Travel Review: Greece Vacation, Athens, Crete, Santorini, Delphi, Meteora, Knossos Palace, Catamaran Cruise

Athens:  upon arrival go straight from airport to stay in Arechova. Which is about 2 hours from airport. That is a beautiful town we passed on our way to Delphi.  More of a town to see, nothing in Delphi.  And is only 6 miles from sites in Delphi.  We never stopped there to see anything.  I would stay there 3-4 nights to see Delphi and Meteroa or any other local sites.  See them in the morning and afternoon then head back to hotel.  Then head to Corinth for 2-3 nights.  Then to Athens for 2-3 nights.  That way we are not back and forth to Athens and unpacking and packing so often.

Crete:  Would do the stay in Herakleon at the end of our stay on Crete.  2 reasons, the Airport and Harbor.  You are eventually going to leave the island so you can do your 1 or 2 days there to see the Knossos Castle and harbor before you leave. Your drive and time you need to leave for your departures are later then staying farther away from the transportation off the island.

Tour Company: Again I would have done all private or smaller tour guides for Delphi and Meteora.  

TRAVEL COMPANY COMMENTS: 

Dear Mr. G,

Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed review and for the most part there were many positive things regarding your trip.

As we prepared your itinerary trip to Greece it was in the context of:  1N Athens, 1N Delphi, 1N Meteora, 1N Athens, 5N Crete, 3N Santorini.

The reason why we prepared this trip with the first 4 nights spending 1N in each location Athens/Delphi/Meteora and Athens is because we had to combine the escorted tour that departed on a specific date with your travel dates.  

We planned this trip 1 year prior and if spending 1 night in each location was a concern, this was something we had plenty of time to fix since we had planned your trip so far in advance and it was communicated to you from the time of deposit till the final payment and your travel documents.  

Regarding the trip, the whole itinerary was prepared with private tours other than the escorted tour from Athens which was a  2 night/3 day regular escorted tour visiting Delphi and Meteora.  We did have the ability to change to a private tour during our communication process however specifically for this tour the budget would have been significantly affected. This multi day escorted tour is typically conducted in multi languages and I sincerely apologize for this. The guides try to spend equal amounts of time explaining things in the various languages.  We have passed on your comments to the travel company however please note that we are very limited in Greece as far as tour companies offering this specific tour.   Either it would have to be private tour at a higher cost or a regular tour as mentioned as the one that you took with limited choices of tour conductors.

As far as Crete there was miscommunication with our supplier regarding your private tour and a different one was conducted to include a cooking class.  We apologize for this however as per your comments you enjoyed this tour and were satisfied with it.

If you were to do your trip differently you mention that you would arrive in Athens (from an international flight) and immediately drive to Arahova village.  Typically after a long international flight another 2 hour drive is equally tiring for many people.   Also spending 2 -3 nights in one location such as Arahova or Delphi and seeing Meteora for the day is not  freezable as Meteora is about a 3.5 hours drive each way! I believe that we did the best we could according to our expertise and knowledge of Greece to make this trip work the best for you.  

We appreciate and thank you for the kind comments of all our private guides and tour experiences in Athens, Crete and Santorini.