Pearl & Greek Isles w / tendering

[TjayM]

Long time NCL cruiser, but first-time looking at a Mediterranean cruise.  I've narrowed it down to the 9 day Athens to Trieste on the Pearl in July 2024 and looking for feedback from those that have done similar itineraries. Any pros / cons to be aware of.  My biggest perceived con right now is the 5 tender ports and would especially appreciate any advice for those ports.  https://www.ncl.com/cruises/9-day-greek-isles-from-athens-to-venice-trieste-santorini-mykonos-croatia?itineraryCode=PEARL9PIRJTRJMKZAKCFUKOTDBVSPUVCTVCE.  Thanks!

Edited December 5, 2023 by TjayM

[Anoynmous Phoenix]

Personally I would not like 5 tender port in 9 days BUT the only good thing is that it is an early arrival at most with late departures at some.

 

It would depend on the ability to get early tender tickets OR having the ability to get on by latitude position or being in a suite.

 

Another unknown would be the length of tender; I believe that Venice is a LONG tender.   Also the number of ships in port; especially in Santorini with the "need" to use the cable-car to the wharf from Fira.   There is general advice NOT to use the steps in either direction..

[TjayM]

Meant Greek isles and Adriatic....looked at too many itineraries.  

 

Day 1 - Athens

Day 2 - Santorini (tender)

Day 3 - Mykonos (tender)

Day 4 - Zakynthos (tender)

Day 5 - Corfu

Day 6 - Kotor (tender)

Day 7 - Dubrovnik

Day 8 - Split

Day 9 - Venice (tender)

Day 10 - Trieste

[SummmerInKefalonia]

Santorini & Zakythos (maybe Mykonos if too many ships) tendering is a greek tragedy. Avoid these ports if you can.

[complawyer]

beg to differ. the islands of santorini and mykonos are both beautiful and amazing, a shore excursion from mykonos is a short boat ride to delos which is an archeological gold mine. no way would i even consider avoiding these ports

[redlock]

To avoid the queues for the cable car in santorini, you can buy a ticket for the boat to Oia, which is a much more picturesque town than Fira.

 

The ticket includes the boat to Oia, a mini bus ride to the town from the port and also a return coach ride back to Fira. 

We have done this a couple of times, the last being in July 2023 and I think the price was about €40.

Tickets are sold on the pier at Fira.

 

Obviously, there are still queues to get down and back on the tender when returning.

 

Although if you are one of the first ships into port that day, you may be lucky and breeze straight up the cable car with very little waiting.

 

[redlock]

Having to tender at Mykonos isnt necessarily a bad thing, as the tender drops you off in the town.

 

If the ship docks, the port, its about 3km from the town centre, so is either a shuttle ride or a 35 min  walk.

[suech1970]

My major con would be travelling to the Med high season. July/Aug too busy too hot! If June / Sept/ Oct would be much more comfortable on this port heavy itinerary, which is amazing btw!
If there is no movement in dates then just check your actual port dates on a cruise port schedule to see how many ships you have in port with you. At least you will be prepared for the crowds, those pretty blue and white streets you see in the photos look a lot different when you have 7000 passengers ashore🙄

Personally, I wouldn’t worry about tenders, you have decent/long times for your tender ports.

Personally, we choose to stay on board at Santorini,(yes everyone thought we were mad) but judging by the horror stories we heard, we did the right thing. 4 ships in that day.

We should have tendered at Mykonos but docked instead, so you never know. If you do dock, they have Sea Bus straight from the pier to town, nice ride and ours had a glass bottom. €2 pp each way.

 

[hopstepper]

An option to avoid the steps/cable car in Santorini is to book this excursion https://www.ncl.com/uk/en/shore-excursions/JTR_59/Perivolos-Beach-Transfer-  if you have free at sea then it will reduce the cost.

 

You are taken to the old port then bussed to the beach then taken to Fira in the afternoon (in a bus).

I tried this in Nov '23 but all excursions got cancelled so we had to tender with everyone else. We queued for 90mins for the cable car.

 

We had FAS+ too so there was no cost for the excursion - but I'd try the same again in the same circumstances.

Edited December 6, 2023 by hopstepper

[KeithJenner]

20 minutes ago, hopstepper said:

An option to avoid the steps/cable car in Santorini is to book this excursion https://www.ncl.com/uk/en/shore-excursions/JTR_59/Perivolos-Beach-Transfer-  if you have free at sea then it will reduce the cost.

 

You are taken to the old port then bussed to the beach then taken to Fira in the afternoon (in a bus).

I tried this in Nov '23 but all excursions got cancelled so we had to tender with everyone else. We queued for 90mins for the cable car.

 

We had FAS+ too so there was no cost for the excursion - but I'd try the same again in the same circumstances.

Taking an excursion to avoid the cable car mess is a good option that many of us use. We have done the Oia tour a few times for exactly this reason.

 

However it still doesn’t avoid the problems in getting back down again at the end of the day. Last time we were there there were 4 ships in port and we went straight to the cable car after being dropped off in Fira to avoid the worst of the queues. From memory it was about 30 minutes for us, but anyone who wanted to spend a bit of time in Fira ended up queueing for hours to get down.

 

We sometimes stay onboard to avoid all that, and will certainly never go ashore in Santorini again if there are more than three ships there.

 

If ever a port needed a restriction in numbers of cruise ships they allow it is Santorini.

[KeithJenner]

6 hours ago, redlock said:

Having to tender at Mykonos isnt necessarily a bad thing, as the tender drops you off in the town.

 

If the ship docks, the port, its about 3km from the town centre, so is either a shuttle ride or a 35 min  walk.

Yes. We have done both and I have no particular preference. The tender trip is not that much different from the various options to get from the port (and is obviously cheaper).

 

The only issue is if you want to get off quickly after arriving, as there is usually a bottleneck with early tenders.