Last time in Greece was November 1971 - high school trip - and weather was fine, although being teen from Canada nothing really bothered us. Now a senior from Florida, my temperature tolerance has changed. We did RS in Italy in Nov years ago and no weather complaints - similar to fall day in New England. We've done 3 RS tours and now looking at late 24 or 25
With respect to cruises, we have done 2 transatlantic with Celebrity and found them to be excellent, no hesitation in recommending. However, we just cancelled a Celebrity Greek Island cruise from Barcelona to Athens in May 2024. Why?
1) Ship was full capacity whereas the 2023 transatlantic had more crew then passengers.
2) After seeing multiple ships in a small ports - more passengers then residents, we revisited the trip. Too many tourists and the locals headed out of town. Another issue was some tours had to turn back early because not enough room at out of town attractions.
I used www.cruisetimetables.com and www.cruisemapper.com to cross reference ports and dates. We found that our day in Rhodes has 9 big cruise ship scheduled for same day. Similar result, although not as extreme, for most of other Greek ports.
Therefor, we cancelled the cruise at looked for alternates. All the RS Greece tours were booked. Also looked at Danube river cruise also fully booked for our available time. Ultimately, found a Greek tour with another company - seems to be similar to RS but not as comprehensive.
Also found some small ship Greek cruise lines that would have worked but like the opportunity to spend 3 days each in Mykonos, Santorini and Crete + 5 days in Athens - with a lot of free time in each.
We will see how it goes!
