Azores trip in September
 

Planning a trip to the Azores in September...a bit late! A few questions:

Can anyone help me find the ferry schedules? I have the sites, but they won't come up. Is it just my computer. It has been a bit "off" lately...

If I have to to give up St.Jorge or Grasiosa, what opinions can you offer to help make this decision? I WANT to visit Sao Miguel, Sao Jorge, Terceira, Grasiosa, Pico, and Faial. I'm finding the total cost staggering, so know I need to cut somewhere. We have plenty of time...a month even. I've already eliminated Flores and Sant Maria....Comment?

We could save money renting a cottage, but then would need a car and would miss out on the ambience of the towns and being able to walk to a lot of places. The villages sound charming, but should I stay in the bigger towns to catch more activities?
If I stay outside of the bigger towns, I will need a car, so there goes much of the savings, I suppose....

Has anyone actually taken a boat or taxi from Pico to Sao Jorge? I hear conflicting stories about inability to get across the waters at many times.

That brings about the next question. If I purchase the inter-island flights on an "as needed" basis, will I still get the "tourist in the Azores" discounts? Will I likely get what I want only a couple of days ahead?

Are flights "usuallly off schedule,cancelled, etc. or "usually as planned"? I hear both...

Not sure if this is enough help
1) we flew between the islands and everyone left on time
2) we stayed in towns and took taxis if we wanted to do a particular hike, no great expense, we also hired bikes to get around
3) the big towns are not big
4) in 2 weeks we managed 3 islands

We did Faial and Terceira in one week, with trips to Pico and Sao Jorge. As bilbobugler says, the biggest towns aren't much more than villages anyway, so I'd definitely stay in one.

We hired a car on both main islands and were glad we had, due to the short time spent. You don't say how long you have though. We stayed in Horta on Faial and in Angra on Terceira, anything smaller would not have been worthwhile for us.

We used a tour company in the UK who specialise in the Azores for our trip, http://azoreschoice.com/

They were excellent, very helpful and all the staff had actually been to the islands.

We flew from San Mighel to Terceira and from Terceira to Sao Jorge, took a boat from Sao Jorge (Velas) to Pico and from Pico to Faial in 2 weeks without problem or advance reservations. Punta Delgado is the only "big" city and it is pretty small. We took a taxi for the day everywhere except Sao Jorge where we rented a car.

http://www.ferrylines.com/en/ferries/acores/

Very helpful info. Thank you all. I will go to the suggested websites and see what I find. My assignment today, for myself, is to try to decide between Graciosa and Flores. I had given up Flores, then a travel agent said Flores was better. Hope I manage to get reservations before they are gone!
I finally found the ferry site that I could actually use.
Oh! I am planning as much as one month, as we love to just "be" in addition to seeing what there is to see. That's why I want to keep inter-island flights open, so we can move on as we wish. Cost may prohibit this length, but I'm working on it...

Actually, I would like opinions of SaoJorge. Want to go find my Grandpa's house, but not sure how long to stay. Help? Is it a nice place to just enjoy after seeing the highlights?

Velas is a charming little town. Try to say on the "Pico side" to enjoy the view. What we found interesting in Sao Jorge was to drive down to some of the "fajas". There was less to see howevere than in the other islands we visited.