Santorini, Athens, Katakolon ideas? (Cruise Stops)

[AlaskaGoer]

First, I can't thank this board enough for information. I love to travel, but cruises sometimes can give me a bit of anxiety as there is a lot of information to digest.

 

Santorini

 

From what I understand reading other threads, the coming back to the ship can be tricky. The Village of Oia seems nice, and someone posted a link to https://zeweekendtraveller.com/index.php/europe/greece/seeing-santorini-in-a-few-hours/ that shows the quickest method to get there via the cable car / bus.

 

Is there anything else that is worthwhile as opposed to Oia? We dock around 1:00pm and leave at 9:00pm. I understand its not a huge amount of time, and according to Cruise Mapper, there is one other ship leaving with about 2500 passengers also at 9:00pm. (Gulp)

 

My wife and I are in good shape, so taking the 20 minute trek down instead of the cable car is doable if we start stressing on the lines.

 

Athens

 

We have about 12 hrs here, and would like to make use out of the time we are there. Acropolis is probably on the short list of things to do. I originally tried to the Temple of Poseidon excursion through the cruise line, but it got booked so fast I didn't realize it was that popular.

 

Any thoughts? How easy is to get around Athens if we even wanted to do both the Temple and Acropolis?  (I know the Temple is about a 45 minute drive away) Browsing other threads some felt if you were gonna be only in Athens for a day, better to stick with Acropolis as you'll spend quite a bit of time driving to reach the temple.

 

Katakolon

 

This stop was originally Corfu, which in a twist of life, was a place I did have an excursion booked. We only got told this three days ago, and the excurcions haven't been posted yet. With that in mind, is there anything that is a must? I did very little research into this one ahead of time as I wasn't counting on this stop.

Edited May 2 by AlaskaGoer
Formatting

[marazul]

Santorini: Akrotiri, Pyrgos, beaches, Fira

 

Athens: Acropolis, Plaka, National Archaeological Museum, Acropolis museum. Forget about Sounion, it's too far.

 

Katakolon: Olympia - a must.

Edited May 2 by marazul

[AlaskaGoer]

17 minutes ago, marazul said:

Santorini: Akrotiri, Pyrgos, beaches, Fira

 

Athens: Acropolis, Plaka, National Archaeological Museum, Acropolis museum. Forget about Sounion, it's too far.

 

Katakolon: Olympia - a must.

 

Thanks for the help, again!

 

For the Acropolis, I probably don't need to do the combined tickets right?

 

https://hhticket.gr/tap_b2c_new/english/tap.exe?PM=P1P&place=000000002 I assume the general admission will burn up plenty of time.

 

Are taxis a plenty in getting around from the pier to Acropolis and back?

 

I'll be booking the excursion for Olympia once they go live.

[kctwinmommy]

Yes, Olympia is totally a must do! We thought it was going to be kind of boring. But no! It's really neat. Plus, you can run the 200M race on the field where they ran the very first one. My husband did it, twice! LOL! It's really pretty and just so amazing to think of what took place there.

 

And yes, the Acropolis and museum there are a must see as well. I would also recommend the changing of the guard. We did the National Archaeological museum too, it was pretty good, but very busy! There were a lot of school groups there. I would definitely get your Acropolis tickets in advance, and try to go early. We went on a Saturday morning, pretty early, before we boarded our ship (it was part of our pre-cruise extension through Viking). It was a slightly rainy morning, with a lot more dark clouds on the horizon, and by the time we were coming back down, the lines were so long already!

[AlaskaGoer]

20 hours ago, kctwinmommy said:

Yes, Olympia is totally a must do! We thought it was going to be kind of boring. But no! It's really neat. Plus, you can run the 200M race on the field where they ran the very first one. My husband did it, twice! LOL! It's really pretty and just so amazing to think of what took place there.

 

And yes, the Acropolis and museum there are a must see as well. I would also recommend the changing of the guard. We did the National Archaeological museum too, it was pretty good, but very busy! There were a lot of school groups there. I would definitely get your Acropolis tickets in advance, and try to go early. We went on a Saturday morning, pretty early, before we boarded our ship (it was part of our pre-cruise extension through Viking). It was a slightly rainy morning, with a lot more dark clouds on the horizon, and by the time we were coming back down, the lines were so long already!

 

I grabbed 10:00a ticket (meaning we can go in at 9:45a). What time was yours?

[kctwinmommy]

5 minutes ago, AlaskaGoer said:

 

I grabbed 10:00a ticket (meaning we can go in at 9:45a). What time was yours?

For what sight?

[AlaskaGoer]

Just now, kctwinmommy said:

For what sight?

Sorry, Acropolis.

[kctwinmommy]

2 minutes ago, AlaskaGoer said:

Sorry, Acropolis.

OK... we were there at 8:30 a.m., but we were there as part of the pre-cruise extension, so it was a group we were with. Within an hour of starting, climbing to the top, and heading down, the line to go up was all the way to the bottom. It gets really busy pretty fast. Just be prepared. And it's windy up there, so be prepared for that too. Of course, we were there in mid-April and a Saturday morning.

[AlaskaGoer]

6 minutes ago, kctwinmommy said:

OK... we were there at 8:30 a.m., but we were there as part of the pre-cruise extension, so it was a group we were with. Within an hour of starting, climbing to the top, and heading down, the line to go up was all the way to the bottom. It gets really busy pretty fast. Just be prepared. And it's windy up there, so be prepared for that too. Of course, we were there in mid-April and a Saturday morning.

 

I assume your group went through the main entrance, correct? 

 

We're at the beginning of June, and during a weekday. Hope to lesser crowds lol

[kctwinmommy]

9 minutes ago, AlaskaGoer said:

 

I assume your group went through the main entrance, correct? 

 

We're at the beginning of June, and during a weekday. Hope to lesser crowds lol

Yes, we pretty much walked right in. But leaving, the line was long already. And like I said, it was raining! But it gave us some great skies!

 

We thought we were going to be soaked, but it never came, just some light sprinkles.

 

And a gorgeous rainbow!

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 10:44 PM by kctwinmommy

[AlaskaGoer]

2 minutes ago, kctwinmommy said:

Yes, we pretty much walked right in. But leaving, the line was long already. And like I said, it was raining! But it gave us some great skies!

 

We thought we were going to be soaked, but it never came, just some light sprinkles.

 

And a gorgeous rainbow!

 

 

 

Can't wait!

[marazul]

2 hours ago, AlaskaGoer said:

Hope to lesser crowds lol

Dream on! 😁

[AlaskaGoer]

Just now, marazul said:

Dream on! 😁

One can dream lol