Louis Hellenic Cruises - Greek Islands

[belgiancruiser]

Thanks Zippee and Madeline for your fine reviews.

 

It reassures me a bit.

 

But has anyone experienced the Orient Queen ? the ship is older, but very recently luxuriously refurbished, it seems?

 

Could Olympia be done by Taxi ?

 

Many thanks,

 

Belgiancruiser

[photographia]

But has anyone experienced the Orient Queen ? the ship is older, but very recently luxuriously refurbished, it seems?

 

We did a three-day cruise on the Orient Queen with Louis last June (2007). They had hurriedly arranged to use this ship to replace the Sea Diamond, which had sunk a few weeks earlier. :eek: They were very anxious to show us that they were safety-conscious (for obvious reasons, people were in doubt!), and tried to show us a good time. I was alone in a double and had plenty of room, but some others complained about cramped conditions. (Don't know what kind of cabin I had, because this was part of a Greece/Turkey package deal arranged by a travel agent in the US. They made all the choices for us.)

 

The jacuzzi never seemed to work; ditto the TV in my cabin, although there was a big screen near the bar which was convenient if you wanted to see the news. One thing I remember well was that they bent over backwards to keep the ship clean--they were constantly vacuuming, polishing the elevator doors, etc. etc. It was obviously not a brand-new ship, but it was VERY well maintained. I wouldn't, however, use the term "luxurious" in reference to it!

 

The casino seemed lame (I only walked by and peeked in occasionally), but maybe that's just me. I never saw the shows, but the lounge where they were held should be redecorated, as it's straight out of "Saturday Night Fever" and come on, that was 30 years ago!

 

Food was okay; sit-down meals were better than the buffet, which definitely was serving left-overs by the end of our cruise, it was obvious!

 

I guess some of these comments pertain more to Louis Cruise Lines than to the ship itself--it's hard to separate the two sometimes. But hey, the whole point in going is to see the Greek Islands and Turkey, right? The ship is just a floating bus/hotel/restaurant, not an end in itself.

 

Speaking of which, we did all the ship's tours and they were FANTASTIC, every one of them. Definitely worth while!

[felix.fdez]

In summer 2008, we decided to travel with Variety Cruises in the cruise H&B 1, in the circuit called “Cycladic Pearls”. The experience was awful. It was supposed the motorsailer for 40 passengers would be in Marine Zea in Athens to start the cruise. No. When we arrive to Marine Zea, we found there was no ship at all. An employee from Variety cruises give us a ticket to take a big ferry from Pireaus to go to Syros, where the H&B1 was anchored (in the port). We arrive Syros late in the afternoon, with some other people, and they took us to the motorsailer H&B1.

 

We were in Syros FOUR nights, seeing a car parking from our Class A cabin small windows. In those days, the ship didn’t move from the port. We pay for buses to go to the beaches.

 

The guide was Italian, and he didn’t speak Greek at all, and the English also was not perfect. The worst problem it was he has little idea about the islands.

 

Finally, the fifth day, the ship manages to depart and we go to Paros, another island. During the sailing, a horrible smelt fill up the cabins. When we arrive to the island, again, we payed for the buses and everything to arrive to beaches. Forget about going in the H&B 1 to the beaches. The Greek Nigh (a dinner with a cost of 30 euros), was not really good. It seemed to me we went to a captain’s friend hotel, very far away from the town.

 

Forget Santorini, Delos, Sounion, Kea, Ios. We saw nothing of these places.

 

Sixth Day: They promise us we depart to Kea. Another trick. They took us to Hydra, the last place you could imagine to go from a Cycladic island cruise. Again in Hydra, we pay for going to a near beach, not very good. The captain says it was very difficult to move the ship in this port. Also, the “excellent” guide says he never was in the island. A new experience every day.

 

Seventh day: They tricked us again They promised to go Sounion Cape. NO. We finish in Aegina, an island near Athens.

 

All these days the weather was perfect, so, today, the only explanation for me is they want to save fuel and money, of course.

 

The ships seems somewhat unstable to sail those waters.

 

The food was terrible. The last day the give to us al the remnants from previous days. Wonderful. Our class A cabin was small, but you need to see the Class B and Class C. Yo need to be contortionist or something similar to enter in those cabins. I am not going to talk about the shower, but all you can imagine is little.

 

We arrive to Athens at 4 pm. We spent the night in Athens. The breakfast was a 7 a.m. I suppose the need to clean somewhat the vessel to capture another ignorant people.

 

So, the cruise was a complete fraud.

[jody]

I am working on a (belated) detailed review of my 4 day cruise on the Aquamarine, but in the meantime, I wanted to say that I had a great time on my trip. This itinerary is very port intensive (Day 1 Mykonos, Day 2 Kusadasi/Ephesus and Patmos, Day 3 Rhodes, Day 4 Crete and Santorini), so your time on the ship is minimal after your first afternoon at sea. I had low expectations of the Aquamarine (in comparison to the other lines’ newer and larger ships) and it pleasantly surpassed my expectations. The food was just average and one of the lunch options in the dining room seemed to be nearly the same thing almost every day (a noodle and chicken dish- with a different sauce each day), but the service was good and there was a decent variety of items at all meals. I ended up in a larger inside cabin and it was very roomy for 2 people. The muster drill was the longest and most painful drill I’ve ever endured in the six cruises I’ve taken. That could definitely be improved. I enjoyed volleyball on the netted sport court and it was busy with basketball at other times. The pool was small but there appeared to be adequate chairs for the small amounts of time at sea.

If you want to see a number of Greek Islands in a short amount of time for a value price, Louis Cruise is a viable option. The downside is that you cannot book direct (that I’m aware) and you must go through a group travel agency. Excursion tours are often booked by travel group, so if you are solo, you will have to contend with possibly being the only ‘outsider’ on a tour (which happened to me).

 

Detailed review to come………..

[marco]

We just returned last week from our Turkey/Greece tour that inlcuded a week aboard the

"Crystal". It was a wonderful trip, "Gate 1" and the cruise was part of it, we did not choose the line or the ship. I will share my cruise experience portion with you. THe ship is the former NCL "Leeward". I really liked the size of the ship, it didn't take 20 minutes to get "there" from "here". The cabin we had was fine and it had both 210 and 120 outlets, so we did not need to use our converter for camera battery recharging, shaver, curling iron. Food was "OK" not great, not bad, either. I thought it would have been more "Greek", it was not., and perhaps that was part of my disappointment. Breakfast and lunch were always open sitting, breakfast was always buffet (actually not a bad idea so you could get in out and have eaten and be on your way in minimal time. Lunch was sitdown or buffet and some type of different lunch offering by the pool everyday, pasta day, gyro day, ceasar salad day (with chicken or seafood to add, to really make it a meal) burger day, and others. Dinner was at 7:30 or 9:30, so even though we normally perfer 2nd sitting on cruises, 7:30 was late enough, so we dined "early". Also, because of the port schedule, (some days, two ports, and no sea days), dinners sometimes were earlier or open sitting, too. Tea was at 4 with pizza , sandwiches and desserts. If it was not meal or tea time, any beverage, like coffee or tea was NOT available and had to be purchased at the bars. The pool area had a sliding glass roof, which was nice on windy days or evenings. One night the midnight Chocolate buffet was poolside. What I didn't particularly care for, was that that entire deck area had tables and chairs for people to sit at, kind of an extention of the buffet lunch area. There were no loungers, so it seemed awkward if using the pool and having to walk through tables of clothed people to get up to the upper level where there were lounge chairs. Drinks in the lounges were skimpy but priced comparable to other lines. Shows were pretty good and consisted of dancing acts, singing (very, very popular, well know songs of several countries) as the passengers, and announcments were in French, Italian, Greek , German, Spanish and English. Daily programs were availalbe in all languages, as were the menus. Staff was quite fluent in all languages and there never was a communication problem. ON baord store and chocolates, and liqours and sundry items you might have run out of of forgotten, but for souveniers, stick to the ports. The casino was minimal. A couple of blackjsac tables and a dozen or so slots. Tipping was automatically added to your onboard account and could be increased/decreased at your discreation. Everything was "sign and sail" and billed to your onbaord account, no cash, and the ships currency was the Euro. On board excursions were priced comparably to other lines, and were good. There were brochures around with other itineraries/ships of the line. I think if I were doing a "European cruise", I might stick to a line more familiar to the US market, but for a "Greek Isle" cruise, the size of this ship made it a good choice, and for this itinerary, the places we were going to were WAY more important than the ship were were going there on. I would have no problem recommending this ship/line for this itinerary.