Royal C Cruising to Greece in Sept. Will be in Santorini for 10 hours. What tours should we do? Moderate Tours. We want to have a nice sit down meal with beautiful views.
Posted by
9058 posts
We did the whole island in less than 10 hours on a tour that started away from where the ship docked.
I understand now the ancient village (I think Minoan) may be open now. Sorry we missed that.
Posted by
OP
34 posts
Did you do a specific tour? I assume the RC has a drop off point. Or did you walked it on your own. Any favorite spots for a nice meal? I see where many take the donkeys.
Posted by
6 posts
Would love any advice on a day tour in Santorini on Monday, June 9 for two adults and four children ages 9 to 17. We are open to a well organized bus tour, a private tour guide, or even a suggested itinerary that we could do ourselves. We will not have a vehicle. Of these I think we would prefer a small tour or a private tour, but open to suggestions. Any links helpful too!
Posted by
356 posts
We are going to Santorini for the first time in October and have booked a private tour with a company called Santorini's Best Driver.
They get excellent reviews, and have been so helpful assisting us to plan the day to see exactly what we want, which isn't beaches.
Their minimum time is 4 hours, but we have booked a full day trip, and will also use them another day to take us to and from Oia and Ammoudi Bay.
They are also doing our transfers to and from the cruise port and airport to the hotel.
Posted by
Charlotte, NC
186 posts
I’m just back from a RC cruise which included Santorini.
If you want to maximize your time on the island you’ll need to book a RC- led excursion as they are first to disembark AND they tender to Athinios port, where buses/cars pick you up and you get going.
Otherwise you will be tendered to the Old Port, which goes after RC- tenders and you’ll then have to wait in line to take the cable car to the top of the island and meet your outside tour guide there. If there are numerous ships in port that day it can be a long wait.
If you buy RC’s The Key package, you’ll be first off to the Old Port after the RC- excursions — so a bit better.
I saw an option on-board to pay $25/person to be tendered to Athinios - if that had been an option when I booked my tour I would have taken it.
RC offered a Tour of Oia where you take a speedboat there right away, explore there (maybe time to eat…?) and then they drive you around some of the island and get you back to port.
I saw several large buses on those tight roads - shuttling lots of people slows things down and limits the things you’ll see. Booking a Sprinter van for your party of 6 makes the most sense to me - that’s what we three did for 6 hours and saw all we wanted to see, including a driver- recommended inland gyro restaurant which was delicious and cheap but no views. We opted to end our tour at sunset in Oia (along with everyone else!) and the van took us right back to Fira in time to take the uncrowded cable car back down (10EU/person).
You’ll find several third-party tour options on TA/Viator and/or Facebook, including the FB page dedicated to your cruise, if someone has set it up. Enjoy.