If you are looking for small see the link below. However Louis cruise line is a budget carrier. Don't expect the same quality of food, service and accomodations that you get with the mass market lines though I think you will be comfortable all in all and they will get you there though I don't think they sail out of Venice. Good luck. Larry
http://www.louiscruises.com/cruisesearch.html

Seabourn is really the only cruise Line I can find that dails the Greek Isles alone.

Now Princess does an itinerary that starts in Rome and hits a few stops in Greece. These ships are the smaller of Princesses fleet.

Early May is not the best time to be in the Greek isles.

MSC Cruises and Costa have some smaller ships that sail only in Europe. There may be some Greece itineraries on their schedules, and they would be worth a look, though the passengers will be primarily European rather than American.

P&O Cruises (a British line) also may have cruises in Greece. They have only smaller ships and cater to an older crowd. I think Fred. Olsen also does some Eastern Med. cruises that might include Greece, again a British line with smaller ships.

Star Clippers sometimes offers Greece itineraries on one of their sailing ships. These are true sailing ships, unlike those on Windstar, and they are also a bit cheaper. But they would probably not sail from Venice.

easyCruise is solely based in the Greek islands but you can't board in Venice.

Louis Cruises also sails solely in the Greek Islands but leaves only from Athens and perhaps Istanbul. But they offer a variety of cruises (definitely budget and not fancy) that are shorter or longer depending on the ship.

If you want to be on a small ship, you may have to leave from Athens rather than Venice. The smaller ships don't have giant engines and can't get quickly to Greece. If they do leave from Venice, it is likely that the cruise would spend several days in Croatia first and then might end up in Athens or Istanbul, depending on the length of the cruise. To do a round-trip to Venice, you almost have to be on a big giant ship.

If you want to sail along the Croatian coast and skip the Greek Isles, then you could leave from Venice. There are some smaller, simple sailing ships that do this itinerary, and it's fascinating. But this is also a budget-oriented cruise (not exactly cheap, but not horribly expensive either).

Another option if you want a small-ship cruise is to travel to Overseas Adventure Travel. They do small-ship cruising in both Greece and Croatia (though their trips also have some land travel as well). You travel with a small group of no more than 16, and their tours are very reasonably priced, though fairly inflexible.

That's all I can think of off-hand. Hope this helps.

Thank you. I will look into all the cruises you mentioned. I did find one boat called the Azamara that goes out of Venice and back into Athens.

My plan was to go to Rome, take the train to Venice for a couple of days, cruise for 7 days and also visit Athens for a couple of days. I'm sure if the boats only go out of Athens we could take a ferry from Venice to Athens. There must be quite a few ferries that do the crossing over.

Hi I am not sure of all their destinations but my friend and I just cruised on Azamara Journey to ports in Italy, Greece, and Montenegro and were 100% happy. Smaller ship with approximately 600 guests and such a wonderful crew and great food. Diane

It's been sometime ago, but we flew to Athens, spent several days there, and then cruised the Greek Isles on Dolphin Hellas. I can't vouch for current travel with them, but we had a great cruise on a smaller ship. Here's their website:

http://www.dolphinhellas.com/index.html

Thank you all so much for your suggetions, so far the Azamara seems to go where we want to go but I still have a lot of research. It seems the only option with us wanting to do out of Venice and back into Athens.

We did a Venice to Athens cruise on Oceania several years ago. Their ships are the same as the Azamara ones, and some people think that Azamara (started by Celebrity) is a "knock-off" of Oceania.

There are some real deals with the high end cruise liners such as Seabourn and Cunard. The pricing is about half of the regular price - if you book in advance. I think they are offering these prices to squeeze out the regular companies. If you can go on the QM2(cunard) for less than the price of a stateroom on Princess, who wouldn't? If the price goes down after you have booked and you contact them, some liners make the price adjustment, it's up to you to keep them honest. Seabourn is small and extremely luxurious - the one I would recommend.

I couldn't find a 7 day cruise for the Greek islands on the Cunad and the Seabourn for 7 days are all over $5,000. To me, that's very expensive, I'm looking for something that's about $1,500. For a 7 day cruise that's expensive enough.