Dear Fodorites:

A big group of us (26 - yikes!) will be staying in an AirBnb in Skouloufia (close to Rethymno) in Crete in June. Because there will be so many kids, we thought it would be nice to get a private chef for breakfast. The owner has quoted has 34 USD (US Dollars) per family per day for breakfasts (4 breakfasts in all - 2 days Greek, 2 days Interational). Does this sound reasonable? Seems expensive to me, but what are your thoughts? Here is the menu https://www.cretevillas4u.com/en/services

Greek Breakfast:

• Filter coffee
• Freshly squeezed pomegranate/orange juice
• Milk
• Local herbal teas
• Wood oven bread
• Zeas bread
• Cretan paximadi
• Carob paximadi
• Bread sticks
• Variety of local cheese
• Greek yoghurt
• Freshly prepared seasonal fruit
• Homemade dried fruit/chocolate granola
• Local butter
• Homemade marmalades
• Tahini
• Thyme honey
• Kagianas
• Tomato
• Cucumber
• Luxnarakia (traditional mizithra star shaped pies)
• Rizogalo

International:

• Filter coffee
• Fresh orange/grapefruit juice
• Tea selection
• Milk
• Bread/whole-wheat bread
• Variety of cheese
• Greek yoghurt
• Variety of antipasti
• Fresh prepared fruit
• Variety of corn flakes
• Butter
• Variety of homemade marmalade
• Chocolate praline
• Cretan honey
• Egg selection (scrambled, fried, boiled, omelette)
• Tomato, lettuce
• Homemade waffles
• Butter croissant
• Homemade cake

Do you have an alternative?

Not sure how many "families" the 26 people break into, so I don't understand what the total you are paying might be. But I'll put it another way.

Would YOU shop for groceries for 26 people, bring the groceries to a location away from your home, prep the food for 26 people, make the trip back and forth four times in one week, all for the amount of money this chef will charge?

(Do you want to shop for groceries for 26 people, bring the groceries home and store them, and prep the food each morning while you are in a house with 25 other people?)

If a family consists of 4 to 6 people, I don't really think that $34.00 USD is that expensive for breakfast brought to you. Denny's would probably cost that much for 5 people. I cooked dinner for a week for 6 people plus two nights with extra guests for $1500.00 and that was years ago.
One suggestion is to get your groceries brought in and cook for yourselves, but it still wouldn't be inexpensive.

Compared to the alternatives ( doing it all yourself or eating out ) it seems very reasonable to me.

Which part of the Greek breakfast except for the kagianas does require "cooking"?

Since you probably do not wish to spend those days with an empty fridge in the house, the question of logistics of grocery shopping seems to be an issue anyway.

Nevertheless, if the price boils down to €8-10 per person, it does not sound exactly steep for that convenience.

I think you're lucky to have found someone who will do that for you at any price. Not knowing how many are in each family makes it hard to answer with any certainty, but my only question would be whether kids would enjoy the Greek breakfast, especially if they're American.

THanks everybody for your prompt responses. I think we are going to go ahead with this as it is working out to be 34 USD for our family of four per breakfast.

To answer your questions...

@greg - the alternative would be to grab something from a cafe on our way to whereever we are headed for the day. Or to buy groceries and take turns fixing it up ourselves

@ellenem - yeah, the whole "families" bit in the quote is confusing. But we can assume as our family of four would need to pay 34 USD per breakfast (or per day). You are asking the right questions and don't think I would want to do the shopping, cooking, etc. But just wanted to know how exorbitant is this a price as compared to stopping by a cafe and grabbing something or doing it ourselves. A couple of other posters have responded regarding this line of thought, so I think I"m okay with making the decision to pay this amount.

@tuscanlifeedit, @historytraveler, @Cowboy1968 - thanks so much for your thoughts and opinions! This is what I was looking for.

@StCirq - Thanks for your opinion too. You raise a good point whether the kids would enjoy the Greek breakfast. Some kids in the group are good eaters, so they would try everything I think. unforuntatley, my kids are very picky eaters. But hopefully will manage with cornflakes, cereal etc. Soemthing to keep in mind though so thanks for raising it!

Personally, breakfast is something I would rather just have a few things on hand for in a condo/apartment setting. I see having someone come in as more of a hassle especially if you have kids who eat cereal. You can check a bag with a couple of boxes of cereal and just buy some milk in greece.
I find breakfast something we can eat light, yogurts, cereal, etc.. You are going to need to stop for snacks and such anyway with kids.

Hire the guy to come in and make you a great dinner one night.

I'd get a few boxes of cereal for the kids , down yoghurt and fruit , some tea coffee and good bread and coffee , and do breakfast in , I don't want to deal with someone coming in first thing in morning , and then everyone has to get up and eat around same time .

I think I would rather have dinner via a chef...breakfast is really basic - esp. w/picky eaters

For me, I wouldn't want breakfast to be too regimented. I like to get up when I want and choose what I am going to eat that day. It's easy enough to shop at a local supermarket to stock up on cereal, milk, yoghurt, fruit, honey, and most of the other things on the menu. Bread and rolls would have bought fresh each morning, so it would be useful to know how close is the nearest bakery.

On the other hand, preparation and clean up will save you lots of time. If the chef is flexible enough to allow guests to come down and eat when they want (within reason, of course) that sounds like a good arrangement.

The best thing I see in this is that with such a large group you will be able to have breakfast and walk out the door for your day of whatever you have planned. Shopping, even cereals and fresh breads, will be a daily thing, and so will the clean up. When we travel, unless we are staying in an apartment and there are just the two of us, I pick hotels and b&b’s for the breakfast feature. In your case it appears the B&B does not offer breakfast, but has this breakfast chef as an alternative. Who would be providing breakfast otherwise? I would do it.

I agree with socialtraveler. Having everyone do their own breakfast sounds simple enough, but clean up can be chaotic and if having everyone finish at different times it’s difficult to keep to a schedule. A couple of years ago, there were 8 of us in a villa in Spain, and it seemed the same people did all the work and having everyone on a slightly different schedule was a problem too. The $34 for 4 people is a good price and frankly if on vacation, the last thing I want is more work, more hassle. Shopping for fresh fruit and bakery goods was fun the first time or two but doing it daily soon became a chore. Saving a few dollars is seldom worth the effort.

@girlonthego, @justineparis, @Rhea58, @Heimdall, @socaltraveler and @historytraveler - thanks so much for your all your advice and for chiming in!

@socaltraveler and @historytraveler - yes, I think one of the major advantages of going with this chef option is that our big gigantic group can actually get out of the house at a decent hour. We are living in a pretty secluded town (Skouloufia) which is pretty far from most things we plan to do. So it'll be a 1-2 hour drive each way to most destinations. So it is important to get out of the house on time

Thanks everybody! We are going ahead with the chef option and I feel better for doing so, thanks to all of you with all your varied opinions!

P.S. If you are wondering why in the world are we staying in Skouloufia, more on that here: [Crete] Trapped in Skouloufia? Please help!

This is more related to the "being far away from it all" than to your actual Q about breakfast:

With 20+ people, you could also check local bus companies for private bus+driver hire, probably a mid-sized bus in between a van shuttle and a real coach.
You will find that kind of bus companies in any holiday destination around the Med - just mostly targeted at individual tourists staying in hotels without rental cars and in need of a fixed tour including entrance fees and lunch breaks to see the sights of Heraklion if they are located near Chania or v.v..

If your far away sights can be grouped together, it could actually be nice to have your own custom-made bus excursion to one region.
The bus companies usually will know how to get all of you into the sights as a group - or have lunch stops where they know how to deal with larger groups. It's more or less their every day business anyway.
So no one in your group would have to do the long driving that day - but you still would be able to see only the sights you want to see.
Costwise it should not be super prohibitive, I guess.

Just a but curious, and I do remember your other thread, what will you be doing for dinners for 26 once you return at the end of each long day?

@Cowboy1968 - thanks for the idea on the bus companies. Will do some research and contact them. So far, someone in our group has found a rentcal car deal for 3 minivans with automatic transmission (9 passengers and 5 bags....although I know that 5 bags might really ended up being just 2). It is for 82 Euros per minivan per day. Having our own cars will mean we will need to do the driving/navigating ourselves. But will also give us flexibility. I will research the bus company option though at least for one day where we do the bulk of the driving.

@socaltraveler - good question. Have not figured out yet but am thinking we will just eat something at our destination before we head back for the day or in Rethynmo (we would need to split up though because I don't think many restaurants would be able to accommodate all 26 of us ). Or maybe ask this same private chef for dinner one night.

Have you been in a 9-passenger "minivan" in Europe? I have. They are, by my standards, huge. So much so that driving them in villages, and parking them, are big pains. I'm not familiar with Crete, but I imagine driving there can't be a whole lot different from driving in other out-of-the-way places in Europe.