Recommended Day/Overnight Tour companies—Beyond Athens

Check Fantasy Travel and Dolphin-Hellas Travel, both in Athens and both with long-standing positive reputations for assisting visitors to Greece who want to set up tours there.

We used Private Greece Tours: https://privategreecetours.com

They were awesome. We had George as our driver. https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g189400-d1924860-Reviews-Private_Greece_Tours-Athens_Attica.html

The people who say they had a Private tour with George (this is a big fleet, all drivers pretend to be named George), they must have a great deal of # because it can be €300 a day minimum for taxi hire -- and then they are not allowed to Guide you thu a site or museum. They'll give you tons of brochures but they're not licensed guides. Luxury but not guidance.

Too many tours or taxi/tours rush you around, the day tour only stops for an hour in Nafplio, for lunch. NOT a good experience.
There is not a 2day tour that includes Olympia ... too far. Look at the map

However, I've been recommending one & only one tour for 2 days that does it right and it's the CHAT TOUR #6 - here's the link:
https://www.chat-tours.com/index.php/Tour/view/15 The reason ... it gives you ample time on your own to experience the beauty of Nafplio, NOT herded like sheep.

Here's the sequence: DAY 1 - Bus (with guide on board) leaves Athens in AM, drive across Corinth Canal (a stop for photos), and thru the lovely argolid area to MYCENAE. (A guide takes u thru). You reach NAFPLIO for late lunch -- on your own, not herded with a flock of people -- and have the whole afternoon FREE, to explore ... check out the small but stuning Museum on the Square, can get a taxi or a little tourist train to go up top of Palamidi if you wish, or just walk up to the Castle walls over the town, OR go to several places to swim in the sea. The only drawback is that dinner that night (included) is at the hotel, which is just at edge of town. However, u can easily taxi to enjoy evening cafe-sitting in the marble paved town Square or on the beautful seafront row of cafes. DAY 2 - again, u have free time in the Morning, then you Bus to EPIDAURUS, several hours there, then back to Athens late in day. The cost is €182 per person -- and I think its the best way. If u do this, or any other tour, I urge you to make the effort to do some homework about Nafplio in advance - you 'll get SO much more out of it.

It's not offered evrey day, just 2x a week. I hope it fits in with your schedule.

While I agree with Janet that there is a slew of drivers who call themselves George, I must add that our George is actually a George. He works for Nikos Loukas, who owns Private Greece Tours. https://privategreecetours.com.

It is a small company and it was more to our liking than any of the bus tours because I wanted a couple of days in Meteora and I wanted to see ALL the monasteries.

We designed our own tour - Napflio for the night, Delphi, a stop at a World War II site I wanted to see, two nights in Meteora and more.

Our George - a real George, trained as a school teacher, with a wife who is a dentist, was wonderful. While we were offered the addition of a guide to walk us through Delphi, I passed - the modest information provided by George, coupled with our guidebook, was more than I needed as I'm easily overwhelmed by that kind of stuff.

For comparison, we paid 1650 Euros for the private van tour. We were gone 5 full days and 4 nights. It's certainly more expensive than a bus tour unless you have a larger group. But the value of what we got was awesome. Tons of pics and info of our tour is on my blog - there is a link on my bio on this site. We traveled in March 2019.

Valerie, you are right, I did not inquire as to Michelle's budget. If it is at your level, then of course a private driver & van is a real treat. And you have what I valued in the CHAT tour ... freedom to make your own choices at a destination. IF that is important to Michelle, and their pockets are deep enough, I hope that for their island cruise, they will choose a smaller vessel, with 50 -100 passengers max. These cruises have the BIG advantage of coming in to a port, spending a full day at least, AND overnight, so that cruisers can have ample time to do a GOOD tour of an island, AND enjoy a sunset dinner on land. Again, pricey but worth it if one is able.

The Monster Cruises, although the brochures babble on about seeing 4 islands in 4 days, are misleading. Often they arrive at an island at 10:30 AM and leave at 5 pm .. or even in 4 hours. And with 2,000 - 3,000 passengers, it can take an hour get them off, and onto tour busses. They never are able to break out of a bus-size group of 30+ fellow cruisers, all wearing lapel signs and confused looks on their faces. And they're hustled back on board by 5 pm to eat in inside diningrooms, instead of lingering on the sands for sunset. Its basically a shipboard thing, not a way to truly experience islands.

Thank you all for the amazing suggestions! I will look into your tour recommendations. Luckily I have some time to do research.