Has anyone taken a boating trip around the Greek Islands?

[Scuba]

DH & I are considering a trip around the Cyclades as part of a bigger Greece vacation. We don’t want to cruise on a big ship but are possibly interested in a charter sailboat or other boat (crewed) that would stop on several Greek Islands, preferably in the Cyclades. We could fly to one of the islands to pick it up.

Has anyone done this and if so, please advise on what company you recommend. Thanks.

 

[Souschef]

I think your best bet is what are called "Small ship adventures". Two companies that come to mind are Windstar and Vantage. I am sure there are many others. These combine many of the amenities of a cruise ship with much fewer passengers

 

[Scuba]

Thanks Souschef, but we’re looking for much smaller boats, either a small charter sailboat with just a few couples, up to a somewhat larger boat that might accommodate 16-20 couples maximum. There are boats called gulets but most of them seem to go out of Rhodes and focus on the Dodecanese Islands. We’re trying to find a good company that does small boats in the Cyclades. There are lots of them online, but it always helps to have a personal recommendation.

 

[Scuba]

We found one that we’re taking a chance on. They had excellent reviews on TripAdvisor but only a few of them. Owners are Greek and it’s a sailboat with a maximum of 6 guests. When we get back, I’ll let the group know how it was. We’ll be sailing to the less traveled islands in the Cyclades.

 

[sengsational]

Scuba, That sounds like something I'd like to do. Would you mind sharing the price for that kind of small boat experience?

I'll share my small boat experience here too. From Gibraltar, DW and I took sailing instruction. I suspect it was a smaller vessel that what you'll be on (it was only 38 feet). There was one other couple, one single guy, and the instructor guy. Plus the two of us made 6. We were on the boat 5 nights for $1575. So very cheap, I though. But of course we all worked (navigating, taking the helm were fun, but hosing, washing, cleaning, cooking, not so much). That included all meals, but, like I said we had to "cook" ourselves. We were provided with semi-prepared food, but nobody wanted to even bother, so usually we walked from the ports to a restaurant dinner. Nights in two ports that were close-by, otherwise went back to our spot in Gibraltar. Ended up with a sailing certification, so that was nice, and what I really wanted out of it. But it might be fun to go on a "luxury" version of that, where the "destination" is central to the journey.

 

[Bamaman]

I have done the Greek Isles, Turkey and Malta on a cruise ship. Even on a medium size cruise ship, it is a trip of a lifetime and very reasonably priced.i

 

[Scuba]

Scuba, That sounds like something I'd like to do. Would you mind sharing the price for that kind of small boat experience?

I'll share my small boat experience here too. From Gibraltar, DW and I took sailing instruction. I suspect it was a smaller vessel that what you'll be on (it was only 38 feet). There was one other couple, one single guy, and the instructor guy. Plus the two of us made 6. We were on the boat 5 nights for $1575. So very cheap, I though. But of course we all worked (navigating, taking the helm were fun, but hosing, washing, cleaning, cooking, not so much). That included all meals, but, like I said we had to "cook" ourselves. We were provided with semi-prepared food, but nobody wanted to even bother, so usually we walked from the ports to a restaurant dinner. Nights in two ports that were close-by, otherwise went back to our spot in Gibraltar. Ended up with a sailing certification, so that was nice, and what I really wanted out of it. But it might be fun to go on a "luxury" version of that, where the "destination" is central to the journey.

The boat we chose is about 1,900 Euros for the two of us for a 7-night cruise. Most of the other quotes we got were in the 4K+ range. This charter doesn’t include all meals but that’s fine with us as we’d prefer to have dinner in local tavernas. This boat is a monohull and we will have to share a bath with another couple, which seemed to be the case even on the larger more expensive boats.

We did a week charter in the BVI in 2017 on a very nice catamaran. It cost $5K for the two of us, plus 20% tip for the crew. We went with two other couples we knew so it was easy and fun. It’s a little scarier booking on a small boat without knowing anyone else but we really want the experience of sailing the Greek Islands so we’ll go for it!

We already have sailing certifications but don’t sail often at home so definitely aren’t comfortable trying to bareboat, especially in an area we know nothing about.

 

[sengsational]

Sounds like a great time. I'm jealous! I had to twist DWs arm to get on the little boat. She liked it more than she thought she would, but probably not quite enough to repeat the experience. If the destination was cool enough, and there was no "work" I might get her aboard again. The "random" people on our boat were all ok. We had low expectations so we're not too disappointed. One guy was kind of a blow-hard, but we would just giggle about his antics... it's all about attitude.

 

[Scuba]

Sounds like a great time. I'm jealous! I had to twist DWs arm to get on the little boat. She liked it more than she thought she would, but probably not quite enough to repeat the experience. If the destination was cool enough, and there was no "work" I might get her aboard again. The "random" people on our boat were all ok. We had low expectations so we're not too disappointed. One guy was kind of a blow-hard, but we would just giggle about his antics... it's all about attitude.

Yeah, I agree. A good attitude solves a lot of problems. I really wanted to go to some islands that bigger boats couldn’t access. Many of the smaller islands only have ferry service a few days per week, which makes it tough to stay overnight on them unless you’re wiling to devote 3 days per island. So the small boat is a good way to access more islands faster and less expensively than would otherwise be possible.

A bonus is the boat we found includes 5 dives during the week. We weren’t expecting to dive in Greece and had agreed it wasn’t a priority, but since we found a cruise that included it, even better!

 

[jonat]

DW and I did two back-to-back Greek cruises with Variety - they have small (and sometimes very small) ships, and are a Greek company. We're using them again this fall for a Portugal-Spain cruise.