7 boats, 9,712 people in Santorini in same day, uhoh?

[twoforcruise]

I was looking at a website to see how many boats would be docked in each port on our Sept. 2011 Mediterranean cruise. On Sept. 22, 2011, Santorini has 7 boats scheduled to be docked for a total of approximately 9,712 people. :eek:

 

Is this a lot of people for one port on the same day? Especially since this is an island with limit transportation? Should the number of people be taken into consideration as to how we should plan to see Santorini?

[KirkNC]

That will be a zoo. When we went we were the only ship and it took awhile to tender in and get up to Fira and that was with about 1,800 passengers. I can't even imagine what the line will look like coming down the cable car. Also the streets in Fira will be packed!

 

Kirk

[CruiserBruce]

Pretty small cruise ships, if they average 1200 people each.

 

We were there with two ships for around 4000 people, and it was crowded.

[twoforcruise]

That's not good news then. I'm pretty sure I read that everyone has to go up to Fira the same way and no vehicles can get down to the port, right?

[CruiserBruce]

If you are on a ship excursion, you tender to a location where buses can drive. But it is far from everywhere and has no services.

 

Then, the ship moves to Thira, where everyone else can tender ashore. Ship's excursions also tender back to the ship at Thira.

[twoforcruise]

It looks like there are two choices. 1. Take a ship excursion. 2. Hope that it isn't actually that bad at the cable cars.

 

I'd really like to find out how long of a wait it is to get to the top on a 'busy' day. I'm assuming 9,000+ passengers getting off 7 ships is a busy day.

[sunsetbeachgal]

We just went to Santorini on a Greek Isles cruise-very spectacular. However I was on a 600+ passenger ship and there was only one other small ship in port. The problem, I'm told, with the lines is getting back down. You do have limited options (if you aren't doing a ships excursion which we did not do)-funicular (that is where the line is as the capacity is small), donkey ride or walk. We are walkers, but were told that the path, which is shared with donkeys is smelly. On our return trip (coming down) I saw a fairly good number of folks walking, so maybe it is not that bad?? Santorini was quite hot when we were there (right around when you will be). We did the funicular up to Fira, walked around and then took the public bus to Oia. It was a fun day. :D

[CruiserBruce]

We waited about 20-25 minutes. Can't say on that many people/ships.

 

You are correct on your choices. There are usually plenty of tenders, altho 7 ships will require quite a few. The bottleneck is the tram (of course you could take a donkey, or walk). The actual ride is only about 5 mins, but the tram carries 36 per trip. It is a "counterbalance" tram- there is one at the top, and one at the bottom. One goes up, the other comes down.

[texancruzer]

Another factor is even though the calendar says 7 ships......they do not all arrive and leave at the same time..... once you get the list of ships - go to each website and find out arrival and departure times.

 

Cruisecal showed 3 ships in port with us on our day there. BUT, one ship LEFT in the morning before we arrrived (we were there 2pm - 10pm) another one arrived before we did and left at 5 pm, so when many of us were going ashore from our ship - they were trying to get back to their ship.

 

It's all in the logistics.

 

That said, get in line for your tender tickets early !!!! We didnt and didnt get off our ship until almost 3:45 :eek: Not sure why some cruiselines have such weird port hours..... but we had a good time anyway.

[twoforcruise]

Thank you all for your input. I did some research and none of the ships arrive or depart the same time as my ship.

 

Three ships arrive at 8am and the other three arrive at 4:30pm and 5pm. My ship arrives at 9am.

 

Three ships leave at 9pm, one at 9:30pm, and two at 6pm. My ship leaves at 7pm.

 

With that information I'm not as concerned as I was before. The three ships that arrive at 8am carry 3,548 people max. Hopefully they will be cleared out by 9am.

[screwcork]

The fastest way is probably to take a donkey up - and to walk done. We have been there several times and never had to wait for more than 5 min. for a donkey. The smell walking down is not that bad.

 

Screwcork

[tom_uk]

ON a visit in 2007 I took some timings of the cablecar and worked out the capacities. You can read my conclusions here. They're not encouraging reading, I'm afraid. Obviously, the Santorini cablecar was built in an era of much smaller ships and ferries.

[twoforcruise]

Great info on the cable car capacity. If some people are taking the donkeys then I guess that may reduce the numbers waiting for the cable cars. It would be interesting to find out how many people the donkeys take up in an hour. That's probably getting too technical though. :rolleyes:

[zqvol]

We were at Santorini in May, with 11 ships. It was really not as bad as you would think. Most of them are not there all day. Keep in mind however that none of the websites that we checked mentioned more than 4 ships being in port that day so your information may be completely inaccurate.

 

One way to avoid the wait for the cable car is to take the donkeys up and down.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=1154823&page=6

 

Take a look at this thread (post 233) for our description of Santorini on that occasion.

[texancruzer]

Thank you all for your input. I did some research and none of the ships arrive or depart the same time as my ship.

 

Three ships arrive at 8am and the other three arrive at 4:30pm and 5pm. My ship arrives at 9am.

 

Three ships leave at 9pm, one at 9:30pm, and two at 6pm. My ship leaves at 7pm.

 

With that information I'm not as concerned as I was before. The three ships that arrive at 8am carry 3,548 people max. Hopefully they will be cleared out by 9am.

 

 

See, I told ya' - it's all in the logistics :D So two of the ships will leave an hour before you do.....they will be down and onboard before you need to be. Four of em will be working on getting back aboard AFTER you have already left.

 

Now, just remember to get in line to get your tender tickets EARLY..... otherwise you get a high number and have to wait.

 

PS: ride the donkeys up......it was a blast !

[twoforcruise]

Can't get any better info than that guys, thanks! Read your post in the other thread as well ZQVol. This is our first cruise and first time out of the country so I went from thinking this port would be a flop to being really excited about it again. :D When do they tell you what time they will start giving out tender tickets? I believe I read somewhere that people go down before they start giving out tickets to wait in line?

[texancruzer]

Can't get any better info than that guys, thanks! Read your post in the other thread as well ZQVol. This is our first cruise and first time out of the country so I went from thinking this port would be a flop to being really excited about it again. :D When do they tell you what time they will start giving out tender tickets? I believe I read somewhere that people go down before they start giving out tickets to wait in line?

 

Depends - but whatever time they tell you they will start giving out tickets, you need to be in line AT LEAST an hour before. Yes I know - you didnt really plan on spending your vacation standing in line for tender tickets - but its worth it if you want to get off at a decent time.

 

Santorini was really nice but I wish we had more time there. And dh was bummed that Akrotiri is closed.....perhaps next visit !

[jocap]

I think I read that Santorini was quite strict about allowing cruise ships in, so they specify what times, and for how long. I believe the tenders used are from the island, and there will only be so many buses and gulets available for trips, so there will be some sort of structure to the whole pattern.

Jo.

[vizslapup]

We were there in July. There were 4 ships there the same time that we were there. My DH & I elected to walk back down the donkey path. It really wasn't too bad (we are 49/51). Some people from our ship waited 1 1/2 hr in the lineup to take the cable car back down, and we made it down in 20 minutes.

[twoforcruise]

Wow, 1 1/2 hour wait for cable cars. If there is a lengthy line waiting to go back down at the cable cars, I imagine we would choose to just walk down. I've read of many people choosing to do this. I've heard it can be slippery and you have to dodge donkeys? Sounds like an adventure ;)

 

I wondered if they keep track of how many ships were docking, when they were arriving etc., and jocap answered that question. Apparently they do keep track. 4 ships at one time doesn't sound too bad unless everyone is getting off the ship at the same time, but that's usually not the case though as I found out. We are planning to take the bus around. This far in my research on it, I get the impression that it's easy to do.

[Podie]

When we saw how long the cable car line was to get back down, we walked. It wasn't that bad. But what WAS bad was when we saw the people behind us on the cable car line getting off the cable car BEFORE we reached the bottom! So don't misjudge the line or you may be walking down for no good reason.

[4774Papa]

I was looking at a website to see how many boats would be docked in each port on our Sept. 2011 Mediterranean cruise. On Sept. 22, 2011, Santorini has 7 boats scheduled to be docked for a total of approximately 9,712 people. :eek:

 

Is this a lot of people for one port on the same day? Especially since this is an island with limit transportation? Should the number of people be taken into consideration as to how we should plan to see Santorini?

 

 

We were in Santorini on the Norwegian Gem in July. We took an excursion (Oia and Winery) and I am sooooo glad we did. We saw the entire island and loved it. Sure, you can save a few dollars by doing it your self, but if time is limited, you don't want to miss this wonderful island.

[zqvol]

Can't get any better info than that guys, thanks! Read your post in the other thread as well ZQVol. This is our first cruise and first time out of the country so I went from thinking this port would be a flop to being really excited about it again. :D When do they tell you what time they will start giving out tender tickets? I believe I read somewhere that people go down before they start giving out tickets to wait in line?

 

Wish I had an idea about tender tickets to help you but we were on Sea Dream with less than 100 passengers so they don't need tickets.

[jgrahamiii]

I was looking at a website to see how many boats would be docked in each port on our Sept. 2011 Mediterranean cruise.

Just curious, what website did you use? -John

[twoforcruise]

I've read on the forums to be careful about this type of website because they may not be accurate so I'll pass that along. In my researching I've found this to be true, so far. One of the sites I was using is cruisetimetables .com. I didn't know these kinds of sites existed until I started researching here on CC.