It has been another HOT week! The entire continent is experiencing an intense heatwave with record-breaking temperatures everywhere. Even more unusually, the heat is sticking around and not leaving after a day or so; it just lingers. Opening the windows to air the house in the morning isn’t enough; we all just sit around the one air conditioner all day.
On Thursday after work, we went straight to the airport for our flight to Greece. This year’s “big summer vacation” would be a cruise departing from Athens!
Once we got to Athens, we went straight to the hotel and arrived around 10:30 p.m. The hotel’s sushi bar was still open, so we had an amazing sushi dinner before heading to bed.
We slept in late on Saturday and then went straight to the cruise ship as soon as we could check in. We were some of the first people on the boat, the Brilliance of the Seas!
It was the Fourth of July, so the whole ship was decorated for Independence Day.
As soon as we boarded, we hit the buffet and then went straight to the pool deck for an afternoon of laying out in the sun. After dinner that evening, the kids went to the teen center, and Matt and I checked out some of the bars and lounges around the ship. We quickly made friends with a man in one of the lounges who turned out to be the piano player who would play many renditions of ‘Sweet Caroline’ and ‘Country Roads’ for us during the cruise. ☺️
Saturday was our first port day, and we stopped in Santorini. This is our third cruise visit, and Matt and Ryan decided to stay on the ship. Santorini is not an easy cruise stop because you have to use a tender boat to get to the port and then wait for a cable car to take you up the cliff. Last time, just getting to town took over two hours in intense heat, but Brooklyn and I decided we still wanted to visit. Unlike our two previous cruises, we arrived early in the morning. With only one other ship in port, there was barely any wait for the cable car, and we were soon at the top.
Once at the top, we found our way to the bus station and took the public bus from Fira to Oia, the famous Santorini town known for its blue-domed, white-washed buildings. It had been our goal to visit here in 2022, but we never made it due to the long journey from the ship.
When we arrived in Oia, it wasn’t too crowded, and we could easily walk to the viewpoint of the blue domes and the caldera. We snapped lots of pictures and moved on. As we were leaving, the street leading to the viewpoint was getting really congested, and a line had formed to take photos.
We were hungry, so we stopped in a café for a snack, and ended up at a great table overlooking the domes and the caldera. Brooklyn had crêpes, and I had a Greek salad and a frappe coffee—so good!
We left and walked more, but the town was getting crowded with tour groups, and it wasn’t even noon. Santorini has gotten so over-touristed; I’m glad we could visit early. We decided to catch the bus back to Fira.
We walked around Fira and then returned to the ship, where we found Matt and Ryan lying by the pool. While we were gone, they had gone to the gym, gone mini-golfing, and gone rock climbing. We all spent the rest of the day relaxing around the pool.
Brooklyn and I had a great day in Santorini. Now that we’ve visited during both the best and worst possible conditions, my advice for anyone else coming on a cruise would be not to bother getting off the ship unless your ship arrives early and there are fewer than three ships in port. More than that, or coming any later than 10am, it would be better just to enjoy the ship’s amenities.
On Sunday, our cruise stop was Kusadasi, Turkey. I think this was everybody’s least favorite day of the cruise. It had been two years since we visited Turkey, and we had forgotten how pushy the salespeople can be and about the dishonest practices they use on tourists.
When we departed the ship, our goal was to visit Ephesus’s ruins and then go to a beach. Multiple reports on Google told me that the taxi fare to Ephesus would be around €40. We talked to numerous taxi drivers who attempted to charge us €150 or more. When we asked for a simple metered fare, they all laughed at us and were pretty rude. For that price, we walked back into the port area to a tour company where we joined a guided tour of Ephesus that would take us to a few other sites and return us to the port.
After we were on our way to Ephesus, we discovered that the €160 tour fee we had paid did not even cover the entrance fee to Ephesus or any of the other sites we would visit. The tour guide also told us they only accepted Turkish Lira in cash at the gate. This was a shame as we could have used the ATM back at the port, but they had not told us. The tour guide “graciously” offered to pay everyone’s entrance fee and said we could pay them back when we returned to the port. The entrance fee to Epehesus was around €40. When we arrived, it seemed like they might have taken credit cards and even offered the entrance fee in euros, but we took our guide at their word.
For the steep entry fee, you would think we would see something comparable to the lost city of Atlantis, but it was a pretty small site with barely preserved ruins. It was also so hot, with barely any shade. We were glad when the tour was over.
The tour also stopped at the Virgin Mary’s house, supposedly the last home of Jesus’ mother. Again, the tour guide told us they only took Turkish Lira and no credit cards, so they offered to pay the entry fee and told us it would be €12. We agreed only to find out afterwards that they would have taken a credit card. This site was also tiny, and it was a really quick stop.
After the Virgin Mary’s house, the tour guide told us we would stop at a “ Turkish Art Gallery.” When we arrived, everyone in our group was ushered into a room with a runway. We were instructed to sit and then watch a 20-minute fashion show. This “art gallery” was actually a clothing store where the prices started around €700 for each item, although they were offering a 50% discount on anything we were willing to buy today. We tried to leave through the door we entered, but found it locked and we had no choice but to walk-through in IKEA-style store of multiple rooms before we finally found the exit. Other people in our group were not so lucky and could not find the exit, so we waited about 30 minutes outside for them. At this point, we were so annoyed that it was too late to go to the beach. We could not wait to get back to Kusadasi!
There wasn’t that much time left in our stop, but our feelings were really hurt when we drove by a beautiful beach that would’ve only been a 10-minute walk from the ship. We wish we had done that instead!
But we still had to go back to the port to pay the tour company. At this point, we owed them €40 for Ephesus and €12 for the Virgin Mary house, for a total of €208 for all of us. We were already shocked by the prices we had paid that day and it was then that the tour guide told us that it would actually be €45 for Ephesus and €20 for the House as a ‘convenience fee’ for him getting the tickets for us. Additionally, each person would be charged €13 for using the credit card machine. This brought the grand total to €312. To add insult to the many injuries they had already imposed upon us at this point, when they converted this to Turkish Lira, they added a 15% conversion fee, bringing the grand total to around €350. You could imagine our anger when we only wanted to pay €40 when we got off the ship, and didn’t have the most fantastic day on top of it. We paid the extortion, decided to dispute it later with the credit card company, and agreed as a family that we were done sightseeing for the rest of the cruise.
We ended the week on a positive note when we found a picture we took on a cruise in 2017, when we were sailing on Brilliance of the Seas’ sister ship, Jewel of the Seas. Then, the kids were only seven and nine, and now they’re almost 15 and 17 and tower over me. Seeing the changes from over the years was so cool and cute!
Gilcrests Abroad 