Greece - the current situation

Interesting - they have not included some countries on their “ welcome “ list that have shown great covid control - like New Zealand for instance

From the article: "Specifically, people who are residents of Cyprus, Israel, China, Japan, Australia, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are welcome in Greece as of June 15. The Greek government will consider lifting the ban on citizens of other countries based on what it considers the success of pandemic control in each nation. Currently, flights from the USA, UK, Russia, Italy, Spain, France and Brazil into Greece are banned."

Great article, Alan, thanks for sharing, and fingers crossed US citizens will be able to go by July 1st!!!

They left out The Netherlands too.

I'm still holding out that Greece will allow citizens of America to travel to their country.

However I can't blame Greece for wanting to keep countries out of their's that isn't doing a good enough job of dealing with the virus.

Very sad that the USA which is suppose to be the best of everything is doing such a bad job of handling the virus.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed but won't be surprised if Greece says no to the US.

There will be more countries added from July 1st apparently but from comments Mitsotakis made earlier in the week it sounds unlikely the US or UK will be among them.

I agree with Tommy that it’s understandable given, sadly, neither of our countries yet has control of the situation.

I cancelled a trip in March, just as the crisis was starting, and took vouchers for September. I’ve still got my fingers crossed but it’s looking less and less likely.

On the plus side it’s 23 degrees in Brighton today. We’re sitting in the garden early evening drinking ouzo, playing backgammon and swapping photos with friends in Andros. I know a lot of people have it much worse.

Alan

It's very exciting. I'm hoping the situation will hold until fall. If so, I plan to return to Crete and Naxos and maybe visit another couple of islands then. And I hope that Greek tourism will return to Israel very soon as well.

I have been going to Greece for sailing charters since the 1990's - a dozen trips. A real expert! Had a charter booked for this June that was cancelled by Covid and Greek ban of US residents. Air tickets refunded 100%. Hotels refunded 100%. Charter company - no refund. 4600 euros. They issue "credit voucher" good for this and next year. What if the business fails? What if I can't get there next year? This is, in effect, an unsecured, no interest loan to these people. Almost all yachting companies are doing this. A few good ones giving refunds. Disgraceful. I put this on VISA so I am doing a chargeback and hope for the best. Takeaways: 1) Once a charter company gets your money in hand, consider it gone. 2) If you can't trust them in these circumstances, what about other situations? More and more I am seeing them blame charterers when something goes wrong with the boat and deducting from your deposit, even when you have a skipper. Last time, they charged us for a faulty handle that failed, no fault of our own. They hold the cards! They will fight over small amounts. 3) Harder to get good skippers. We used to love our wonderful skippers. But last few trips had horrible experiences - couldn't dock the boat competently, acted like a dictator, lied about us, etc...I love Greece, obviously, but I see these sad danger signs in their yacting industry. It seemed to deteriorate with their financial crisis. Chartering in Greece is based entirely on TRUST. Mine has eroded. If you decide to do this: 1) Use a credit card to pay so you can at least fight. 2) Find out if the company issued refunds for Covid. Use those companies.