Santorini on Celestyal

[Sujormik]

Not much chatter about Celestyal here in cruisecritic.com, but I’m still gonna try to get some good advice!  We arrive in Santorini early in the morning but are not doing the ship excursions so I know we have to wait to tender until after their groups debark. And there will be other ships in port and I know we will have to wait at the cable car. We have a private guide meeting us and will spend the day with him seeing the sites.

 

Here’s my dilemma: our ship doesn’t leave until midnight. Which is good, but it means we have several hours after our guide leaves before we need to get back to the port. Also good.  I’d really like to get to someplace like Imerovigli for dinner and sunset (Santorini sunset!!!) but am worried about getting there and back to the port without a car.  Definitely don’t want to rent a car for half a day.  
 

Is anyone aware of reliable ways to get from the more remote parts of the island to the port?  I’m aware there are very few taxis.  Would really love for this to work!  Thanks.

[rsachek]

My wife and I were just in Santorini on the Journey on May 1. We did the walk from Fira to Oia and took the public bus back. It would seem from the Santorini buses website and comments from other cruisers that the bus stops in Imerovigli, but I wouldn’t count on it.

 

I can’t comment on whether that stop happens on the way from Fira to Oia because we didn’t take the bus in that direction but I can tell you that on the way back from Oia to Fira, it definitely does not stop anywhere in between. The return bus takes a route along the eastern flat part of the island.

 

We took the bus back to Fira at around 4 pm and it was perhaps half full, although I’ve heard there can be long waits after sunset. If you wanted to walk between Fira and Imerovigli, I’d call it about 1.5 miles each way.

 

As far as the tendering process, check out the image below (click to enlarge). The ship uses large tenders from shore, not the tenders/lifeboats stored onboard, so the process goes quickly. Tender tickets are numbered 1-5 and groups 1&2 (called together) were off by 9:00am, with groups 3-5 (also called together) maybe 30 minutes later. Later in the day, no tender tickets are required. We were lucky and hit the cable car with no wait to ride up, despite two other medium-size ships in port. 

 

Edited May 12 by rsachek

[Wink the Cop]

Rsachek

Thank you so much for posting the Daily program for Santorini, there is so little information re this cruise.

we are travelling on her in the first week of July. Do you know when the celebration night is as we are embarking in Crete and not Athens. Or are you able to post any more daily programs as these would be really valuable to a pre planner like myself.

 

Thank you in anticipation 

kind regards

Wink the cop.

[rsachek]

^^ I do have all the daily programs, but it's 28 pages to photograph and upload (7 days x 4 pages each). I'll see if I can squeeze this task in.

 

The formal night (captain's night) is on Monday, following Kusadasi. There's also a Greek-themed night on Wednesday (Santorini). 

[zdcatc12]

7 minutes ago, rsachek said:

The formal night (captain's night) is on Monday, following Kusadasi. There's also a Greek-themed night on Wednesday (Santorini). 

Correct on the formal night, which on our cruise, was also the day that we ran into the pier. Made for some interesting convo that night!!!

[Wink the Cop]

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

[mapleleaves]

Santorini Public Buses :: Official Web Site - HOME (ktel-santorini.gr)

[rsachek]

4 hours ago, Wink the Cop said:

Or are you able to post any more daily programs as these would be really valuable to a pre planner like myself.

 

Here's a link to all of the daily programs. Beware that there's a million ads on the hosting site but hey, it's a free site that I didn't have to register for.

https://postimg.cc/gallery/S4JhBG3

[marazul]

@rsachek @zdcatc12

On previous stays at Santorini I have seen Celestyal ships dock or tender at the Athinios ferry port.  Has that changed? Is Celestyal now tendering to the cable car port?

[rsachek]

^^ I can't speak for every situation, but on our recent Journey trip, we were tendered the old port/cable car area. Perhaps when Celestyal was operating the much smaller Crystal (pre-Journey), that allowed more flexibility.

[zdcatc12]

42 minutes ago, marazul said:

@rsachek @zdcatc12

On previous stays at Santorini I have seen Celestyal ships dock or tender at the Athinios ferry port.  Has that changed? Is Celestyal now tendering to the cable car port?

No, the tenders went to the other port. I believe that it is called Caldera. It was a real quick tender in, but a longer tender back because of this. Our Celestyal ship is the one on left. MSC is the one in the center.  We were close to the dock that is to the left part of the picture. It was a long tender ride from the bottom here back to the ship.

 

[marazul]

1 minute ago, zdcatc12 said:

No, the tenders went to the other port. I believe that it is called Caldera. It was a real quick tender in, but a longer tender back because of this. Our Celestyal ship is the one on left. MSC is the one in the center.  We were close to the dock that is to the left part of the picture. It was a long tender ride from the bottom here back to the ship.

 

So, you had to go on the cable car to get up to Fira?

[Hlitner]

Been thinking about the OP and getting from Imerovigli to Fira.  In a real pinch, one could walk (assuming they are a walker) but I would not want to be doing that after dark.  I do not think there are any local buses in the evening, so that option is out.  That leaves a taxi as the best option.  One could probably ask the restaurant to call for a taxi, and that would be our own preference.  The Plan B would be to have an extra hour in case one had to "do the walk."  (only about 1 1/2 miles).

 

When we were recently back in Santorini (April) there was a Celestyal ship near us (in the cauldron) who was tendering to the old port (below Fira).  On Santorini, the tenders are shore-based and relatively large, so tendering time is somewhat faster than when cruise ships use their own tenders.

 

Hank