Santorini Private Scenic Shore Excursion: Oia, Mt Profitis and Ilias Monastery

<p>Santorini is a beautiful island but with 4 cruise ships in port on the same day, it was overwhelmingly crowded. We started our tour in Fira and took the cable car to the top of the cliff to reach the town. Our tour guide met us at the bottom and we rode up to meet the driver. It was early in the morning and our first stop was Mt. Profitis Ilias, the highest point and the location of a monastery. As we are driving for about 30 minutes, there was a lot of fog and once we reached the top, we could see nothing! The tour guide also told us that she had never been to the monastery when it was open so she wasn't sure we could get in. She should have told us this and offered another alternative than going to some spot with fog and nowhere to go! That was very disappointing. We would have preferred to spend the time in beautiful Oia. Oia was the highlight of the tour but it was very crowded due to the number of ships in port. The trip was also scheduled to last 4.5 hours but she took us back to Fira after 3 hours. She seemed to be in a hurry to leave us! Once in Fira, we had a wonderful lunch on our own overlooking the water and left to catch the cable car around 2 pm. The line was probably at least 2 hours so we walked down the donkey trail to catch the tender boat at the bottom. That was horrible! The smell and the number of donkeys was unbearable. The trail is also uneven and difficult to navigate, trying to avoid donkeys and their deposits along the route! Santorini is beautiful but these annoyances will probably be what we remember the most!</p>

<p>Zina was excellent and new everything about this beautiful<br/>
island. I wish we could of had her longer though.<br/>
She even called ahead and got us a amazing table for lunch</p>

<p>Wonderful and informative. The only way to see and experience the island</p>

<p>Guide was 'ok'... Not too much info provided, was pleasent.. Too much money for this tour! Not worth it.</p>

<p>Simone is an excellent guide: courteous, informative, and sensitive to our needs. He met us on the pier at 8.30am (we were scheduled at 9.00am). Santorini is a "tendered" port so we took a boat early enough to make it by 9.00am. We rode the aerial tram up to Fiar and walked through the town (shops) to the van waiting for us at the bottom of the hill ( I was thinking that the hill was a breeze going down but the trip back would be hard and that is correct). We drove first to the highest point of Santorini and visited the chapel there looking over spectacular scenery....you can see the entire island which is actually one edge of the caldera. Then on to Oia (eea). This is where most of the pictures that are seen worldwide are taken of the white buildings and churches with the blue domes sitting on a side of a cliff with the blue, blue, Aegean Sea in the background. Fantastic scenery. Again, not easy for the walking challenged but well worth going through the efforts. The gelato there is mahvelous. Back to Fiar for lunch and shopping. Ate at the Volcano Blue restaurant and finally had a taste of authentic Spanakopita which interestingly, they called Spinach Pie. Portions were huge and tasty. More shopping and back to the ship by aerial tram where the tender is waiting to take you back to the ship.</p>

<p>Although tour and guide were good, we were very disappointed that it was not as advertised.<br/>
Excursion was supposed to begin with a boat ride from harbor to Actinios. We specifically chose this excursion for that reason, to avoid the cable car ride (or donkey ride, or walk) up to Fira. When we arrived, our guide, Simone, claimed to know nothing about the boat ride, and we took the cable car to the top.<br/>
Very disappointing.</p>

<p>Our tour guide was a nice man named Simone - It was over 100F but we had a nice Van with A/C to take our group of 6 around to the sites. The guy was very patient with our shopping wanderings and was very knowledgable about the areas - a great tour I would recommend highly.</p>

<p>Guide was very good and had good knowledge of the island; a very pleasant experience in this beautiful place!</p>

<p>It was a very wonderful experience. Our tour guide was professional and give us a lot of photo opportunities!</p>

<p>Communication between Viator was VERY poor. We were at the dock at 8:15am , early since our tour was scheduled at 9:00am and excited to see and spend time on the island, but no one showed up from Viator until almost 11:00am. I will call Viator because we did not get the tour we payed for. We did not start the tour with a "private shore excursion around the island." Your guild were very good but there was a major mix up as to where we were meeting, several trips up and down the Tram at 4 euros/ person, and lots of frustration and time wasted on this beautiful island. We were left with limited time to spend on our own to shop. </p>