Oceania Santorini Tour

[Vertygo]

Looking at Oceania Santorini tours 8/24. A Food & Wine Trails tour including Oua, Boutari Winery & Fira is listed from 7:30-3:30. Vista scheduled to leave port at 4PM.

 

Has anyone done this tour? I’m concerned about late return given what I’ve read about cable car crush. Would that be an issue? My sister has bad knees so unable to do trail down.

 

Linda

[Hlitner]

13 hours ago, Vertygo said:

Looking at Oceania Santorini tours 8/24. A Food & Wine Trails tour including Oua, Boutari Winery & Fira is listed from 7:30-3:30. Vista scheduled to leave port at 4PM.

 

Has anyone done this tour? I’m concerned about late return given what I’ve read about cable car crush. Would that be an issue? My sister has bad knees so unable to do trail down.

 

Linda

Yes, it would be an issue (on any cruise line/ship).  If the tour drops you at Fira, it will still be some distance from the upper cable car station.  If your ship is scheduled to leave at 4pm, the last tender will likely be at 3:30.  Given that you would have to walk from the drop point to the upper cable car station, wait for the cable car (waiting time varies from a few minutes to hours) there is no way this tour is reasonable.

 

Hank

[MeHeartCruising]

Is it possible that Oceania is now one of those cruise lines that sells excursions that include bus transportation back to the second port (Athinios) where you would catch the tender back to the ship?  Instead of dropping the passenger off in Fira and requiring them to use the cable car or walking path down to the boat.  There have been reports of this being true for some excursions on some cruise lines.  If the bus takes you down to the tender boat, then the timing would be more reasonable.  Still quite close, however.  The OP might want to inquire by calling Oceania.

[Vertygo]

Thanks Hlitner & MeHeartCruising! The description doesn’t state details about return. Hopefully it’s bus return to Athinios, but I’ll have my TA check on Monday.

 

Linda

[Vineyard View]

If this is an Oceania tour/excursion, then the ship will not leave without you. That said, it’s an odd end time  that close to departure. I agree, I would call Oceania or your TA. 
If this is an independent tour, I would not consider it as it is too tight. 

[cruisemom42]

I think there is every likelihood that what you're reading is a "generic" description of the tour that is used for multiple port calls to Santorini, some of which may be longer than yours. I would guess that the tour is edited for time constraints when needed. 

 

I would try to seek confirmation with Oceania but be prepared to understand that many times the shoreside operations have trouble with detailed questions like these about shore excursions unless you can get through to the proper person. They are likely to tell you the tour will run as described....