Booking flight or ferry to Santorini from Piraeus in Advance ?

Marion,

When we traveled to Athens, we booked our ferry tickets with a local travel agency there for a small fee.

We took the 'Blue Star' ferry & it was an 8 hour trip to Santorini. We weren't in a rush to get there, so we packed a
picnic lunch & enjoyed our time resting, reading, and visiting with another couple next to our seats.

The best part of the ferry trip was when we approached Santorini!

If you want to get there faster, then the best option is to fly.

If flying, book now or watch Aegean Air for a sale, then book, but definitely ahead of time. For a Ferry, you can wait until you arrive in Greece, go to the offices of the ferry line or about any travel office.

Myself, I would fly unless I have another stop or two along the way. As far as the ferry goes, I suppose it depends on which one, but ferries can be just basic transport, not a cruise ship. Some of the stops, if one your looking at has stops, might be interesting going into and out of Port, but other than that the scenery is fairly drab.

You might consider flying one way , then ferry the other for the experience.

Why not just fly directly to Santorini when you arrive or spend 5 days in Athens, go to Santorini & fly to Athens , then home? Commuting to the airport or Pireous (sp?) is about an hour 1 way.

Last fall we flew to Athens, transferred to a smaller flight and went onto Santorini. You will save a ton of time commuting between the airport or ferry by doing it this way. I found the time saved was worth the few extra dollars for the flight.

marion,

Having travelled to Santorini by Ferry, I'd much prefer spending eight hours in Santorini sitting in the sunshine with a "cool one" rather than stuck on a Ferry. You've only got three nights there, so wasting a full day on travel doesn't seem like a good use of holiday time.

My suggestion would be to book a flight on Aegean for the trip to Santorini. You can do that online. Take the Metro from Athens to the airport.

Have you used any guidebooks to plan your trip? There are a few things you'll need to be aware of when travel in Greece. In some places, it's not prudent to drink the tap water (Santorini is one of those places) so be prepared to buy bottled water. There's also the "bathroom etiquette".

Thank you, everyone, for your response and very helpful information. I do think we will fly as suggested by a few people. You're right, we don't have much time there so it may be wasted on a ferry crossing. The flights are a little more money than I budgeted for so I'll keep watch for prices.

Ken, I have been researching Greece for about two weeks and even watched My Life In Ruins which is filmed in Greece and is about a travel agent (a cute movie, by the way). Thankfully, there is a vast amount of free info on the internet and of course, this site is terriffic! Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

I am looking for a good source for travel logs regarding Greece. Does anyone have a good source for that?

marion,

Do you mean "travel Blogs"? I can't think of any at the moment, but hopefully one of the others can help.

To research anything on Greece, the best place to start is Matt Barrett's excellent Greece Travel website. For my trip to the islands, I used one of the Travel Agencies on Matt's website to make all the arrangements (hotels, transfers, etc.), and they did a superb job. I booked the flights with Aegean on my own.