car up, but there was another listed as "port". Does this mean this location is based down by the port and you avoid the cable car and there are roads that take you to the top?

 

Also, for those who have driven around Santorini (Fira, Oia, Beaches), was parking an issue?

 

Thanks.

[therhodes]

You would want the one listed as Fira. The ship will anchor there. The only way up from the tender piers will be the cable car or donkeys (or if you're really energetic you can hoof it up the 600+ stairs!).

 

The port would be the ferry port, which is Athinions....you would still have to get up to Fira and then catch a bus or taxi there to pick up your car.

 

Fira is the best location.

 

For parking, it will depend where you go. Generally parking is not a problem anywhere other than in the towns.

 

In Oia you would park in the public parking lot just before the bus station if coming from Fira.

 

Near the beaches in Perissa and Kamari there are also public parking lots. The only place where parking could be an issue if near the Red Sand beach at Akrotiri, not a large lot and cars and scooters are parked every which way.

 

If you are into wine, there are also some pretty good wineries on the island that offer tour and tasting. However, it would be good idea to know where they are as the Wine Road signs are of little or no help in locating them.

 

Have fun, Santorini is beautiful, but it is also a tourist destination and depending on how many cruiseships are in port, it may be extremely crowded and of course many more tour buses on the road to contend with also. But that said, it's not very big and was quite easy to drive around.

 

Linda

[Jdell]

Thanks, Linda. Very helpful info!

[labeachcomber]

Hi Linda,

 

Just to clarify. So even though there is an option "Santorini Port", that is not the one I want to select? On their website, it seems like there is a Port Meeting point at Athinios with the car location very close to that. Or are all the cars located at this "Port Car Park", and no matter what office we go to, we'd have to take a bus to get to the car? We are on the Equinox in two weeks and am trying to get all the arrangements made. I'm going to guess that Equinox doesn't tender to Athinios, and that we'll be taking the donkeys or cable cars that are described on these boards. Once we get to the top, how far is the actual rental agency from there? Does somebody meet us at the top, or do we need to find the place on our own?

 

Seems like there are many car rental options in Santorini. But Santorini Car Hire has an easy to navigate website, and it seems like they give full insurance and you don't need to put down a deposit. The only thing I'm worried about is that it will take us a long time to rent a car since probably a lot of people will be doing so. Are there car rental agencies at the top of the cable cars where the cars are actually there so you don't have to waste time taking a shuttle to get to your rental car?

[therhodes]

hi labeachcomber....

 

Athinios is NOT the one you want. Athinios is the "port" on Santorini that ferries (and I assume freighters/cargo ships) would arrive at.

 

The Equinox anchors in the bay at Fira. You want the Fira Downtown location. Your tenders will take you to the marina there and then you can take the cable car up to the town (or a donkey!). That is where you want to pick your car rental up. Fira is not terribly large so I wouldn't think a taxi would be necessary, but that will depend on the car rental company location. You might want to find a map of Fira and then locate the car rental office so you know where to head once off the cable car.

 

The walk from the bus terminal to the cable cars is about a 5 - 10 minute walk, so find the bus terminal on the map to give you an idea of walking distances. I am thinking that it is probably easier and quicker to walk. Many of the streets are pedestrian (or scooter) only so getting a taxi might take longer than just walking.

 

Driving was pretty easy there. It can be a little slow with the ATV's on the road and some of the narrower roads in the towns that can end up being like one lane due to cars parked and double parked.

 

When driving allow yourself some "lost" time. We found that we often missed a turn just simply because on the map it looks like you have further to go when in fact it wasn't very far at all. Check out the scale on your map!

 

Have a great day in Santorini!

 

Linda.

[fan de vacances]

I was on their site looking into renting a car for the day and there seem to be multiple pick up/drop off locations. One listed Fira, which I assume requires that you take the cable car up, but there was another listed as "port". Does this mean this location is based down by the port and you avoid the cable car and there are roads that take you to the top?

 

Also, for those who have driven around Santorini (Fira, Oia, Beaches), was parking an issue?

 

Thanks.

 

Hope someone answers this post as the questions also interests me ....

[fan de vacances]

sorry, somehow skipped the replies that Linda gave, I would have deleted my post but can't see to.

Thanks Linda

[Jdell]

Just to update those with questions like mine when I originally posted, I did book online and selected "Fira" as the pickup location.

 

After I paid a 10 euro deposit, I received a confirmation email which said they will meet us with a sign at the top of the cable car entrance and that we should call 30 minutes prior to reaching the top.

 

Seems easy enough.

[labeachcomber]

Just to update those with questions like mine when I originally posted, I did book online and selected "Fira" as the pickup location.

 

After I paid a 10 euro deposit, I received a confirmation email which said they will meet us with a sign at the top of the cable car entrance and that we should call 30 minutes prior to reaching the top.

 

Seems easy enough.

 

I selected "Fira Downtown" and got an automated email saying that if I chose the "airport or port", there would be a representative holding a banner with my name. Not sure if Fira Downtown is considered the port.

 

I reserved a manual (hope I remember how to drive one), paid 7 Euro for the extra insurance, 0.7 Euro for Carbon contribution, so total was less than 49 Euro. Sounds like a deal!

 

I didn't have to pay a 10 Euro deposit, wonder why your was different?

[Jdell]

The email requiring the deposit came a day after my original confirmation. At first I thought it was odd since there was no prior mention of the deposit, but I figured it was no big deal.

 

I, too, hope my hubby can dust off his manual driving skills, since I couldn't pass up the 40 euro price for a manual car. The smart car was even cheaper, but I need a 4-seater.

[therhodes]

Not sure if they'll meet you in Fira. I think you will just have to make your way to the car rental office, which shouldn't be much of a walk. But.....if there are enough people renting cars from your cruise, perhaps you could ask them to send a rep to where you get off the cable cars to walk you to their office (this is assuming you are all using the same car rental company of course! )

 

Do the car rental sites of maps showing their location in Fira? If so just print those off and you should be fine.

 

Santorini is really unique.....coming around the corner of the island on the ferry was a truly unforgetable experience. If you have been to Venice, I kind of think of it as the same experience....a movie set that someone didn't bother to dismantle.

 

I watched many cruiseships come in for the week we were there and am sorry to say that there appeared to be very few people on deck to experience the arrival. It really is surreal.

 

Just a note too.....depending on where you previous port of call was you ship could come in from two different directions. From the south I don't think the experience will be quite the same as the ship is a fair distance away as it comes around into the caldera. If you are arriving from the north or west you will enter the caldera with Oia clinging to the cliff on your left hand side.....this is the most spectacular entry I think. I would post a picture if I could figure out how !!!

 

Linda

[labeachcomber]

Wanted to come back and give an update. We just came back from the July 16th Equinox.

 

Santorini was amazing and we really had a great time. Unfortunately, our experience with Santorini Car Hire was less than ideal. I know that there are other rental agencies but we had chosen this one because of the price, the website, and the ease of booking.

 

We rented a small 4 passenger manual transmission for 49 Euro (included optional extra insurance). Had paid a 19 Euro deposit prior to arriving.

 

Our ship docked at 7 am, so we were up early and took the first tender out to Santorini. We had requested that we get our car at 7:30 am. We had been asked to call 30 minutes prior to arrival so they could be ready for us. Called from the tender using my cellphone (not sure how much that will cost me!), and we were told that they would be there at 8 am at the top of the cable car. Once at the top, everybody else that was with our early tender group went their own ways. Santorini Car Hire? Nowhere to be found. We sat around for probably over 30 minutes. Called the company. They said they were already at the top waiting for us. I say, "Really? Because I'm standing right at the cable cars, where are you?" "Oh, no, we'll be there in five minutes".

 

This guy shows up. Nice enough. Not very talkative. He proceeds to walk us through all these alleys for about five minutes until we finally reach some parking lot. It's now close to 8:30. No "Santorini Car Hire" office or anything. Walks us to this tiny, old, manual transmission. Fine, no problem. Would rather have one of these cool Smart Cars, but whatever. He makes an imprint of my credit card, looks at my driver's license, collects 30 Euro, and tells me to just bring the car back to this parking lot and leave the keys under the floormat at 2 or 3 pm when we're done with the car.

 

Really? No rental contract to sign? No insurance explanation? No map of where the actual parking lot is? No gas options - aka prepurchase vs explanation of filling the gas back up at the end? Hmm. Seemed kind of strange.

 

The guy starts to leave. We start the car. Literally the gas is already in the red. Seriously? I drive up to catch the guy as he is walking away. He says to just put a little gas back in the car before we return it. And that there's a gas station up the road on the way to Oia.

 

We get to the gas station, it's easy enough to find. But it's closed! Call him up again (my third call to them that morning) and am told that even though the gas seems to be a millimeter above empty, that we have enough gas to get there and back.

 

We drove up to Oia, and the gas was a bit of concern as the roads got windier and we seemed to be getting further away from anything. He was right, we made it up there and back ok. We enjoyed our day and having a car... but it probably took us 15 minutes of driving around these confusing streets - with no map - to find the same parking lot to "return" the car. Or more like, leave the keys under the mat, leave the doors unlocked, and hope nobody steals the car and then they charge my credit card.

 

Price was ok with this company, but I would have appreciated a little bit more formality. Next time I go with Hertz, even though they might cost a bit more. Or one family we met used Tony's, which you can walk to from the top of the cable car and they were really happy with them. Also agree that there are a lot of rental agencies up at the top. Some of the other visitors just ended up renting ATVs.

[vizslapup]

We just returned this week. We used Tony's, and rented a auto/standard smart car for 45 E, plus 10E for extra insurance. We opted to use the auto setting, and was glad we did. The streets were hilly at times, and if you got stuck behind an ATV, it would be tough with a standard(and my DH drives a standard car at home but he is glad he had automatic) I would suggest that you take this extra insurance, as otherwise you only get 3rd party insurance, and if something happens to your vehicle, you need to pay for it. The road are very narrow at times, and we saw a rental car 2 just behind us get hit on the driver side (and lose it side mirror).

 

Tony made sure that we understood where we were going to (we wanted to go to Oia and to the beach.) He made sure that we understood the map, and pointed out the one way streets so that we wouldn't have a problem returning the car. We only needed to put 8E in before we returned the car, and that took us around the island. It was a short walk to get to Tony's from where the cable car lets you off, but there were signs pointing the direction. We did not need to give a deposit up front, and when we returned the car, we were given the imprint back of our credit card.

[ScTrny1]

We too were on the 7/16 Equinox cruise, and used Emver (booked online) but had a much better experience. We got right on the tender early enough, and were met at the top after the cable car with a fellow with our name on a sign.

 

Yes, we too walked through a few streets to get to the parking lot (apparently several rental agencies use this lot). We had reserved a SMART car (automatic) online. We asked insurance questions, signed the contract and were given a map of the island. The gas was nearly on empty and we headed directly for a gas station in Fira. That was the one thing we didn't like; we would have preferred to have some gas in the car and be asked to return it with the same amount. We ended up putting close to half a tank of gas in, and only used about a quarter of a tank, so it cost us extra euros. Lesson learned. We had scoured their website before booking, and had even emailed questions to them, so we had learned the rest of the regular rental car information, insurance, etc online. It pays to do your homework, for sure!

 

We laughed about the "leave the keys under the mat when you return the car" idea--after all, its a small island---who is going to steal the car? And where would they hide it?

 

We enjoyed the freedom of renting the car, and found that the SMART cars actually are pretty roomy for 2 people-plenty of head and leg room. We would rent with this company again.

[labeachcomber]

We too were on the 7/16 Equinox cruise, and used Emver (booked online) but had a much better experience. We got right on the tender early enough, and were met at the top after the cable car with a fellow with our name on a sign.

 

Yes, we too walked through a few streets to get to the parking lot (apparently several rental agencies use this lot). We had reserved a SMART car (automatic) online. We asked insurance questions, signed the contract and were given a map of the island. The gas was nearly on empty and we headed directly for a gas station in Fira. That was the one thing we didn't like; we would have preferred to have some gas in the car and be asked to return it with the same amount. We ended up putting close to half a tank of gas in, and only used about a quarter of a tank, so it cost us extra euros. Lesson learned. We had scoured their website before booking, and had even emailed questions to them, so we had learned the rest of the regular rental car information, insurance, etc online. It pays to do your homework, for sure!

 

We laughed about the "leave the keys under the mat when you return the car" idea--after all, its a small island---who is going to steal the car? And where would they hide it?

 

We enjoyed the freedom of renting the car, and found that the SMART cars actually are pretty roomy for 2 people-plenty of head and leg room. We would rent with this company again.

 

Sounds like a lot of similarities between Emver and Santorini Car Hire. As an American, I was just dumbfounded that there really were no contracts to sign, no insurance information, no gas explanation, etc. I'm laughing that you too also had no gas - it must be a trend with rental cars on the island. I can assure you, we brought back the car with a millimeter of gas, just like we got it. Cost us 4 Euro. Agree that the cars can't really go anywhere even if they're stolen, but just the act of leaving the keys was a bit odd. And the fact that nobody really checked us back in. I would have liked getting my credit card imprint back like apparently Tony's gives you.

[therhodes]

On Naxos we at least had a 1/4 tank. LOL...we too had little or no gas in the car we rented on Santorini (in Oia). The thing started beeping just a couple of minutes after we headed out.....just a tad bit annoying. Only good thing about that is that you return the car with the same amount of gas........

 

Linda