2022-07-25: Santorini

We were able to sleep in again this morning. The ship wasn’t scheduled to arrive at Santorini until 1:00pm. It is a port the ship is tendering at instead of docking. They were giving out numbered tender tickets starting at 9:30am this morning. Darrell woke up a little earlier than everyone else so he could go grab the tender tickets. He was at the collection point shortly after 9:30. There was no line which he thought was odd. He was given tickets for tender 40 out of about 50. There’s no way they started handing out the tender tickets at 9:30 as advertised. They must have started handing them out earlier.

Darrell returned to the room and the others were stirring. Everyone got cleaned up and we headed to the Windjammer Market for some breakfast. After breakfast, the kids went to the kids’ clubs for a bit while Darrell and Amanda poked through the stores again and grabbed some coffee at the onboard Starbucks. Darrell and Amanda realized they hadn’t checked out the Diamond Club or the Solarium yet so went to check out those areas. The Diamond Club is a dedicated room for those who have reached Diamond status with Royal Caribbean’s Crown and Anchor loyalty program. It’s a quiet sitting area where you can also grab some snacks and drinks. Then we made their way to the Solarium on deck 14 which is the adults only pool area on the front of the ship.

As we entered the Solarium, they noticed you could see the caldera of Santorini in front of the ship. The solarium is located directly above the bridge and there are outdoor viewing platforms on each side of the Solarium that sit on top of the bridge wings. We went on one of the platforms and watched the ship sail into the caldera and approach the village of Fira where the ship would anchor.

We returned to the room and reunited with the kids there. We watched the ship maneuver into it’s final position from our room and then waited for our tender number to be called. The ship was anchored and cleared for departures by 12:45 which was about 45 minutes ahead of schedule. At this point we waited, and waited, and waited. It was almost 2:30 before tender ticket 40 was finally called. We were annoyed that the tickets seemed to be handed out early as there is no way we should have had ticket number 40. We made our way to the gangway on deck 3 and boarded one of the tender boats to shore.

Once on shore, we checked out the options for traversing up the cliff to where the village is. There are three options; walk the 588 steps to the top, hop on a donkey which would take us up the steps, or take a cable car up the cliff. The cable car was our first choice but our cruise director warned us the line could be up to an hour and a half long if there are multiple ships in port. Just our luck, there were four ships in port; Viking Sea, Vision of the Seas, Oceania Riviera, and us of course. The line was quite long for the cable car. Our second option was to take a donkey which Amanda wasn’t too keen on, but the line for that was quite long as well. We decided to walk up the stairs. That was a mistake. It was over 30 degrees out and the stairs are in the full sun. Darrell and Patrick managed the exertion alright, but Amanda and Michael really struggled with it after getting about half way up. We had to take breaks after each switchback in the trail. The stairs were also pretty slippery. The stones they are paved with are worn from all the people and donkeys. Plus the hazard of the donkeys going up and down the steps without a lot of care that there are people in their path. There was also a LOT of donkey poop on the stairs. It was a pretty smelly climb. Shortly after 4:00pm, we were finally in the town of Thera/Fira. We grabbed four large bottles of water from the first vendor we saw selling them and then found a restaurant to sit in and have some lunch. Not eating lunch before we left didn’t help with the climb up the hill. Our plan was to grab lunch in town, but we didn’t plan on it being after 4:00 before we were in town.

After eating some Greek salads for lunch and letting everyone cool down and catch their breaths, we continued on into the village. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the streets of Fira poking through souvenir shops and grabbing some gelato along the way. We started heading back to the ship around 7:00pm. After seeing how slippery the steps could be and watching several people fall while they were descending as we were ascending, we elected to take the cable car down to the pier. There wasn’t much of a line for the cable car at the top of the hill and we were on our way down the hill in a matter of minutes. We boarded a tender back to the ship and were back on board in short order.

We stopped in the room quickly to drop off some gear and souvenirs before heading to the Windjammer to grab some dinner. Once dinner was done, we went our separate ways again. The kids headed to the kid areas, and Darrell and Amanda went to a virtual symphony show in the Two70 theatre. Amanda was feeling exhausted after the climb this afternoon, so we returned to the room. Michael was already there. Darrell grabbed the camera and went for a walk on deck to grab a few night shots of the village before returning to the room for the night. Patrick had also returned by this time. A little after 11:00pm, the ship started it’s journey to Mykonos and we watched the island fade into the distance from the balcony of our room before calling it a night. When we wake up tomorrow, we will be at Mykonos.