Greece June 2020

From Seattle, I doubt there is a direct flight, so there is potential to use more than just Athens for arrival, but not many. I think you just have to start shopping flights using Athens as the destination, if you find something that looks good, and have a better idea of where you are going, expand the selection to that airport.

As for locales, Crete comes to mind, nice mix of history, beach, hiking. The Chania area would be good, getting to the South coast would also be nice. Crete is also large enough that while they get tourists, they mainly hit Heraklion and are spread out elsewhere, not like a cruise ship or two hitting a small island and dumping the hoards (Yeah, I am talking about you Santorini).

There are also smaller islands in the Western Cyclades (Milos, Folegandros, Sifnos) that are a bit more laid back.

Naxos and Paros come up often, probably enough so that they may be more crowded than what you are looking for, but worth a mention. Mykonos and Santorini fall into the category of maybe worth a quick stop, but not for relaxing.

Of course there are several dozen other options, including the mainland, but that should give you some fodder for searches to see if any of them click.

From Seattle, we don’t have any direct flights to Athens, but they can be done with one connection in London, Amsterdam, Paris, or Frankfurt. We prefer a transfer in Europe over a transfer in the US, since it’s usually less travel time (flying over the polar route), better in-flight amenities, and no need to go through US customs and immigration at a US transfer city when you return home. The related airlines for above are usually British, Delta/KLM, and Lufthansa. Also, if other aspects are relatively equal, then we prefer navigating the Amsterdam airport over Paris CDG (both through Delta).

You need to do a bit of research on your own regarding airlines. There are numerous third-party sites that can help like Kayak or Google Flight. However, if you find something deal directly with the airlines rather than a third party and make sure know what you are getting with the ticket like any checked luggage, seat selection, carry on/luggage rules, etc.

I would think you would need at least one lay over either in the US or Europe. Since I fly from Boston can't really help with your departure in Seattle.

There are numerous islands and places on the mainland to go to. You need to find something that suits your families needs.

Here's a wonderful website for Greece. Check out the islands, mainland and especially Athens links and see if there is something that interests you.

What I like may not be what you like.

Research is your best weapon to find a place that meets your needs.

https://www.greecetravel.com/

From Seattle you could consider flying direct to Toronto on Air Canada and then connect to an Air Canada Rouge flight which gets you in the next day. Its a direct flight which arrives around 10:30 AM. This flight will also use the polar route but does not have a connection in Europe. Those flights get in late afternoon early evening. We have taken Rouge flight and found both times about half the people in the Premium economy ( sort of business class without lie down seats) were Americans taking advantage of the exchange rate between US and Canadian dollar.

We are beach lovers, like to hike & avoid the touristy crowds.

Finding a beach in Greece in June without 'tourists' is probably an unrealistic expectation. Accept the fact there will be others like you, who are 'tourists'

A quick look at flights shows you will have to make at least one stop to get to Athens. Choices include Chicago, Toronto, NYC area, as well as Munich, Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, or Paris.

Just have to do the searching with your specific dates and whatever your ultimate destination in Greece is, if not Athens. (e.g. an island)

In late May (I realize June will be different, but I doubt drastically so), we had sites and beaches to ourselves all over the Peloponnese.

we spend (almost) an entire month in Greece in August. The height of the tourist season, honestly we did not feel like it was crowded as a lot of people made it to be. We spent a week in Mykonos (Ornos Beach) which was amazing. We got up every morning at 8 am and headed down to the beach chairs. You can reserve it and highly recommend that yo do for the entire time you are there. It's beautiful and both of our daughters love it... they were 4 and 6 at the time. Santorini has the Black and Red Beaches which were awesome, the water was clear and you can go miles into the sea and it's still knee deep, that was at the Black Beach, it was not crowded at all but then again Santorini isn't famous for it's beaches. Don't let the crowds be a discouraging factor.... We had an amazing time as a family.... Btw we connected in Madrid on our way there and London back both are super easy to navigate. But then again we are in CA and we have tons of flight choices.

Thanks for the replies, will take these suggestions and do more research.

Coincidentally, we are also a family of four from Seattle going to Greece mid-June for my son's graduation trip! I like to plan ahead so I got our flights some time ago. As others have noted, you will have to make a connection either in the US or another European city before Athens. We decided to do the drive to Vancouver BC to take advantage of the exchange rate on our tickets. Have not done that before, so hope we don't regret adding another 3 hours to our travel, but with 4 tickets, the savings were significant. From Vancouver, we fly on Lufthansa to Munich and then a short layover to Athens. On the return, we fly through Frankfurt. Both layovers are shorter than I like but they are on a single ticket, so I hope Lufthansa knows what they are doing (!). I have opted for longer layovers on other trips to be safe and 3 hours feels like an eternity when you've had little sleep on a 10 hour flight!

In terms of our itinerary, we are spending a couple of days in Athens and the majority of the time in the Cyclades--Paros, Naxos and Santorini. When my 18 year old chose Greece for his graduation trip, staying in a cave house was one of his top priorities, so I booked one of the quintessential Santorini cave houses through Airbnb. :)

Good luck with you trip planning and happy to answer any other questions based on what I've learned so far!

idurbin, how brief are those layovers? I have flown on Lufthansa through Munich and Frankfurt several times, including to Athens, and about two hours is generally sufficient. I have had to run on one occasion though, and to rush on others, so be sure your group is organized and ready to move. There are now electronic passport scanners and that really expedites the process. You should have time for a bathroom break and time to grab one of those great pretzel bread sandwiches, good luck!

I'll be flying with Swiss with a layover in Zurich. From my research other other travel "experts" Zurich and Munich are very efficient airports, far smaller than Charles de Gaul or Heathrow and wait times for the most part are short. I have a hour and 35 minute layover in Zurich and everyone says that's more than adequate. Just hope your plane is on time!

I've flown with Lufthansa and had no problems with connection time, long lines or other issues in Munich or Frankfurt.. I think you'll be OK with your layover in Munich. Frankfurt is also very efficient so that should be OK also.

We just booked 5 of us from LAX to Athens for $750 in June, 3-4 hour layovers in Amsterdam on the way there and back. We used Delta Skymiles to fly from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. It is twice as much to fly from SLC to Athens in June. We did see JFK to Athens for $400 last month, but the layovers were long and at bigger airports. I've tried looking at direct flights to London, Paris or Amsterdam in June, but it's hard to find those at lower prices. It's only a 1 hr and 45 minute flight to LAX versus 4 and a half hours to JFK. For us booking two separate flights, one to LA and one from LA to Athens saved us the most money and time. One draw back was the least expensive flights home are at 6am! But that's doable. I never have any problems coming home with early flights or layovers, I'm always more concern with my trip going east. Good luck and I would check out those Canadian airports, that sounds like it might be a good idea, I might try that next time I fly to Europe. Amsterdam airport is my favorite in Europe for a layover, it's so small and relaxed.

idurbin we are flying Vancouver to Munich on Lufthansa ( actually a code share with Air Canada) this May and are catching an Aegean flight to Crete. That too is an efficient route. I do prefer the direct flight from Toronto or Montreal that gets us in at 10:30 AM as opposed to the evening.

Thanks for the input on Munich/Frankfurt layovers. We’ll have 1:45 in Munich and 1:05 in Frankfurt. When I originally booked, the Frankfurt layover was 1:20 (already super short) and they since changed flight times and now only have 1:05, which I’m nervous about but not sure I can do anything about it after booking?

IDurbin ---You might contact the airline and complain about the shortening of the layover time from the already-short original -- I hve never been comfortable with under 2 hours in a big European airport. Since both flights are on one ticket Lufthansa is responsible for seeing you et to your destination if their too-tight connections result in your mssing the ongoing flight. However, if this happens, and they don't have many additonal flights to Athens that day, and it's a busy traffic day and those are all full --- the replacement flight may not be until the next day! (You wouldn't care as much returning to US, because they'd have to put you up for the night -- butyou don't want to miss a single precious day of your time in Greece!).

I would say, put on your Big-Girl Pants and tell them that they are obligated to have an Airline Escort take you from one plane to the the connecting plane.... and also to see to it that you get priority for getting off the plane first --- if you are in economy, way back, it could take you 15-25 minutes just to get off the plane! I have seen these escort things done, and wished I had that service. Once when I did have a change that shortened my connection time a lot, I told the airline person at the gate desk, and then immediately upon boarding told a flight attendant about it, and she told me she'd do what she could. When the plane was getting ready to land, she came & got me to sit in an empty seat in first-class, way up front, so I could get off pronto. As they say, if you don't ask, you don't get.

realdeals2--Sorry to hijack your post with my layover issue!

Janet--The shorter layover is on the way home to the US so not as bad, but you are absolutely right, I should and will call Lufthansa and complain about the shortened layover. I will say that so far Lufthansa has not been the most customer-friendly airline I've worked with. In addition to the shorter layover, they also switched planes for another leg of our flight, which altered our seating arrangement. I had paid more than $400 to get extra leg room seats to accommodate the tall men in our family, plus they were at the very front of economy and in the 2-2 configuration. When they made the switch, they automatically assigned us to some random regular seats in the back of the plane in the 4-4 configuration which I could have gotten for free. Fortunately, I compared every detail of my new reservation with my old reservation, as the notice they send does not detail what the changes are. When I realized the seat numbers were different, I had to dig up the seating arrangement for the new plane online to see where the new seats were and I was shocked to see that they had not seated us in equivalent seats which I had paid extra to get! I called them to get reassigned to equivalent seats and was able to get them after walking through the whole issue several times with the customer service rep, but that's only because I noticed the change right away and the seats were still available when I called. I wonder how many people will show up the day of our flight and be surprised that they are not getting the seats they paid extra for! To make matters worse, the cost for the same upgraded seats on the new plane was cheaper than what I originally paid for, so I asked for a credit of the difference in cost given the inconvenience created by them for not re-assigning us the upgraded seats we had paid extra for (more of a matter of principle than anything else) and they said no. Unless they blow me away with great customer service on the day of the flights, I don't think Lufthansa will be my first choice airline on future flights.

durbin: There is something called Minimum Connection Times (MCT) that most airports use to ensure passengers have enough time to make connections. You can check with the airlines and/or airport and ask what their MCT is for your flight. If they agree there is not enough time to make your connection they "should" get you a flight with better connection time.

However, if this is a all-in-one ticket the airline is obligated to get you "there" on time or if not they have to get you the next available flight at no extra cost. However, that doesn't help if the next flight is hours later than your original one which could also mean missing any connecting flight(s) thereafter.

mrsg4s: I did the 6 a.m. flight back to Boston twice and vowed never to do it again. It ruins your last night in Athens in addition to getting up at some unGodly hour which means you can't over-do-it on your last night in Athens.

You have two options to get to the airport: bus and taxi. The taxi at that time of morning is 55 euros and the bus is 1.40 euros.

However, depending on where you are staying in Athens it means walking to the bus station (kiosk actually) very early a.m. with luggage, bags and whatever else you are carrying. If you are any distance away from the bus station it could be a long walk. You could take a taxi from your hotel. The bus is doable but walking is not my favorite thing to do at 2:30 in the morning for the 3 a.m. bus (it will take 1 hour to get to the airport and give you 2 hours to check in, security, etc. for a 6 a.m. flight) not to mention getting up at 1:30 a.m.!

Maybe I'm getting chicken-hearted in my "old" age but I'll never take the 6 a.m. flight again.

Whatever you decide it means getting up way too early (for me anyway).

tommyk5: I know the 6am flight is a huge bummer. We are planning to see Athens when we arrive, so we will be driving back to Athens the day we leave and sleeping near the Airport at a place with a shuttle or dropping off our rental that morning. It really was a last resort after searching for flights for a few months. June is expensive and Salt Lake City is expensive to fly from to Greece! My husband is Greek American so he has a little advantage and experience driving in Greece and other European countries. At least it's not the Dublin Airport and driving on the left side.

mrsg4s: Regarding the 6 a.m. flight and early rising. If that was your only option about a return flight I guess you had to accept it.

As the old adage goes: "you'll sleep when you are dead" which I hope won't be for quite a while!

Have fun on your trip. I'll be in Greece next October for my 10th trip since 2010! Can't believe I'm still able to do this but once you go to Greece you get the Greek "bug".

It may also be because I have Greek ancestry due to both sets of grandparents immigrating from Greece in the early 1900s!

We unfortunately end up on that early flight more often than we wold like. We have started to use a private car service called City cab. They are the same price as a taxi but all the drivers speak English and are exceptionally reliable. Might be worth looking at their website.

That 6 a.m. flight is a killer. It makes your last night in Athens not as much fun or wild as one would like. It limits what you can eat, how much you can drink, how late you can stay out and enjoy the city.

After two 6 a.m. flights back to the US I vowed never to do it again. I'll be flying out of Athens with Swiss Airlines at 2:10 p.m. which means I can get as wild and crazy as I want the night before. However, my "wild and crazy nights" are long gone. That doesn't mean I won't be eating and drinking wonderful Greek food and alcohol but also not have to worry about getting up at some UnGodly hour just to fly back home.

I'd rather get back to the US late at night as opposed to limiting my last night in Athens. Who knows . . . I may never get back to Athens again.

However, I've already booked my 2020 trip to Greece and am already researching my 2021 trip. Call me crazy but I can't get enough of Greece!

idurbin, twice we had very short lay-overs in Munich and Frankfurt on our way to Marseille or on our way home. One lay-over was an hour, and the other one was 45 minutes! I was told it was a "legal" lay-over. This was all on one ticket. I admit it is not something I will do again, but we did make our flights both times.

On our 45-minute lay-over flight, our plane left Marseille late! So we had about 30 minutes to get from our arrival gate to our departure gate. I did tell the flight attendant about our dilemma, which is what you should do. I believe they did contact the personnel working at our departure gate to let them know we were coming. So, we had to walk very, very fast to get to our departure gate. We had to go through passport control, but luck was in our favor, because there weren't any lines. When the personnel at the gate saw us, they applauded!!! So they obviously were told to wait for us. We were the last passengers to board with about 3 minutes to spare.

I did call Lufthansa a couple days ago and they told me what some of you have noted since, which is that the Minimum Transfer Time for Frankfurt is 45 minutes, so any change I want to make to my flights now will result in a fee. If we miss our flight, they will put us on the next one and I confirmed there are two others that day leaving for Vancouver. We do have two things in our favor--(1) both our arrival and departure flights are in the same Terminal 1 and (2) our first flight is at 7:10am, so less likely to be delayed as the first flight of the day in the summer with hopefully clear weather.

I will for sure make people aware of our tight connection time at the gate and again once on the plane, but otherwise cross our fingers that everything is on time!