Cruise Recommendations around Greek Islands
 

Looking for a holiday in or around Greece in late October for 2-3 weeks. Would like ideas on cruiselines recommendations and tour companies to use, port excursions would also be appreciated.<BR><BR>Thanks.

Hi Randy,<BR>We sailed on the Royal Olympic Voyager in Oct. 2000. This is the fastest ship afloat (along with her sister Olympic Explorer). There are no other ships that can visit as many ports in the Agean as these ships because of their speed. You can literally water ski behind this speedboat. She was actually cruising at 31 knots a few times! And what an itinerary. It was a 7 day cruise called the 3 continent cruise when we took it. We loved the ship, and the service was really great. The food was good, not great, just good. Enterainment was good too. Not as spectacular as the larger ships. That was not a problem on this cruise because the ports were so spectacular that there wasn't much time spent on the ship itself.<BR>On the whole, we would sail on this ship again without a second thought. I don't know if they offer this particular cruise now but the ports were: Athens, Santorini, Egypt, Jerusalem (we did not stop her because of the violence, went to Cyprus instead. That was a big disapointment but no fault of Royal Olympic.) Rhodes, Mykonos, Kusadasi and Istanbul.<BR><BR>Check em out. We liked them. We are in our early 50's.

Sorry, one more thing.<BR>We booked our Agean Cruise tour with Trafalgar tours. We have used them several times in the past. They were with us throughout the whole tour, from our hotel stays in Athens throughout every port tour. Our Trafalgar tour director took care of everything, including boarding passes, passports, etc. We didn't have to worry about anything. We always got special treatment on the ship as to embarking and disembarking at the ports of call too. They always let us off first!<BR><BR>There were about 50 or so of us in the Trafalgar group, and we all pretty much stayed together throughout the whole cruise. Met some really great friends from all over the world.<BR>Have a great vacation.<BR><BR>Frank

Frank, are you sure you were on a Trafalgar tour? Two years ago we went on one which included the Greek Island cruise. Every one of the Trafalgar tour participants were treated like dirt. We were all put in cabins at the bottom of the boat next to the engine, even though we had paid for the better cabin. Try sleeping in a dirty, noisy, gasoline permeated cabin. Begging the Trafalgar rep to switch cabins got us no help at all but a shrug and a request for more money to "upgrade". The food was awful, the ship antiquated and filthy, the workers rude. The port stops were too short to see anything (we spent exactly 1 hour in Mykonos because we were actually one the LAST group to disembark). Instead of a vacation, it was a nightmare. Everyone that was with the Trafalgar tour was so upset, the things written on the "comment" forms that Trafalgar rep had us fill out must have made the reader's hair stand on end....that is if anyone from Trafalgar actually read them! When I returned home, I sent Trafalgar several complaint letters, but got no response. Frank, are you sure you don't work for Trafalgar? Paying someone to write a glowing tesimonial about their horrifying tours would be typical of this so-called tour company.

This sounds interesting - I think my mum would like a cruise here. She always tells me she likes Greek.

Hi Susan,<BR>Yes we were on a Trafalgar tour and no I have absolutely no affiliation with them whatsoever. Maybe you were on one of Royal Olympic's older ships on a different itinerary. As far as antiquated and dirty!! The Olympic Voyager was brand spanking new and was quite beautiful! And the hotel they put us in in Athens was the Grande Britannia. Quite elegant. Our Trafalgar tour director on the ship was terrific. I believe her name was Katinka from Scandinavia. Our room was nowhere near the noise you describe, in fact it had a large picture window and was quite beautiful on one of the upper decks. As I remember, there were 3 categories to choose from when you booked. maybe it was because we took the top category. Our entire group had a great time and not everyone chose the same category...we all got along great. <BR><BR>If that's the way you react to someone who may have a different experience than you, I sure am glad that you were NOT part of my cruise/tour group. You must have been a lot of fun to be around.<BR><BR>By the way you were right regarding Mykonos. We got there in the evening and only had about 3 hours ashore. Would definitely liked to have spent more time there. That was ONLY ONE STOP though! Every other port was fine. Egypt was the entire day from 7:00am til almost 10:00pm. <BR><BR>Sorry you had a bad time, but that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Traflagar is a mid-priced tour company. You will have to study their tours very carefully and ask a lot of questions. On some tours they still offer the older ships that are not pleasant. The hotels offered are basic first class.<BR><BR>Royal Olympic was originally Eprotiki. Their old ships are what I call junk and cater to mostly Europeans but their two new Explorer and Voyager ships are just great.<BR><BR>Paul

Frank,<BR>And how did I react to your glowing report of Trafalgar that encouraged you to be so insulting? It is YOU who would be terrible to be on a tour with! All I did was criticize Trafalgar for the horrible tour we were on. And everyone on that tour was disstisfied, not just me. Would you have been as nasty to everyone else also? Glad you had a good time, but I have a right to be upset when I waste my hard earned money and vacation time and get a shoddy product. Only s very stupid or complacent person would not be. You just lucked out and you should not be so smug about it. I stand by my opinion that Trafalgar's tours are a crapshoot. If you are lucky, the are OK, otherwise they are awful, and you can forget about customer service if that is the case.

I've heard that Windstar Cruises have some nice Mediterranean cruises wich include the Greek isles.