We will arrive Athens at 5:55 PM form LHR on Olympic Airway on 5/6. The latest flight to Mykonos is 7:00pm by Aegean. The one to Santorini leaves at 6:00pm and we can't make it. We will travel light and have no bags to claim. I checked Athens Airport website, the airport seems small. Can we clear customs and make the transfer in an hour? Thanks in advance.

Yes, no problem since you have no bags to claim. Passport control is fast and customs is practically non-existent.

Passport control can be a problem as you are entering the Schengen space.
Harvey

Brotheelee and Gaspard, thanks for the tips. I decide to go the islands at the end of my trip. One hour might be enough to make the transfer. But I have been checking live arrival information on Athens airport website aia.gr for a week , more than half the days the OA flight from LHR was late, sometime one hour late. That got me cold feeted.

Brotherlee and other Greece expert I have another question. I did a search on Fodors forum and did not find any related thread. Maybe I am over planning here (I always do), is there any public restroom or shower near the beaches of Mykonos and Santorini, where you could change or shower? We will fly back from Santorini to Athens on the last flight(9:30pm) on our last day, we would like to spend some time on the beach, swimming ..on that day. We can't go back to hotel to shower since we would have checked out. Please don't laugh at me if the question sounds silly.

It's not a silly question. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer based on experience. A public restroom shouldn't be a problem. With the volume of tourists going to the popular (Kamari and Perissa on Santorini) beaches I'm fairly certain you will be able to find one, or you can at least use one in a taverna at the beach. But I can't say for sure about a shower. I'd like to know this information too. I hope someone has a better answer. I suppose if you absolutely had no other option you could buy a couple of bottles of water to at least rinse the salt from your skin and swimming suit before drying off and changing into travel clothes.

I did find a mention on this website of a public shower on the premises of the Orion Hotel at Kamari Beach. My guess is that you might have to pay for it.

http://www.greekhotel.com/cyclades/s...rion/home2.htm

brotherleelove2004, thank you very much. I will check the business at the beach to see if they provide shower service. And thanks for the water bottle suggestion.
Frommer's Greece do mention that at Mykonos Paradise baech, "an extensive complex built on the beach includes a bar, taverna, changing rooms... "
Again, thanks brotherleelove, all your advice on Santorini and OIA are extremely helpful when I plan my Greece trip.

Thinking about it some more, I believe the reason there's no public showers at the beaches on Santorini is because of the chronic water shortage there. Almost all the villages rely on delivery of water from deep wells on the island. Unchecked use of this local resource would be a serious problem there, especially in the hot and crowded summer months. As far as I know Oia is the only village with its own water desalinization facility.

We had the same problem a few years ago, an 11 o'clock check out and a 7 o'clock overnight ferry. However after discussing the problem with the front desk of our hotel they agreed to allow us to use their pool and to store our bags after we checked out. The pool had a shower so we were nice and clean for the trip home.

I'm piggybacking on this post because I have a similar question. We are flying from Milan to Athens, then Athens to Santorini, both Aegean Air flights. Can we check our luggage all the way through from Milan to Santorini? Or do we have to collect it in Athens and recheck? I'm hoping it can go straight through, since it's one airline. Anyone know?

mmstl-

We are taking the same flight in late May from LHR to ATH. I originally wanted to take a 7:00 p.m. connecting flight to Heraklion, but Uli at Dolphin Hellas advised me to book the later 9:30 p.m. flight instead. She indicated that the flight from London was always late and we would never make our flight. However, we will have luggage (actually I thought it could be checked through from London to Heraklion) - so maybe that is the difference.

brotherleelove - should we find that our luggage can be checked all the way to Heraklion from London and we arrive in time to make the earlier 7:00 p.m. flight, do you know if they will let us board on a space available basis?

Yes, I believe that's possible. I know I've done it myself from Athens to Santorini, catching an earlier flight just by asking. The obvious problem is finding available space. I hope you do!!

Brotherleelove- do you know if the luggage goes straight through when you fly in from another country? I'm afraid now that we'll be in trouble with these flights. If we have to collect bags and recheck, it would be really tough to make the connection.

brotherleelove -

I sure hope we can catch the earlier flight, too. It would get us into Heraklion at 7:50 p.m. instead of 10:20 - and after traveling over 30 hours (flight time and layover time) just to get to Athens, I would love to get into Heraklion earlier to fall into bed for a good night's sleep!

Crossing my fingers . . .

Most airlines make an attempt to pass your luggage along to the next carrier, at least they say they will. If you have doubts about your timing then you'd better plan accordingly. On my last trip to Santorini my bag was lost for 3 days even though I was told it wouldn't be a problem during 2 airline transfers. I don't trust their words anymore. I usually only take a carry-on to avoid just such a problem, but naturally the one time I check my bag the worst happens. When it finally arrived on Santorini the airlines wouldn't deliver it, I had to waste part of a day making my way to and from the airport to retrieve it myself. I was reimbursed for my taxi and for some incidentals I had to buy, but my clothes were pretty ripe-smelling by the time I got my stuff. From now on if I ever have to check a bag again I'll keep at least one change of underclothes in my carry-on daypack.


If you're dealing with Olympic once you're in Greece and your connecting flight departs within an hour of your arrival you can just about plan on your bags getting sent out on a later plane, they have a terrible reputation for efficiency.

Actually, we're only flying on one carrier, and it's Aegean. We're on an Aegean flight from Milan to Athens, then from Athens to Santorini. I agree with you about Olympic- I'll never use them again. Hopefully this will work out with Aegean.

Best of luck!

Ok- now I'm paranoid about missing our connection to Santorini (and losing a precious day there stuck in the Athens airport). Keeping in mind Olympic's dismal on-time record, which would you do, Brotherleelove? Our connecting flight to Santorini is at 6:00. Would you take the Aegean flight arriving in Athens at 4:55 (short time to transfer IF we have to collect luggage) or the Olympic flight arriving in Athens at 4:10 (more time to change, but will almost certainly be late). Both are direct flights from Milan.

This is a difficult decision. Since you'll be flying into Greece on an international flight you'll more than likely have to collect your bags in Athens for inspection and then recheck them for the flight to Santorini. Unless Aegean indicates that there's some sort of customs inspection on Santorini (a possibility since charter flights go there directly from other European countries) I don't see that you really have any choice but to take the earlier Olympic flight to give you time for this process. Send an email to Aegean to see what they have to say before making your final decision.