Boarding and hotels for Athens departures

[triple7tahoe]

I think I have tried most usual links on here for suggestions about hotels and getting to the ship when boarding in Athens. I have not found any that talk about the experience and what to expect so here goes.. We are boarding the Ocean Princess in Athens in late November and plan to arrive in Athens a minimum of one day early so my question becomes do we stay near the airport (we don't care about sightseeing as we have been to Athens three times in the last couple of years) or should we find a hotel near the port? What about transport from where ever we pick to the pier. I read somewhere that there are hotels that provide shuttle service to the pier but I doubt that is from downtown.

I do not plan on taking public transport, even though it is convenient as I don't want to hassle with the luggage. I also read about problems with pickpockets when you are distracted. In addition we will be tired and not on the "top of our game" having just finished almost 20 hours of flying.

Thanks:)

[lynnak]

We are flying in to Athens for a Nov departure also, we debated the hotel location, near the airport, downtown or pier. We picked one somewhat in between the airport and downtown. They have a shuttle that will pick us up at the airport the night we get in and we will have them arrange a cab to the port in the morning.

[triple7tahoe]

We are flying in to Athens for a Nov departure also, we debated the hotel location, near the airport, downtown or pier. We picked one somewhat in between the airport and downtown. They have a shuttle that will pick us up at the airport the night we get in and we will have them arrange a cab to the port in the morning.

I have booked a hotel in Piraeus and they have an airport shuttle. In reading the fine print, it looks like they charge 60 euros for this service, I will look a little further for transport before I commit to their shuttle. It does appear that have a local shuttle than could be used to get to the ship.