Bern_Lor

I have been quoted 1550 euro per person for 15 nights in Greece this Sept. This price is for 3 nts Athens, 3 nts Paros, 5 nts Crete, 4 nts Santorini, incl. airfare Athens-Crete, ferry (tourist class) from other ports. incl Breakfast, rental car in Crete, and hotel taxes.Hotels are hopefully: Attalos in Athens, Volcano View Villas in Santorini, Porto Venezianno in Chania, or similar. Is this price reasonable, and how much extra $$$ should we expect to have to pay for meals and incidentals??

DenverDice

I can't address your questions on pricing, but I did just have bad luck with Fantasy Travel. I would stay away. They told me there was only one hotel with available rooms for my dates on Hydra. Thankfully, I ignored that because I found dozens online and booked a nice and reasonably priced hotel.

polly229

Regarding travel agents in Greece - and I understand this applies to ferry agents as well - they only have relationships with certain hotels, so that could have been DenverDice's problem. I worked with Dolphin Hellas for our trip last month, but I did plenty of homework. They booked our hotels in Iraklio and Athens - the one in Iraklio somewhat cheaper and the Attalos in Athens a lot cheaper than I could get. They got my flights for the same price, also tours. When they didn't work with the hotel(s) I was interested in, I booked those myself. That doesn't help you a lot with your question about the tour rate but I did stay in two of the hotels you mentioned and can tell you what we paid. Through the travel agent, we paid 62.50 Euros a night with breakfast (and not a great breakfast) at the Attalos. Our web rate was about 103 Euros a night Sr. rate at Porto Venezianno (smaller room, better breakfast); think the rate for younger people was about 110 Euros. (Since PV is a Best Western, you can check that easily at www.bestwestern.com. Oddly enough, I couldn't get the PV to come up by searching Hania or Chania or selecting it from their list. I could get it by searching or selecting Iraklio, where it was among several hotels within 100 miles or something.)

We paid Avis something over $200 for 3 days on Crete, which included extra insurance and a $35 drop-off fee since we picked it up in downtown Iraklio and dropped it off at the Hania Airport. It was a good bit cheaper than the travel agent's rates. (My husband gets a fairly good corporate rate on Avis and got a free upgrade, meaning we could pay for a smaller car but get something a little more comfortable. We sometimes find Hertz cheaper in Europe, though not this trip. But it's easy to check Avis, Hertz, and Budget websites for some prices.) On Santorini we got the smallest car Budget had for 35 Euros a day, including 10 Euros extra insurance, which was also cheaper than the agent's price and Avis, for that matter; but it was a lot worse car. Two Aegean Air flights, Athens to Santorini and Hania to Athens, totaled 162 Euros (and were close to the same price each flight) including airport fees and taxes, which are almost as much as the tickets. (So don't be fooled by the 44 Euro fare on the website because you'll have to add another 30 Euros.) High speed cat from Santorini to Iraklio was $28.20 Euros tourist; slow ferry is cheaper. Our Santorini 75 Euro traditional apartment (w/o b'fast)in Imerovigli was considerably cheaper than you'll pay at Vocano View, I suspect, though. But that will give you an idea of some of the costs so maybe you could make a rough guess how much you could do it for yourself.

Regarding food and extras, we spent about 22 to 35 Euros for 2 on most lunches and dinners - and around 30 was more typical than 22, which I think only happened once. Ate mostly in tavernas, not any really upscale restaurants, and shared 4 to 6 mezzes, a half .350 liters of "open" wine and maybe some mineral water or a soft drink. Add a frappe or wine break or two and we probably ran at least $50 a day each for food, probably usually more. With luck, your exchange rate will be better than ours - looks like it so far. Admissions to museums, antiquities, etc., seemed to run in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 Euros for museums, generally 5 to a high of 12 (Acropolis in Athens, which includes Roman Forum, 5 other tickets), with the occasional ruin as low as 1.50-3 Euros.

Taxi from the airport in Santorini to Imerovigli was about 15 Euros, taxi fares from the Airport in Athens to 2 different Athens hotels were 26 for the slightly shorter Sun. AM trip and 35 for the after 11PM trip. Twice we took the Metro to or from the airport for 10 Euros for a ticket for 2 people (6 for one person); we could handle our own luggage easily enough and the walk to the Attalos from the Monastiraki station is maybe 2 blocks.

I would think Sept. prices would be close to the same as May prices. July and August, sometimes June or part of June, seem to be higher most places outside of Athens. Athens is about the same except the dead of winter.

It wouldn't hurt to contact another agent or two for their prices. Just be sure you're comparing comparable hotels and so forth.

Digbydog

I agree with Polly--check another travel agent. We looked at Fantasy Travel to make our arrangements, but they would not break down the amount we were paying for each hotel, ferry, etc. so we weren't sure whether it was a good deal or not. Dolphin-Hellas was willing to give us this break-down so we could compare prices. We used Dolphin-Hellas to book ferry tickets and a few hotels. Some hotels, I was able to get a better price than the agent, so I booked those myself. Other hotels, the agent could get a better price. Car rentals were much more expensive through the agent, as was our flight from Santorini to Athens. You can put together a much less expensive trip doing some of it yourself, which the internet makes very easy.

nytraveler

I think the key word in your post is "hopefully". Unless you get a written guarantee I would either move on or do it yourself.

A travel agent that can;t even guarantee a hotel is going to be king of the bait and switch.