The main reason why I decided on Greece is because of Santorini. Honestly, I wished I could stay in Santorini longer but the cost for staying in Santorini is like triple the price in comparison when staying in Athens. We paid $400 for 7 nights in Athens but paid $450 for just 2 nights in Santorini. Lol! We could have chosen a cheaper accommodation but the accommodation I was in is one of the BEST and by far so called the cheapest and most convenient.
I booked my accommodation via Expedia.com.sg. Doing my research, if VIEW is your priority, having hotels with caldera view is what you should look out for. Waking up to the beauty of the Caldera view at your door step is amazing and most sites recommended us to stay in Hotel instead of Airbnb because hotels usually have the best view, whereas Airbnb doesn't. But that does not mean Airbnb doesn't have a nice view, some really do but the price is also quite steep.
Budget me. I wanted to stay at a cheaper accommodation but I was telling myself that it will defeat the purpose of me being in Santorini. Paid so much to travel here and having to miss the best thing in life. I've always been amazed by the beauty of Santorini via pictures and websites of the caldera and hot tub thingy. If staying at cheaper accommodation will make me miss out on those, then I guess I don't mind spending a little bit more. Besides we also paid to fly here, so better make it all worthwhile. Money can always be earned but experience sometimes are only once in a lifetime. So I knew I had my mind set on the:-
1) Caldera View
2) Hot Tub
3) Cave-like accommodation
See how much pictures have influence me on my decision making. Lol!
It took me a while to do research. Day after day weighing on the pros and cons of everything. Airbnb VS Expedia and also the prices. I told myself even though I don't mind spending a little more but I do not want to overspend. I was willing to go at least $200-$250/night even though it feels ridiculous because I have never spend so much on a accommodation when we travel except for our Honeymoon in Langkawi at Meritus Pelangi. Hehe! I tried to look for $150/night but nothing appeals to me. When reading the comment, it's either the hot tub is not that warm (but cold). If it's summer, I wouldn't mind but if it's spring and the hot tub is cold, I'll froze. Some of the places is way too far and are not quite accessible. After much research, I finally found one that has a caldera view, price is ooookay, provide us with free breakfast, hot tub is working great and have a cave-like accommodation.
I had Altemar suites as one of my choice but after much consideration, I decided on Exclusive Plan Suit which was located at Firostefani. And you can refer to their gallery to see what I meant. Beautiful ain't it? I will recommend this place hands down. Even the staff are nice and polite to us and it's probably like 10 mins walk down to Fira which we usually walk to and fro from our hotel.
Flight or Ferry?
We could have chosen to fly to Santorini instead which only takes an hour to reach and we could skip waking up at ungodly morning hours for the ferry or rather cruise ride. But it all boils down to experience. I mean we always take flight, so why not try the ferry on another country? Plus, I have always wanted to ride on a big cruise like that. Another reason was because on flight, usually you are not allowed to carry liquid more than a certain ml but if you board the ferry, you can carry liquids with you. Because D and I needed to bring our shampoo and who knows if we decided to buy liquid souvenirs like Olive oil etc. The only down side that I kept thinking it's a 7 hours 25 mins ride. 😕 After 12 hours of plane ride, I wasn't too sure if I could last 7 hours for the ferry ride.
There are basically few ferries that head to Santorini from Athens port. There are many ferry port in Athens but I guess the common & popular one is Piraeus Port? which we both went to. During that period (spring) when D and I went, there was only 2 ferries. We could only choose from Blue Star Ferries or Seajet2. (There are more ferries during the Summer.) I weigh both pros and cons of this two too before deciding. Oh you know me.
Blue Star Ferries are big cruise so it's slower and takes about 7 hours 25 mins ride to Santorini, whereas Seajet2 are smaller, so it's faster and takes about 4 hours 54 mins to reach. Big Star Ferries seat are more comfortable and have more space to walk around the ferry, whereas Seajet2 are smaller, so space wise it's slightly compromise. More cafes for Blue Star Ferries and another factor that affect our choice was SEASICK-ness. This is more for me, as I have this tendency to be a little seasick if the waves are choppy. After doing research, lot of reviews said that Blue Star Ferries are bigger and travel slower, so tendency to get seasick is lesser VS StarJet2. And Blue Star Ferries are slightly cheaper VS StarJet2. So heck the 7 hours 25 mins ride, Blue Star Ferries it was!
We booked our tickets online. We tried booking directly to Blue Star Ferries but they keep rejecting my credit card payment for more than 10 times, which I don't know why. Luckily, I have always followed Greece trip on Instagram and I chance upon @ferryhopper_com. The BEST one I will say to book your ferry trip around Greece. So smooth and easy transaction and the website is also easy to navigate plus no extra hidden charges. What you see on the direct ferry website, it's also how much Ferry Hopper charge on their website. Thank you so much Ferry Hopper! You daaaaa best. Anyway, I was also quite skeptical I would say before that. I booked the tickets only one way from Greece to Santorini and plan to buy the other ticket back in Greece itself because I don't know if it was reliable. In any case it is not, then I'll probably wasted like only 90 Euros. HAHAHA! 😂 But if it is, I definitely save some time from rushing to buy tickets in the morning. Anyway, I did even drop FerryHopper a message because when we bought our tickets we couldn't change our Nationality to Singaporean, the ticket auto confirmed us as Greek. I was pretty worried but they say it's just a normal procedure that their tickets are all like that. And yes, it is RELIABLE. 😎 Anyway, tickets also cost cheaper during Spring compared when in Summer.
Blue Star Ferries
Blue Star Ferries is one company that basically operates a number of ferries. You can see the different ferries operated under Blue Star Ferries here. Ours was called Blue Star Delos and you can refer to this link here to see videos of the different ferry fleet. Anyway, the ferry has different seating. The economy seat being the cheapest but it is based on first come first served basis means there are no seat number and anyone can choose to seat anywhere they choose to. While the air seat as seen as the picture below are seat that cost slightly more than economy but you are guaranteed a seat number. The only sad thing, you cannot choose your seat number. The system will generate the seat number for you but most of the time, you get to sit next to each other if you purchase the tickets together.
D and I bought Air Seat tickets which cost us 45 Euros each because we wanted to be guaranteed a seat. 7 hours ++ journey is no joke if we don't get a seat or if we have to be seated separately. We decided to go for Air Seat 5 which was in maroon at Level 7, getting the best view at the top deck and we chose Air Seat 3 in the middle in mustard (Level 6) when going back from Santorini. Hoping to exit earlier. Hahaha! But what we also found out people tend to anyhow seat once they are on board the ferry. Some economy paid tickets holder will sit on the air seat sitting especially when it's empty. The staff usually will not bother to check the tickets once on board but if you happened to be unlucky, if they decide to check (especially during summer period), then you'll definitely get kicked out. Plus if you really paid for an air seat tickets, you can definitely kick out people who anyhow sit on your seating. Which is what we notice! 🙄
2 occasions we took the ferry, someone purposely sat on our seat, so D and I will move to another seat, usually we will get the best seat if ours isn't. (The good thing) And we tell ourselves if we ended up sitting on someone else's seat, then we will have to inform the ferry staff to chase these people away who sat on ours. But we were twice lucky, even when someone sat on our seat, nobody claim the seat we seated was theirs. So it was sort of a peaceful journey.
So enough of the long ferry explanation. Here how the story goes:-
Day 4 - 07th April 2019
We woke up like 4am in the morning because we needed to catch our 745am ferry ride to Santorini. We prepared our bags the night before. So after we both showered, we quickly left our apartment leaving our big luggage in the Airbnb and head for the train station towards Piraeus. It was wee hours when we left, the pub is preparing for closing time and there were so many drunkards around whom I guess just finish drinking. Some of course tried to go near us and D will be like protecting, hugging me and we quickly brisk walk all the way to the train station. We bought one way ticket instead of the 24 hours ticket since we are only using it one way.
Anyway, I learnt this from my girlfriend, Hanali & Amanda. I still remember how D & I had to carry big luggage from Seoul to Busan and then from Busan back to Seoul. It was crazyyy heavy. But Hana & Amanda, stayed in Seoul for a few days and left their luggage in their apartment and headed for Busan. I was like "So you guys paid for your Airbnb for a few days without occupying them?" And they were like "Yeahs!" to save them the trouble of carrying heavy luggages. And I was like "Isn't that wasting money?" But thoughts of my poor husband having to carry heavy luggage, I'd rather spend that $$ for our Airbnb without occupying them too. It was sure a breeze!
Piraeus Station
Upon tapping out, we were actually quite unsure where to collect the tickets. So again, we kept following people. I've printed out my confirmation Email from FerryHopper and doing my research, it says that I could collect the tickets from ANY Blue Star Ferry ticketing counter. So, I saw my first Blue Star Ferry ticketing counter and it had a few queues already and we queued there too. Actually, there are many other Blue Star Ferry ticket counter, but we chose the first one we saw.
See how big the ferry was. 😍 Little did we know, we had trouble locating the entrance of the ferry. We had NO idea we could just enter from the front dock entrance of the ferry. Because we kept seeing cars entering through that front dock and we thought they had another entrance for passenger side like you know when boarding the flight or those ferry in Singapore. We kept reading the sign and got confused, we ended up waiting at the stretch where all the cars were parked and ready to enter the ferry. It was dangerous as the car just anyhow drove past us and we were like in the middle of the road. D and I got frustrated because it was already 0715 hours and the ferry is set to sail at 0725 hours. We enter one Blue Star Ferry company counter and asked the staff there where the entrance of the ferry was. Woman wasn't being helpful. Told us to head to the next door counter when she could answer us. Next door counter was also blur as sotong. Until one tourist pointed us to the ferry. Like we knew the ferry was there, we needed to know where entrance was and like. I got mad, I just walked away. I headed to the entrance of the car was going in, hoping to ask one of the staff there. And thank you Allah. The entrance was there all along. Zzz!!!
Do not be deceived, the entrance next to it is where the vehicles enter and this entrance here (next to it) is where passengers will enter from. How in the world will I knowwwwwww or see? Because there wasn't any passengers queue at all. Everyone just stroll and walked in happily. Lol!
Making our way to our seat,
Level 7 is where our seat was located. We took the lift.
There's stairs too but we skipped the stairs. Hehe!
The view next to our seat. We were on one of the viewing deck.
Another level up for another viewing deck.
But food first,
Way from our seating area to the cafe.
The Menu
Flo Cafe
Met this 'handsome' staff there twice when on board and when we were going back from Santorini. HEHEHEHEHE!
Basically the seating area to have our food, beverage or just chill out.
Decided to drink Hot chocolate on the upper top deck.
But still we were hungry and so we had some potatoes, chicken and vegetables to go along. Of course the food is not Halal ah but we tawakal. D don't eat vegetables and I can't go on with just vegetables to last me half a day without food. I'll start shivering and sometimes I even feel like fainting or out of breath. I mean we try to avoid as long as we can but circumstances like this....
And then had our second stop in PAROS. We were sleeping and missed SYROS. Lol!
Chocolate Donut as big as my palm. Lol! Again, I didn't finish it.
And again, few hours later we reached IOS,
Weather looks like it was going to rain. I was praying hard that it doesn't.
After all the boarding and alighting, we start to move off to the next destination and I was so excited this time. Really excited. But the journey to Santorini really felt like forever. LOL! The announcement was that we were reaching to our last port, Santorini. I was all ready to alight, but not yet. We were still sailing. Haha! I guess good thing must wait? I really wanted to see how Santorini is upon reaching. So more pictures to spam again.
I love how I capture this.
And this too.
I was like WHERE IS SANTORINI'S PORT?! Lol!
When we reached, I was quite disappointed. Hahaha! I was imagining it's beauty after seeing all the different ports. How beautiful Naxos, Ios and Paros was and Santorini Port was like "Huh? Like that?" It doesn't look much and I was like "I hope all the beautiful pictures I see online is not cheating on me." Lol!
While doing my research a lot of tourists actually drive their way in Santorini but I don't want to risk driving in a foreign country, especially not being familiar. So, our hotel contacted us and asked if we require hotel transfer at 30 Euros back and forth in cash. So basically 60 Euros. There are times we can be budget about something but there are times, we need to stretch out a bit in order to make things fuss free. Although it was expensive, I sort of had to because we don't know our way around Santorini. I wished I could have chose one of those transfer from the port itself which I didn't know.
We took a ride and reached our hotel probably 20 minutes later. Luckily, we took the transfer, else we will be so lost. Especially on our first day, where it feels like mountains over mountains, hills over hills. Even the road sign feels alienated to us. Hehe!
We occupy the first 2 seat somemore when the van is sooo huge. Haha!
When we reached, we were told to pay up. I even left 2 Euros tip for our driver. I mean tip is sort of a thing. When I saw our driver parked the vehicle on the road side and said we've reached. I was like again "Huh? This is Santorini???" I was so disappointed. I didn't see all the blue and white colour buildings I usually see in pictures. Just a teeny weeny bit of them we drove past. The Caldera view and everything is just a disappointment. There was nothing much to see.
So our driver brought us climbed a tiny wee bit of the hill to where our hotel was located. It was sort of a little bit of climb. Lol! And....
Boy.......
Santorini doesn't disappoint me anymore. It's like a beauty so carefully hidden behind those rocks and hills waiting to be discovered. I'm in awe, amazed and everything is just a jaw-dropping experience.
Down this 5 steps of stairs to the left is where the check-in/out counter was. See this gray & white stairs. 😍 One of Santorini signature stairs too besides the white and blue building.
Our driver brought us to our check-in counter so that we could signed and acknowledge the check-in form and was brought over to our hotel room. It's so gorgeous, just like how I have always pictured my Santorini vacation be. The view, the hot tub just outside our room. I couldn't be happier.
This is our hot tub btw. Hehe!
And now our hotel room tour starts,
They have 2 shower heads. Hehe!
We rested for a bit and headed out. We actually wanted to head to Oia but due to time constraint since it was already almost 5pm, we decided to just explore Fira or they called it Thira for the day.
We are ready to head out.
The view outside our room is spectacular,
One for the gram. Hehe!
We decided to tour Santorini on our own. I was tempted to ran a car or even an ATV but for our own safety, I decided not to. Because we're not so used to driving in foreign country, plus Santorini road can be quite steep if you're not so careful with the roads.
A walked down from our apartment there is a bus stop nearby - Firostefani station. We waited for about almost 15 minutes but the bus didn't come either. Plus we were quite confused of the bus route. I didn't even understand the bus directory. So D and I gave up and we decided to just walk down to Fira using my iPhone map.
15 minutes later, we finally reach Fira! Initially, I was quite confused if this was Fira but I guess it is since there was so many tourist and people here.
We find the place a bit confusing because they all look alike everywhere. Since it's also our first time here, we kept going round and round the circle and kept heading back to the same place. Also, sometimes we end up going to a totally different direction. Lol! But it was still fun exploring Fira and also it can get crowded. Thank God we went during Spring, because I cannot imagine how double the crowd can be during Summer.
Another grey and white steps in Fira.
Surprisingly, my cousin, Lyna message me and said one of this Malaysian actor/host, Aliff Satar was also in Santorini with his wife. So I decided to stalk his IG and saw he had lunch at one of this restaurant in Fira. Santorini doesn't have much of a Halal restaurant and we were already starving, we decided to head to the same restaurant, since he can't be anyhow eating non-halal food right. Lol!
This part got us super lost. We were going in circles and round and round just to find this restaurant. D was annoyed and I almost gave up when suddenly, here we are! We found it. Hehe!
FANARI RESTAURANT.
The place here is amazing, especially the view when the sun starts to set. The atmosphere here is awesome as well. Not forgetting, the owner and the staff of this restaurant is super nice and friendly too. I recommend! 👍
Hahahaha! I just had to.
The menu.
We ordered hot chocolate to warm our bodies. Hehe!
While waiting for our food to arrive, we get to enjoy the view,
I didn't know we could go a floor down, if I would have known, I would have chosen to sit here.
And this is after I edited my picture VS the top picture. It looks like some kind of magazine picture eh? Hehehe!
I actually wanted to do a time lapse when the sun starts to set but...I was so hungry. Haha!
D's chicken and rice.
My seafood platter. I didn't know Tuna can taste this amazing. I never tasted fresh tuna fish before in my entire life except those in tin cans and this is just soooooo nice nice nice.
And we shared this Chicken Salad which we couldn't finish. Lol!
We were so satiated that we couldn't walk much around Fira anymore. Lol! Although we did try to do some "shopping" and walking because there is just so much to see, eat and shop. But our stomach couldn't stomach anything anymore. Plus it was getting late and dark, so we decided to walk back to our apartment. The walk back path to our apartment wasn't pretty much well-lighted. Imagine walking on the road sides in the dark, any car could have just not see us. But Alhamdulilah we reached back safely. And I've never seen a sky so dark before that I could literally see stars 🌟 that could shine bright like a diamond. 💎 You don't get to see this in Singapore because we are always well-lighted with lights around.
Till here to my next Santorini entry.
XOXO,
Princess Azie Anni ♥
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