McCarthy's take on Greece
Greece
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May 24 - Jun 4, 2024
Our Athens guides were both excellent. They were easy to understand, were very knowledgeable and very friendly. We enjoyed all of our tours on the mainland. The hotel was centrally located and the staff were genuinely happy to have us staying. They were helpful with any needs we had. The hotel room was large enough for us to sleep, but there wasn't any space for us to congregate. Luckily, the rooftop was available and easily accessible for us to congregate. My only complaint was we were not allowed to use the AC, It was necessary for us to keep the windows open to keep air circulating. This made nights a little noisy and caused us some sleep issues.
Our Santorini guides were not as good as the guides we had on the rest of our trip. Some of that was due to the tours that we took and also the mix up with the cooking excursion. They were friendly and easy to understand. We did enjoy the hiking guide. The hotel in Santorini was by far our favorite of the trip. It was very spacious, well located, and the staff was again very cordial. Outside of the hike, cooking class, and the scheduled restaurants, I would probably have just left our time free. We were not impressed with Lost Atlantis.
The guides in Crete were excellent. They were very friendly, very knowledgeable, and were able to make changes to our itinerary on the fly, which was much appreciated. The tour we had scheduled on the first day was spectacular. The second day we switched up the schedule and got the opportunity to go to the beach, our only opportunity to do this. We were happy that the guides made the suggestion to make the change. The hotel in Crete was too cramped for five people. One bedroom, one bathroom and three people sleeping in the living area was less than ideal. I would suggest not using this hotel for more than three people. Also, we all wondered why we stayed in Rethymno rather than in Heraklion. We spent a lot of time on the highway between these two towns.
Overall, we were very happy with our trip, We have been asked what our favorite part of the trip was, but we have a very difficult time answering the question. The three areas we visited were all so different and we felt like we were visiting three different countries.
I would recommend your services to others. I think that we got a good taste of Greece and the knowledge that Angela had of the country and how to match our desired experiences with good options. Our trip was almost two weeks long and we had only one hiccup, which was impressive.
Activity Reviews
This was probably the sight we knew the least about before our tour. It was very interesting,
Beautiful sunset and very nice meal.
We enjoyed the hiking and cooking class, but there was a snafu in timing. The hiking took place in the morning and we were taken back to hotel. We were contacted about the cooking class about five hours later. We were told they were on their way to pick us up. This was the same night we had reservations Oia Gefsis and the cooking class would have interfered with our reservation. We were able to schedule this excursion the next day prior to our ferry ride to Crete. Unfortunately, we were unable to go snorkeling.
My family made a decision to be more adventurous with our food choices while on vacation. We tried a number of different foods that we would not normally eat at home. We are not a family that eats much from the water, because we live so far from water. We were surprised that we ended up eating at a sushi restaurant. We ate almost all of the meal. We probably won't make sushi a regular option now, but I can say that this will be one of our memories from our trip.
This was our best guide. She was basically a teacher providing us with a lesson about the site. We learned more about Knossos Palace than any other site we visited. We ended up eating at a very nice restaurant and spent two hours eating and drinking. I felt bad for the guide and driver who had to wait on us.
Very impressive historical sight. Guide did a wonderful job of teaching us.
Very impressed with our guide. He knew the site history and also the area, which allowed us to eat at a very nice restaurant.
I am sorry to read that you did not like the Lost Atlantis interactive Museum.... Read more