Travel Review: Trip to Greece, Athens, Crete, Santorini, Mykonos, Rethymno, Knossos Palace, Sunset Sailing, Hiking, Wine Tours

The good--My agent  was generally responsive to questions.  She provided me with all the relevant information, vouchers and tickets when we met up in Athens for the remainder of the trip.  We were provided with a mobile phone to use for the duration of the trip in case we needed to make local calls, which we got to keep in the end.  Transportation to and from Athens airport was seamless, the Athens hotel was nice and well located.  

However not all the tours and activites she set up were the best.  The Athens group tour was so atrocious we actually left and went off on our own.  

Activities set up in Crete were quite disorganized.  Our "guide" of Chania did not actually provide much information--he was just walking with us through the town.  It would have been less awkward and we would have enjoyed ourselves more doing that on our own.   We also would have preferred to have picked our own location for dinner.   he then drove us to Rethymno to our hotel, driving like a mad man.   He told us he would pick us up the next day for our tour.  In the morning however it was a completely different woman from a completely different company.   Also the description of the tour for that day (on our provided itinerary from our agent) was completely inaccurate, so we were not dressed appropriately (e.g. we were expecting a hike).  Luckily the tour with the Eco Tour company was quite nice, but it was strange that we had received so much conflicting information.    In general in Crete we spent a lot of time driving from city to city.  Seem like it would have made more sense to split up our stay between cities.  On our last day our driver inexclipably refused to meet us at our hotel, but rather at a coffee shop 10 minutes away, where he was apparently leisurely having his morning coffee.   Again, the driver was someone completely different from a different company than had been indicated.  Finally the hotel in Rethymno was not very good.  The room was very hot, had an odd odor, and we found a huge cockaroach in the middle of the floor 

Activities in Santorini were better and more consistent with what was indicated on the itinerary--sunset sail, winery tour.  hotel was nice but location was quite remote in Imerovigli.  Our atent had advised against staying in Fira, which was a good recommendation since it seemed quite touristy.   However I'm not sure why she didn't suggest staying in Oia, which seemed much nicer, with more restaurants in the area.  

Overall experience was good but I feel like I could have organized it on my own and probably done a better job.  Don't feel like I particularly got an "insider" tip from the travel agent.