NCL's "Charming Oia Village" excursion in Santorini

[MFCRichmondHill]

Hello,

 

I am just wondering if anyone out there has done Norwegian's "Charming Oia Village" excursion while in port at Santorini, Greece?  I'm trying to find out approximately how long it takes for the excursion to get from ship (via tenders) to the port and then to Oia, and approximately what time it arrives in Oia and what time it departs Oia.  I can't seem to find this information in any of the reviews for Santorini excursions.

 

Thanks,

Michael

[MeHeartCruising]

I have not taken this specific tour, but I will still offer my opinion.  You can ignore it if you wish.  🙂

 

Have you read the public reviews of this tour on ncl.com/excursions website?  One of them indicates they had only 1 hour in Oia.  A couple of them make reference to being disappointed at how long it actually took to get to Oia (due to typical, and often unavoidable, excursion realities).  Since it is only a 3-hour excursion, I would not expect much more than 60 minutes in Oia.  They probably allow 30 minutes of driving time to and from Oia and the rest of the time is the miscellaneous "stuff" like tendering, loading buses, waiting for people, etc.

 

If you decide to take an excursion that adds something else to the Oia destination (such as the winery visit), be aware that the order in which you go to the locations may differ.  Tour operators split up the order between different buses to try and spread out the crowds some.  So some would go to Oia first and then the winery.  Others would go to the winery first and then to Oia.  You won't know the exact sequence until you get on your own bus.

 

Sorry, I don't know the exact tour details.  But I hope this still might be helpful information.

Edited August 28, 2019 by MeHeartCruising

[MFCRichmondHill]

Thank you for the feedback and insights - much appreciated! 

 

I actually really just want to do the hike between Fira and Oia (or vice versa) so I'm just trying to figure out the fastest/best way to get to Oia that will give me enough time (before it gets dark) to hike the Caldera trail back to Fira.  I was initially thinking to book this excursion as it would give me "priority" tendering off of the ship and would get me to Oia quickly and efficiently (and then I could just bail on the excursion at that point), but I have since learned that the excursion doesn't even target to "leave" the ship on tenders until 1 hour after arriving and that people without excursions booked can actually tender off earlier than that (assuming they get in "line" earlier). 

 

So now I'm thinking I might be better off to just try to get off the ship as quick as possible and then make my own way to Oia (either by "fast boat" or by taking the cable cars up to Fira and then a cab to Oia) and then hiking back to Fira and have more time to do it this way.  Or even taking the cable cars up and then hiking from Fira to Oia and then taking a cab or local bus back to Fira.

 

If you have any additional insights, I'm all ears!

 

Thanks again!!

Michael

[MeHeartCruising]

Hmmmm.  When I was there (years ago) and from what I remember reading on various postings since, that's not how the tendering has usually worked.  Maybe they've changed it.  But from what I know, they FIRST tender off those on cruise line  excursions to their buses.  They do this when the ship floats in one location, close to where the tour buses can park down by the water.  The buses then drive up the crater walls and out to their destinations. AFTER dropping off the excursion passengers, the ship relocates slightly closer to where the cable car is.  At this point those on their own private tours and those who just want to walk around Fira get off the ship, tender, and ride the cable car up.  Have you read differently somewhere that I've missed?

 

I'm I'm correct, your original plan may be best, in my opinion.

Edited August 28, 2019 by MeHeartCruising

[MFCRichmondHill]

Well I called into NCL and asked to speak to the excursion department.  They told me that there's no "priority" tendering for excursions and that they will be done in groups.  I asked if that means someone who lines up early could actually get off before us and they said yes.  The "time" for the excursion to Oia is listed as 3 pm, whereas the tender time is 2 pm.  (Some of the other excursion times are 2:15, 2:30 and 2:45).  So if these times are accurate then it leads me to believe that we really wouldn't all get off the ship first.

 

On the other hand, in some of the reviews for excursions I have read people say that they were thankful they booked an excursion because it gave them "priority" tendering off so it's conflicting information. 😛

 

What I might have to do is not book the excursion until I get on the ship and can ask the staff on the ship exactly what the process is and then make the decision at point as to which plan would be best.

 

Thanks again,

Michael

[chipmaster]

My 2 cents, we were on the Star for a round trip from Venice and included Santorini.

 

One of our struggles was how and what tour we wanted to do.  Read enough about the tender to the base of the cable cars and the queue on the ship and at the base to get up.   Thus we debated doing the non excursion to the base and securing a ferry to the other port to avoid what is described as possible long lines. After seeing personal, the donkeys nor the hike up ( though doable for me ) what I wanted to do on a hot summer afternoon in the Med, LOL.    After our stop in rKotor where we were public tender ticket #3 and took an hour and half to get off,  we decided to swallow the cost for the NCL tour and give them our $$$, anything to get us off in priority and early.      That day there were four ships in port with us arriving last.   Be aware those NCL cruises with status get off early.

 

Here were my observations for our tour:     

  We were scheduled to arrive at 2:30, we arrived a LOT earlier, 12pm was my memory.   For our tour we were told to meet at 12pm in the big auditorium.  Various tours were individually asked to come down and secure their tender ticket #, they had multiple tours for each tender #.        It was a SLOW process as all ship excursions go, they had actually started the general tendering before they called our ticket number, we were #2 for the excursion.  If my memory was correct they started public tendering at 12:30 and we didn't get off till almost 1pm.    What was different we were lead to the other side of the ship, different from the general tendering and only the tours got the separate tender to the other dock/ferry port.      A few clueless non tour passengers did try to get in but where directed away ( they would have been for a shock if they sneaked on, as they would have ended up very far from the cable car and no transportation ).       We were whisked to the ferry port about 20' boat ride versus the 5' boat ride to the cable car base port.    A portion of that port was destroyed in the storm so it was a crowded mess.  A credit to NCL tours all their buses/vans were already at the bottom, but if you were going to take public transportation or bus from your own ferry was late you'd be SOL the line down was crazy and jammed.   Our bus needed almost 20' to navigate between the ferry passengers coming/going and traffic jammed all the way up to the top to get out.     

 

Figure one hour ship-port/ferry, another 30' from port to Oia, then you got an hour?   then figure if you are going to do cable car down budget 40-60' to wait in the lines and another 10' down.   

 

There are several tours all bus/van, choose carefully.  We went to the archelogical digs / museum, it was interesting for me but my kids thought it a waste, though not sure if the hour and half extra in Oia or Fiora would have been more enjoyable fighting the hordes, LOL.   All in all happy I did the tour versus the cable car-ferry and DIY.   Not sure this is on my bucket list of repeat places given crowds and everything else.

Edited August 28, 2019 by chipmaster

[MeHeartCruising]

I will add that my experience was years ago AND on Royal Caribbean.  It's very possible that cruise lines differ in how they run their process and/or it has changed through the years.  I'm not sure what I would personally recommend doing given this information.  Either way could prove to be the right (or wrong) choice, I fear.

[MFCRichmondHill]

Thank you both for the additional information.  Very, helpful.

 

Chipmaster, may I ask these follow up questions:

 

- How long ago did you visit Santorini on the Norwegian Star?  If fairly recently, I'm inclined to think things should be the same when I go in October.

- So when you booked your excursion the "start time" it stated was later than 2:30 (the scheduled tender time) but then the day before they told you to meet at 12 pm?  Trying to figure out if our "3 pm" start time isn't accurate (which would cause me to worry a bit less)

- It sounds like the excursion people and non-excursion people tendered from opposite sides of the ship (and to different ports) but that that both sides started tendering about the same time?  Did you see (or know) anyone who tendered on their own and how long they had to wait to get off and get to the port?  And/or how long they had to wait for the cable cars once there?

- So if I understood correctly, it took you 1 hour to get off the ship (after waiting to get called), and get tendered to the special "excursion" port where the buses were?  So that was from your departure time (of 1 pm) and so you were at the buses by 2 pm (2 hours after your "meeting" time)?  And you're guessing I should allocate another 30 mins to get from the special port to Oia?

 

Thanks!

Michael

[ollienbertsmum]

Hi Michael, your thought process mirrored mine completely.  I was going to do the Charming Oia tour but realised that the 3 pm departure might not gain any time.  In the event that was the case.  I have just posted a review of my trip on the Star last week.  We too were debating the tender process as we wanted to walk.  

 

As you will read we arrived at 12.30 - and had not even eaten lunch when they started tendering.  We were on the tender (9) by 2 pm.  The tender process in our experience was really smooth.  

 

We walked up the donkey steps.  It was not that difficult for someone reasonably fit (I am 60) and wearing sensible footwear.    It was going down that was more dangerous (and where a fellow passenger broke her leg) because the steps are very smooth and so slippery.  

 

My preference would have been to look for a bus to Oia and then walk back.  In the event DH was suggesting doing in the reverse which I considered unwise.  Once on the footpath the walk was easy.  We stopped half way as we felt that we had seen lovely views.  We would have had plenty of time to walk but I didn’t want to consider walking down in the dark.  We were happy going back towards Fira and taking in more views with a beer in one of the bars along the path.

 

There were 3 large ships in port.  Fira was certainly very crowded.  I had had enough of crowds in Venice.  Taking the walk avoided the crowds and gave me lovely views.  I was happy.  Getting up early for a tender ticket did seem to be crucial.  Having Google maps downloaded to use them offline is also a wonderful tool for DIY cruisers.  

 

In case you want to read it, my full review is here

 

https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2698032-just-off-the-ncl-star-15th-22nd-september/

 

I am happy to answer questions, but I suspect that each week the experience might be different depending on what time you arrive and which tender ticket you secure.  It may be that you are going in July or August when the walk might be less enjoyable due to the heat.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MFCRichmondHill]

Hello and thank you for the useful feedback.  I did read your full review (very thorough!) but have a couple of questions for you.  (I'll actually be sailing in 4 weeks, so it's pretty soon!)

 

- I've read conflicting information that the ship makes two "stops" in Santorini.   First to let off the excursion people and then a second one (closer to the 'steps') to let off the non-excursion people.  It seems like from your review there was only a single stop and all people disembarked at the same time/location?  Did the excursion people disembark from a different/dedicated side of the ship at least?

 

- As far as you know, even though the ship arrived early and started tendering early, the excursion people had to wait around until their time (in this case 3 pm for the Oia excursion)?

 

- If I understood your review correctly, the people that did the Oia excursion had difficulties/delays actually getting to Oia?  Did you hear from any of them what time they made it there?

 

- If you were doing it again, it sounds like you would still go on your own, but how would you get from the port (once getting off the ship) to Oia?  You mentioned about a bus but did you happen to research that? I definitely want to walk in the direction of Oia to Fira.  I'm just wondering if tendering, getting (climbing?) up the hill, followed by taking a bus to Oia will get me there faster than the excursion would.

 

Thanks again!

[ollienbertsmum]

We only had one stop in Santorini.  I am pretty sure that they could not have adjusted the excursion times to take into account the early arrivals.  There were certainly no announcements, just the normal “people on excursions check your ticket times and meeting places”.  If you had already planned your 3 pm departure you may be in the spa or having lunch or whatever.  

 

Now I do not know if the excursion people departed from a different gangway, we left before them anyway.  I didn’t see indications that there would have been a separate departure point.  

 

The people that did not seem happy about Oia were those who got onto the public boats at the port and took a boat around to Oia.  There seemed to be a mess with buses when they got there.  I think you need to get a bus from Oia port to Oia town.   It seemed like “the perfect solution” to what we wanted to do ie get to Oia quickly and then walk back to Fira, but I am not sure how it worked out. 

 

I had researched that a public bus from Fira to Oia existed, I just did not find when and where it left from.  There was such a sea of people as we got to the top of the steps that DH was in no mood to wait for me to let Google maps do its work.  He just wanted to start walking.  

 

It is worth researching the bus situation, but really I think that if I did it again I might do the same.  Santorini, like Dubrovnik and Venice are victims of their own success!  There are just too many people and too many people stopping to take photos.   I kept putting my phone in my bag and just looking at the views to take ‘mental photographs’.  

 

We did do 18 km that day all told - and by doing the steps my watch recorded us having done 99 flights throughout the day (we don’t use the lifts on the ship).  

[chipmaster]

On 8/29/2019 at 12:00 PM, MFCRichmondHill said:

Thank you both for the additional information.  Very, helpful.

 

Chipmaster, may I ask these follow up questions:

 

- How long ago did you visit Santorini on the Norwegian Star?  If fairly recently, I'm inclined to think things should be the same when I go in October.

- So when you booked your excursion the "start time" it stated was later than 2:30 (the scheduled tender time) but then the day before they told you to meet at 12 pm?  Trying to figure out if our "3 pm" start time isn't accurate (which would cause me to worry a bit less)

- It sounds like the excursion people and non-excursion people tendered from opposite sides of the ship (and to different ports) but that that both sides started tendering about the same time?  Did you see (or know) anyone who tendered on their own and how long they had to wait to get off and get to the port?  And/or how long they had to wait for the cable cars once there?

- So if I understood correctly, it took you 1 hour to get off the ship (after waiting to get called), and get tendered to the special "excursion" port where the buses were?  So that was from your departure time (of 1 pm) and so you were at the buses by 2 pm (2 hours after your "meeting" time)?  And you're guessing I should allocate another 30 mins to get from the special port to Oia?

 

Thanks!

Michael

 

Sorry for delay in response

1) July 2019, yeah this year!

2) I asked about this during the ticket pickup why we meeting at 12 when tender starts early.  They actually told me, because we often arrive early.  The reality of a big orgainzed tour you are always at the slave of the slowest and latest passenger.   As we sat in the Theater there were early arrivals and of course late ones, and clearly we saw some late comers for the early shuttles.  I can't comment if they actually waited till all of #1 was there before the annouced they'd start leaving.  This much is was sure they kept reminding people to come down to get their ticket based on which tour they were on and which shuttle they were on, then we started the disembarkation way later than the genneral tender.    Still IMNHO ahead of what would have happened if I was part of the general mob for no-tour tendering.     No complaints, just how mass market tour  always seem to go on big ships.

3) Yes the tours tendered on different side away from the cliffs and took a different boat to the port.  The general non-tour tendering to the base of the cable cars was on the other side of the ship.   I experienced the tendering in Kotor ( terrible ), and read enough that I decided on the ship we weren't going to be stuck on that mess.    Very briefly on Kotor it was two hours before we got off the boat and we got there early for a low number tender ticket, I think we had boat #4, but it was slow going at Kotor because status cruisers got off first, and likely filled the first few boats, we had a rain storm that stalled tendering too.   Either way, status cruisers and tours do have preference, others get up early to secure ticket orders, YMMV.

4)  If you are on a tour don't need to worry about anything, arranged a private tour DIY then you need to plan carefully.  Hopefully October won't be summer madness, the other port was jammed as I noted in my other post. 

 

Good luck

[MFCRichmondHill]

I assume everyone else also got the email from NCL informing us that we won't be stopping in Kotor? 😞

 

I was really hoping we'd get lucky, especially since it seemed to be affecting only every other week, but I guess not.  Very unfortunate.

[serifelogue]

37 minutes ago, MFCRichmondHill said:

I assume everyone else also got the email from NCL informing us that we won't be stopping in Kotor? 😞

 

I was really hoping we'd get lucky, especially since it seemed to be affecting only every other week, but I guess not.  Very unfortunate.

When are you going? I haven't received anything yet. We are on the Oct 13th sailing.

[MFCRichmondHill]

 

24 minutes ago, serifelogue said:

When are you going? I haven't received anything yet. We are on the Oct 13th sailing.

 

Oct 20th sailing. 😞