Renting a Car in Greek Isles
 

Our family (husband, wife, 8 and 11-year olds) will be chartering a sailboat and touring the islands for about a week in August, stopping in Mykonos, Santorini and one other island. We will be sailing at night and sleeping on the boat, spending the days touring the islands. I have heard mixed things about the need to rent a car on the islands; we like touring but also like beaches. Anyone have recommendations regarding car rentals? Also recommendations on appropriate family beaches on those islands?

We will be on Santorini and Mykonos in September and we have decided that we will mostly taxi and use the local bus.
There may be one day on Santorini that we rent a car but we will be there for a whole week. Bus service sounds fine for most of what we plan to do.
On Mykonos our group, all adults, will probably head to Psarou beach to drink and sunbathe and eat in the cafes - N'ammos sounds great. From what I can tell a good family beach is Ornos, about 1.5 miles south of the town. You can take a bus to all the beaches - they run about every 15 minutes. Or cab. Some of the beaches have a real party reputation; some are primarily gay and some nude. Check out this thread:
http://www.fodors.com/forums_reg/threadselect.jsp?fid=2

On Santorini the beaches aren't anything great - you go there for the caldera view not the beaches. They have black rocky sand and are on the east side of the island, facing away from the caldera. Monolithos is a small beach that seems like it's for families. But again, Santorini's claim to fame is not its beaches.

I have not been to Mykonos or Santorini, but I have been to 7 or 8 other Greek islands and can't imagine needing a car except on Crete. There is usually pretty good bus service to the popular beaches or scenic towns. You can also sail to some fabulous beaches that are not so accessible to those without a boat.

I was in these islands couple of years ago and I ended up renting a car some days since I felt I could not see all I want to see using public transportation only.

In Mykonos, you can get boats to all beaches except one beach that is accessible via car only. Mykonos beaches are clothing optional but each one has its degree of nudity. Seems there is an unwritten rule that those beaches follow.

Santorini does not have nice beaches. They do not allow full nudity and only being topless is allowed.

The beaches are not nice beaches and Mykonos beaches are much nicer. I visited all the beaches in Santorini and Mykonos and was disappointed by Santorini's.

You could take public transportion for most part. However, I rented a car in these two islands anyway either the whole time or partially. I felt some places are easier to reach if I have a car and I can get a better feel of the island and tour easier.

You could easily rent a car in these islands. They had mainly standard cars so hopefully you are okay with that. You can return the car for the days you are going to use public transportation and rent it back again when you need it.. Works fine.

Thanks for the responses. zbjoon, I assume when you say "standard" cars you mean standard/manual transmission?

Standard means standard transmission as in North America - clutch and gearshift.
Or you can rent scooters/motorbikes

Scooters are really fun and a great way to get around the islands, if you are ok with putting a kid on the back of each.

underradar, with standard I mean the cars with the clutch and gearshift as taggie said. The opposite of automatic.

We rented a car in Chania (Crete) two years ago. In most of Europe, it is much more cost effective to make rental arrangement prior to leaving. In Crete, prices varied greatly. We went down the beach are and stopped at six or seven rental places. The prices varied greatly.

You don't NEED a car, but it can be a fun way to see a little more, or see more in a shorter period of time. On a trip several years ago we rented a car on three different islands-- Santorini, Rhodes and Paros. In each case it was a one-day rental, decided upon spontaneously. We had no trouble finding cars to rent, and didn't need any special licenses (although be sure you do in fact have your US driver's license-- I had forgotten mine, so I couldn't drive.) I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it, although I don't think you need to bother to set it up in advance.

Yep . . . see what you feel like doing on the day.

Every harbor town will have cars & scooters for rent. It's fun to get a local map, decide on which beach you'll head to, & just zoom off! Your 8 & 11-year olds are old enough to not wiggle on the back of a scooter/help out with navigation (follow the signs to Agios Nick, etc.)

No need to pre-reserve. Greece is about being spontaneous, and going with the flow.
HTH

I rented a car for the 24 hours I was in Santorini, mainly because my friend's luggage was lost so we had to keep going back and forth to the airport to see if it had come in (we were leaving the next day for Crete). It only cost $20 and we did not pre-book. When we dropped off the car we asked the agency where we could get a taxi to the ferry, and they drove us down for free. Definitely a bargain.

The one bad thing though is the manual transmission (on most if not all rentals there)...it can be pretty dangerous when parking on the edge of a downward-sloping cliff like the one in Oia, nothing preventing you from plummeting to your death except the careful balance of your feet on the clutch & gas. Eeek!

Just a precaution to anyone considering renting a scooter on Mykonos. DON'T DO IT!

My wife and I experienced a nightmare with a scooter rental from Moto Speed Rentals . When we rented the scooters we were only offered theft insurance.
We had to ask them about the collision insurance which they said we could not get with our New York State license's.

We stupidly decided to risk it and became one of the countless others who paid for it big time. We had a crash on a super steep hill at Super Paridise beach when a car caused my wife to fall at a critical bend on the hill. I narrowly missed hitting her and fell as well. We thankfully survived with sprains cuts and bruises and were able to ride the scooters back to the hotel.

After spending 250 Euros for my wife's doctor's bills and 1100 Euros for damage to the scooters we regreted big time our stupidity in taking the risk. We also felt like we had been blindsided by no warnings on how dangerous some of the roads are.

Yet the thing that infuriated me the most, was being totaly at the mercy of the rental company in deciding the cost of the damages. First they said I would have to pay for a new frame that was about 1500 Euros as well as another 800 Euros for the other damage. He then DID ME A FAVOR and located a used frame for 250 euros.
I was left with a bad impression that they encourage you to rent by offering low daily rental rates, 10 to 20 Euros per day depending on the scooter model, knowing that the more they rent the greater the chance of people crashing and then inflating the repair bills for big profits as well as upgrading the bikes.

Basically,
The money from all the victims of accidents are what keep all the scooters looking so shiney and new!

There were two people on crutches with leg braces as well as my wife in a sling on our return flight. That told me how many people per day wind up paying the price as we did.

Am I angry? Hell yeah, mainly because the guy who picked us up at our hotel and asked which scooters we wanted was a total @#$%. My wife had to ask him to show her how everything operated after he had quickly shown me. He acted smug in having to repeat himself to my wife. He never once warned us about dangers or asked how extensive our experience was in riding scooters. He even said to me after asking if I had driven before " Have you driven in this century?" This after I asked if he meant if I had driven a scooter before, which I had. He was also the only one who made a comment when he viewed the damage when I returned them the next day. He acted as if we had crashed on purpose or something. He's just lucky my wife wasn't seriously hurt because I felt like clocking him when he walked over and said "Common! What is this!?! and not once asked if she was ok. Saying this KNOWING full well that I would be paying for all the damage. I may be wrong but I got the feeling he was the owner or manager. He had shoulder length long hair and a real shady look to him. He conviently disappeared when they told me how much I was to pay.

So a long rant short, Stick to the buses and taxis. If you must rent, rent a car and make sure it has collision insurance!

Denvic,

I agree with you with the rental of scooters and feel sorry for what happened to you and your wife.

Although a big fan of scooters myself, I was kind of shocked last week when the rental offices would not rent me a scooter on the island of Skopelos for not having a proper driving license - or the insurance company would not reimburse them a cent. They told me that some rental offices would rent one, but it would be at my own risk. I had rented scooters in the past years in Amorgos, Ithaki, etc. but was never asked for motorbike driving license before. Has the law changed or are there different rules on different islands ?

This is the E.U. The driving regulations have been harmonized for years (decades) You are free to dis-respect the law if you're willing to take the consequences. Loosing your license to drive a car is only one of them.