Santorini - Using my wife's new "carry on" mobility scooter?

I have been to both Venice and Santorini. I have no physical disabilities so may not be conscious enough of the challenges they pose.

But I would think that Venice would be more challenging than Santorini. There are lots of flat places but it all depends what you want to see and do.

Beth thank you for your reply about Santorini! The fact that you have been there and Venice both and you see Venice as tougher than Santorini offers us some encouragement to dig deeper on Santorini.

We would attempt to tour it historical sites but mostly we would want to hang in a ABNB with great views of the caldera and the sea. We'd try to "live like a local", dine out, eat a ton of seafood, visit a local outdoor market & cook a meal assuming we have a kitchen in our rental. We'd likely stay at least 5 nights since we try to avoid wearing Nita out with a busy travel schedule &" just live like a local" as much as possible.

Santorini is one the most beautiful places on earth. Hoping, we can get there by next year, soak up the culture & make some some great memories.

Thanks Beth and others with thoughts on Santorini for Nita, I and son Joe.

Craig

We have been to both Santorini and Venice with our teenage son, who is mobility-challenged. He can walk but tires easily, so we have a special needs stroller for him.
We had a great time in both places. They have different challenges.

With Venice, the city is flat, so pushing the stroller was easy, but most of the bridges have steps. We learned to plan our route to minimize the steps and felt that we saw and enjoyed the majority of the city.

We did use vaporettos extensively; the boat attendants were extremely helpful in lifting my son in his stroller onto the boats and giving us priority space on the deck.
Santorini was extra challenging because of the hilly terrain. Lots and lots of steps and steep uphill/downhill. We knew this would be the case beforehand and planned our stay accordingly so we could enjoy the island.
We booked a hotel with a pool and a view (including sunset) and that had restaurants very near by (two or three doors down). We spent the majority of our time relaxing in this small area. No need to fight crowds or climb hills to enjoy the sunset or have a lovely dinner.
For our big excursion out, we hired a taxi for a few hours to drive us around. This worked very well for us; again, no major walking/pushing. The driver was knowledgeable and took good care of getting us as close as possible to different sights. Our hotel front desk connected us with him.
We also walked some of the paved path along the cliff in Fira towards Firostefani. This was a big physical challenge. We had multiple people pushing the stroller and sometimes lifting it (with my son) up some decent flights of stairs. And it was very crowded mid-day. I don’t know that you would get far with a scooter.
You can definitely have a great stay on n Santorini if you’ve enjoyed Venice — just plan your visit and ask for help when you need it!

Deb, thank you for sharing your experience! Some great insights and very helpful. Wondering if you could send me the name of the hotel you stayed at via the forum private message feature button? Since you guys found that property & location well suited it might work for us or at least educate me more on the area. I'd like to look at the property, its location and pics available to imagine how it might work for us.

Best
Craig

Hello Craig. I am happy to share our Santorini accommodations; they were wonderful!

We stayed at the Pantelia Suites in Fira:

https://www.pantelia.gr/

It can also be reserved via booking.com if you prefer. When I did the reservation, the cancellation terms were slightly more favorable on booking.com.

It is a drop-dead gorgeous place and was a luxurious splurge for us. Because we knew we'd be spending a lot of time there, we were willing to pay the price. It was phenomenal!

I will caution that there are a lot of stairs, some of them steep. The hotel is a multi-level building built into the cliff, with rooms on several levels. The reception area, pool, and main terraces for dining are on the street level, which is the upper level (although they will happily serve your breakfast in your room or on your own terrace). The rooms are on various levels going down from the reception area, and I can't remember if there are any that do not involve descending stairs.

We were a two-family group of 12 people and reserved almost the entire place for our stay. My husband, son, and I stayed in the 2-bedroom Executive Suite, which is on the lowest level and down a couple of flights of fairly steep stairs. Because we had so many rooms reserved, we could minimize my son's trips up and down the stairs and use one of the other, higher rooms if we needed to during the day for changing, restroom, whatever. So it worked for us, but our circumstances were fairly unique.

I would suggest calling or emailing the hotel to ask about your needs and see if there is a way to manage a stay with a minimal amount of stairs for your wife. They were incredibly helpful for us and bent over backwards to make things as easy as they could be for our very large group. We all agreed afterwards that it was one of the loveliest places any of us had ever stayed.

Please feel free to ask if you have any other questions.

Deb, thanks so much for sharing the property info and your insights! My reply got delayed longer than I hoped. I fly fished 3 full days this week and got sidelined on other stuff too :). I just reached out to the property relaying our situation and needs as I see them. For the past 10yrs we've mostly been doing vacation rentals to have more space. With Nita's disability we're less active than most travelers to Europe and find the extra apartment amenities helpful since we spend more time in the space. That said, the hotel may work if we can afford one of their roomier suites.

Our top priority will be building the trip around Nita's accessibility carefully choosing properties and locations that limit the hassles for her. She really wants to see Santorini so I'm going to give it my all to make a go or rule it out, if forced. It sounds like the best month(s) to go are March or October for weather and avoiding summer crowds. We generally don't need nor seek beachy weather, but Nita feels cold more since she's mostly riding vs walking everywhere. She can do stairs with my help but she likely have trouble doing more than 25 steps without a 5-10 minute rest. Venice bridges had a lot of steps but most bridge stairs were separated by decent flat walkways. I let the hotel know.

Are there elevators anywhere on the property? Are there many extended walking ramps?

Anyway, super appreciate the help you've provided! We are well versed on the Rocky Mts and especially the Tetons in WY if you ever want some advice.

Best
Craig

We purchased a portable lighter weight mobility scooter

Can you provide a link to what it is? Might be helpful for others to know what solutions are out there for mobility aids

Joe, as requested. Here is our carry-on airline approved scooter. https://goldentech.com/product/mobility-scooters/buzzaround-carryon/ This is as compact and foldable as we could find. It's smaller and lighter than the our first scooter which may not get through the airlines. We had a connection each way to Italy a month ago. In the larger planes we stored this in a closet in the planes cabin. On our 2 smaller flights we checked it at the gate and it was waiting for us on the jetway as be deboarded. We found it more convenient than using the airline wheelchair people and we still got help getting Nita plus son Joe & I threw the security & Customs lines easier. This also worked exceptionally well doing trains. Especially since we can't rush Nita to a platform.

Again, we had the unique advantage of not just me along to help Nita bot also our adult son too. If just the disabled- person solo or only 2p they might want a lighter still carbon fiber portable wheelchair instead? The Golden Carryon worked great for Nita, Joe & I. Having control over our own mobillty scooter allowed us more autonomy in the airport between flights too.

Craig

Craig-you might look at Trip advisor’s Santorini forum for suggestions of hotels. There is a thread a few years old that will come up if you search on goggle for mobility Santorini. I am unsure how to link it or I would have. But there are several hotels/apartments mentioned that might be worth checking out.

"There is a thread a few years old that will come up if you search on goggle for mobility Santorini."

Is this the one?

"Santorini with mobility issues"

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g189433-i245-k13628183-Santorini_with_mobility_issues-Santorini_Cyclades_South_Aegean.html

There was quite a lot of mobility resources for Santorini with that google search.

Yes, that is the one I had found!