Sydney Hubbard

We loved working with Kim Kim. Sydney was excellent in creating an itinerary that fit three generations of interests including the mythology tour of the Acropolis, the food tour in Athens, the day trip to Delphi, and our farm visit/cooking class in Naxos which was our favorite. The experience so relaxed having every transportation connection pre-still planned, organized and payed for. Thanks Kim Kim.

Sydney planned an amazing trip to Greece. She took thoughts on what we wanted to experience and turned it into a reality. From Athens to Milos to Santorini to Crete, we were able to experience all of Greece. The private tours, the private sunset cruise, and I can go on and on and on.

Sydney is the best and KimKim too!

Thank you for another well thought out and planned trip!

Hotel Reviews

Phaea Blue Palace

Agios Nikolaos

This was the highlight of our trip. The BEST hotel I have ever stayed in my entire life. I cannot say enough good things about this hotel.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Ducato di Oia Boutique Hotel

Santorini

It was a bit on the older side - the room was not as nice as the other 2 hotels. But the service was impeccable.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Santa Maria Luxury Suites & Spa

Milos, Cyclades

Elia Ermou Athens Hotel

Athens

Activity Reviews

Crete Wine & Culture Adventure: Private Tour of Peza Wineries, Olive Oil, and Traditional Pottery

Heraklion

WOW! Another highlight for us! The best experience! Spyros was amazing!

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Spyros was the best guide, ever

Transport

Private Day Trip to Spinalonga Island

Heraklion

We could have done this on our own. We were also supposed to have lunch included but we did not.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private Sunset Caldera Cruise

Santorini

WOW! The best!

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Self-Guided Chasing the Santorini Sunset

Santorini

Half Day Kleftiko Catamaran Adventure

Milos

One of the best Catamaran experiences we have had. Great captain and staff, food was amazing. We could have not asked for a better experience.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private Day of Highlights

Milos

We really enjoyed the exclusivity of the day. Our guide was awesome. And we were able to see parts of Milos that we would have missed.

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Self-guided Exploration of Plaka

Milos

Acropolis Beat-the-Crowds Discovery Walk

Athens

Without exception, all of our guides were intelligent, knowledgeable, professional and fun.

We felt like we started many of the guides as customers and ended our activities as friends!

We engaged in a wide variety of activities from ebiking and hiking a gorge to fishing and a sunset cruise and all the drivers and guides were on time and excellent!

Hotel Reviews

Niche Hotel

Athens

We stayed one night at Niche Hotel. The property is an ideal location for all your acropolis type tours and offers an exceptional view of the acropolis from the rooftop bar and terrace! The rooms are exceptionally clean and the bed and pillows are really comfortable, and you can swap pillows for the type of sleeper you are! The breakfast buffet offers a wide variety of foods!

Authenticity & Character

Right in the middle of Athens culture

Authenticity & Character

Right in the middle of Athens culture

Location

Can’t be better

Location

Can’t be better

Staff

Great people

Staff

Great people

Cleanliness & Comfort

Bed and pillows are great!

Cleanliness & Comfort

Bed and pillows are great!

Samaria Hotel

Chania Town

Samaria hotel is a boutique hotel with an exceptional location to everything Chania has to offer! The property is exceptionally clean and even smells wonderful. The pool is a hidden oasis. The breakfast buffet offers a wide variety to fuel up for your day!

Authenticity & Character

Location and service

Location

Right in the middle of the action!

Staff

Everyone is exceptionally attentive

Cleanliness & Comfort

Crispy white

GDM Megaron

Heraklion

Great location to the ferry and town center. Excellent views over the harbour. Quality breakfast buffet is a bonus. The rooftop bar and pool are a nice retreat after activities.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Right in the middle of it all

Staff

Very nice people working hard!

Cleanliness & Comfort

Very clean suite

Anteliz Suites

Fira

The service was exceptional and the location and views are magnificent! We had a room with a private infinity pool overlooking the caldera, it was stunning. The rooms and property were exceptionally clean and maintained. The breakfast overlooking the caldera is delicious and you have a full menu to choose from!

Authenticity & Character

Combination of location and staff

Location

Incredible views

Staff

Without exception every staff member was fabulous.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Crispy and white

Activity Reviews

Sunset Caldera Catamaran Cruise

Santorini

Viewing the caldera and the cities of Santorini from the water is magnificent. You learn a bit of history while experiencing breathtaking views! It was a bit on the cool side the day we went but my adult children still swam! The lunch / dinner was adequate. The sunset was spectacular!! *** our transport driver drove like a maniac. It made many of the ticket holders uncomfortable. While I can see why the transports back down the hill toward the port I don’t believe the driver needed to accelerated in reverse ***

Quality of Experience

Sunset

Food

It was an adequate meal for a day on the water

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Catamaran crew was amazing!

Transport

Driving way too fast making customers uncomfortable on the way to the cruise. On the way home we had a different driver who was great.

Private Minoan Tour of Knossos & Archaeological Museum

Heraklion

Our guide was excellent and the tour was extremely informative and focused on the most important elements from history. Having a tour guide truly helps you understand museums and ruins and acts as a fast pass versus trying to decipher each exhibit alone!

Quality of Experience

History

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Great driver and guide

Transport

Safe and personable

South Coast E-Bike Adventure

Santorini

Ebiking is an exceptional way to see different areas of a city while exercising and not having the hassle of parking and traffic. Our tour was about 4 hrs and we explored many viewpoints and historical landmarks. Our guide Katarina was EXCELLENT! She was so friendly and welcoming and a top notch guide! She also took lots of candid photos of us and shared them at the end!

Quality of Experience

Combination of our guide and all the viewpoints

Guides, Drivers and Staff

KATARINA was great!

Transport

On time and reliable

Overall, we had an amazing trip! Everyone was very accommodating and friendly. The itinerary was easy to follow and detailed. We did run into some challenges with one of the driving companies in Mykonos, who left before we arrived from our ferry after it had been delayed. We reached an agreement with one of his colleagues but it did require a lot of pushing from our end. Our hotel in Santorini also had a power outage with no electricity or running water the night before our flight and we weren’t able to reach the hotel management and the alternative contact information they shared with us upon arrival, which was disappointing.

We were paired with Sydney as our Greece specialist. It was the trip of a lifetime and I can’t stress how great Sydney was! EVERY place we stayed was in the perfect area. EVERY tour we went on was amazing! EVERY ride showed up right on time! We couldn’t have used a more knowledgeable and helpful planner. Perfect to a tee. Already thinking about what other country we will use KimKim for. Can’t wait!

Lana’s birthday trip to Greece was an unqualified success. You will recall that she alone coordinated with you for a variety of excursions and experiences. After the first draft was developed, she asked me for my thoughts; I do not recall suggesting any changes.
After arriving in Athens on Day 01, we rested briefly in the hotel and took pictures of the view out the window. It took us a day to confirm that we were seeing the Acropolis – but not the Parthenon because a building rose to perfectly block its view. That was rectified by going to the hotel rooftop at sunset on Day 02.
Our first excursion was with Katrine as our guide for a neighborhood food tour. While I am not a chef, and do not enjoy cooking, the details Katrine provided at each of the stops along the tour were quite informative. It was simply a superb start to our visit to Greece. If our tour ended with that tour, the trip to Greece would have been a clear success. Wonderful.
Our Day 02 with Michael was exemplary. While I had no particular interest in Greek mythology, he made the morning quite educational. It was only after another mythology tour on Mykonos with a delightful Elizabeth that I learned mythology provides a guidepost for navigating life, death, and a host of other challenges in life.
Day 03 began with different Elizabeth picking us up at the hotel in a snazzy Mercedes to begin a thoroughly enjoyable day at Hyra – and no cruise ships. When the church that she wanted us to visit was closed, we had a wonderful discussion on the ability to improvise without needing to be annoyed at the circumstance. Our engagement with the mules was fun – strangely, they did not appear to be stubborn! Our horse ride began on a low note - I was tethered to Lana’s horse whose bridle was being led by the guide – while two young Irish lasses were free to handle the reins of their beasts. On the return leg I was allowed full control and my ride was a perfect success – I even motioned the guide away when he attempted to regain control because the horse was nibbling at leaves on an overhanging tree. At the end of that day, I wished that Elizabeth could be our guide again – anywhere; she was incredibly engaging.
Day 04 at Mykonos was fun – the taxi driver humorously warned us that we would get lost in town. I’d not say we got lost, but the way back to the hotel was not perfectly direct. As we approached the hotel from our initial wandering, we stopped and watched the rehearsal of a community dance group in an amphitheater across from the hotel.
The start of Day 05 was an absolute success with Dimitri leading us on a hike from the family vineyard to the coast and back. It was more than exercise – it was pure entertainment and full of informative details about life outside town, careers, family, churches, religion, etc.
The second part of Day 05 was a bit of disappointment. The guide, Sylvia, made sure that we were photographed at all her favorite locations. That is not our style, but we accommodated her. Except for the windmills, we had already walked to the stops she led us too. Unlike the engaging, educational food tour by Katrine in Athens, Sylvia’s food tour was ultimately underwhelming. In fact, the meal that we had was the second worst of my life – and to be honest, I do not recall my worst meal. I nibbled at the gyros to be polite. At the conclusion of her tour, Sylvia insisted on guiding us to a pathway leading straight back to our hotel, before going in the direction of her car. When she was out of sight, we turned around and went back into town to wander. While hydrating back at our hotel, we spoke at length with another, engaging guest and then walked crossed the roadway to the amphitheater for the production version of the community dance group. While there were no subtitles (!) or translations available, it was enthralling!
Day 06 was fundamentally a rest day since Lana was not particularly enthused about a hike up Mt. Zeus. I was more than enthused, but that was not relevant, I’ll hike for three weeks come August.
The Day 07 bike tour on Naxos began with a hiccup. We generally are at meeting points ten minutes early and are present when the driver or guide arrives. That was not the case this day, so Lana coordinated with the hotel clerk to arrange a very short ride to the bike shop where we met Manos. We quickly made up for lost time and were soon on e-bikes headed for the hills. What an absolute gem of an excursion. The experience matched that of the Athens food tour with Katrina and Elizabeth’s tour of Hydra in terms of quality, content, and immersion into Greek culture. Time at the goat farm was simply priceless. Fabulous beyond words. The evening mythology tour, while somewhat repetitive, proved to be very enjoyable. I don’t recall ever listening to English being spoken with a foreign accent with such perfect enunciation and pronunciation -- and with captivating inflection. Elizabeth packaged an interesting evening and graciously melded the expertise of a very knowledgeable young member of our group.
Day 08 proved to be long and tiring. On the ferry dock we enjoyed conversing with our driver who also had driven us to the hotel on our first day at Naxos. While standing in the queue we had a good time with several fellow travelers. Since we had a reasonably late breakfast at the hotel, we were not hungry at (U.S.) lunchtime so we ate light snacks on the ferry. Another Dimitri met us at the hotel, and he was as energetic as any guide could be. Picking up on his energy, we told him that the performance bar had been set high by our previous guides. To give him full credit, he tried; but at a key point in the tour, he had to leave us to enter Akrotiri alone because he was not allowed to guide its tour. After he dropped us at the gate to Akrotiri, we had to navigate the site independently – no pamphlet was provided. I admit I did not research the site as I most certainly should have. Since we entered the site without a clue about its basics, I found a QR code that linked to an English website still in development. I also found a PDF I could download, but that was impractical on the iPhone. Halfway through the site I found audio snippets via QR, but the associated diagrams were tough to interpret and many of the objects discussed were not onsite – they were in museums. The breadth of the excavation was stunning – and I learned later that night that it might take another 100 years to finish excavation. After rejoining Dimitri outside Akrotiri, he gave us two options: visit another castle or nearby Red Beach. We chose the latter in hopes that it would bring the day to an early end. It did not and the lack of a lunch break began to take a toll on our energy and moods. After leaving the interesting beach he drove us slowly to another photo-op site and then slowly back to the hotel as if to end the tour closer to the contracted time. One last point about the tour – it was in a rattletrap vehicle that left me unable to understand much of Dimitri’s constant stream of data and eventually led me to tune him out. OK, to be fair to him, I wear hearing aids to restore consonants that over wise would be lost in the ethers. If the consonants were in fact restored during the ride, they were overwritten by the rattling. Lana and I ended the day with a short walk to a restaurant that tested my resolve to keep the hearing aids powered on. We did not get a seat with a wonderful view of the caldera, instead we were ushered to a table set partway into a serving isle. I asked to be moved inside where I then discovered I could not hear Lana over the din created by waiters, bar tenders, music, and acoustics. We asked to be moved again – and were offered a street side, outdoor seat on a very chilly night. All of that movement was of our making, and I apologized to the manager for being so picky at which point he entertained us with stories of really picky customers – a group in which he said we did not fit! We thoroughly enjoyed our meal and his gracious hospitality.
The single scheduled event on Day 09 is always one of Lana’s favorite events – a regional cooking class. The class was perfectly enjoyable; great hands-on participation. Oddly, the lunch and wine tasting afterwards was ostensibly redundant – the food was the same, but double in portion size -- and the wine was similar in the pairing. The only noticeable difference between the two sessions was the dessert. Regardless of the redundancy, the meals had exceptional Greek flavors.
The weather reports for Day 10 promised an overcast day with chilly temperatures matched by high winds which led me to research the possibility of cancellation – not a chance. We spent part of the morning stepping down the 588 steps leading to dockside. There I purchased a trophy (Greek) hat on the assumption that we would successfully ascend the staircase. We did so without the aid of mules and celebrated with ice cream cones. Following quick rehydration, we walked quickly north so we could walk out to the Rock. And then we stuffed warm clothes into a backpack and were driven to the port for our catamaran sunset cruise. The weather was not as forecast – we only needed sweaters. It was as glorious as every other day in Greece – a perfect conclusion to our very, very successful visits to Athens, Hydra, Mykonos, Naxos and Santorini.
Thank you, Sydney, for helping make Lana’s birthday travel a marvelous success.