Having booked our international tickets to arrive and depart in Athens, we would have to find a way to reach Santorini, and perhaps make a few more stops along the way?
Option 1
Arrive Athens, spend a day and half in Athens, board the 4-day cruise from Piraeus the next day, disembark in Santorini on the 3rd day, spend 2 more nights in Santorini, fly from Santorini to Athens to Singapore.
Pros: Get to visit 7 destinations (6 destinations from the cruise + Athens).
Cons: Not advisable to take a domestic flight connecting to an international flight on the same day (because of likelihood of strikes). The cruise costs USD 560 per pax, not inclusive gratuities, and additional shore excursions. We also "lose out" 1 night because we're disembarking at Santorini.
Option 2
Arrive Athens, board the overnight ferry (that looks more like a cruise with proper cabins) at Piraeus to Chania. Take a one-day car tour from Chania to Heraklion. Stay overnight at Heraklion to board the next day's morning ferry to Santorini. Stay 3 nights in Santorini, fly to Athens, stay 2 more days in Athens, then depart for Singapore.
Pros: Chania seems like a nice place to visit. Quite cool to experience the "high-class" cabin. Minimise risk since our domestic and international flight is not on the same day.
Cons: The 10-hour car tour is quite expensive (385 EUR), which made us question how much do we want to visit Chania.
Option 3
Arrive Athens, stay overnight at Piraeus, to take the morning ferry to Mykonos. Spend a day in Mykonos, take the next morning's ferry to Santorini. Stay 3 nights in Santorini, fly to Athens, stay 2 more days in Athens, then depart for Singapore.
Pros: Minimise risk since our domestic and international flight is not on the same day. The cheapest option of the 3.
Cons: Mykonos may not be the best island for us (but that doesn't mean we're not cool). We'll just treat it as a sight-seeing opportunity, since a lot of celebrities will be there.
The husband was quite keen on Option 1 while I preferred Option 3. He liked having the convenience of leaving our luggage on board the cruise while we visit the various towns. Being the nice gentleman he was, the husband "agreed" that spending significantly more to visit more ancient towns is not a necessity and "agreed" to go with Option 3.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Off to Greece!
Santorini has always been one of my dream destination. We did not manage to visit the Greek island for our honeymoon because the Greece weather is lousy in November. This year, the "itch" to visit Santorini came back again (since the "US itch" has been addressed last year). It seemed like a good place to go especially since the husband needs to ration his leave, though a lot has disputed that "there's so much to see in Greece that even 2 weeks is not enough". We are not history buffs, and from my personal experience in Rome, I don't think I (I'm quite sure I can speak for the husband as well) am very into the architectural ruins. A friend has told me that you need much more imagination (as compared to when in Rome) to visualise the glorious greek empire when we're there.
After a few weeks of research, we, or rather, I, plunged into the first sign of commitment - buying our air tickets to Athens! It was an exciting but painful experience. I had to scour the online booking sites to get the best priced tickets for any weekend starting from May to September. I even had a spreadsheet listing the dates and the ticket prices for the different airlines.
There were too many variables and eventually I narrowed the airline selection to Qatar because of 3 reasons.
1) It had the shortest travel time after Singapore Airlines (which is Turkish Airlines in disguise)
2) It had the best timing, i.e. depart Singapore at night, arrive Athens at noon.
3) I've always wanted to take Qatar Airways ever since they sponsored the weather segment on the Channel News Asia. I can always remember their tag line - "Qatar Airways, the world's 5-star airline".
Now that I have the airline as a constant, we move on to vary the dates to get the lowest ticket price. The prices for June and July went up as high as $2500 per ticket (including taxes), and many of the flights are also sold out. This could have been a very good sales gimmick, but it did get me really anxious. Aug 22 - 30 was the "cheapest" ticket I found, at $1600. Despite being the cheapest, this is arguably the most expensive air ticket I've ever spent. My open jaw tickets on Delta to New York (which is gazillion miles further), combined with domestic flight to Chicago, and flying back from Chicago costed us only $1300 per ticket.
Now that I (we) have spent our largest purchase ever, it has indirectly opened the floodgate to book (& pay) the rest of the holiday logistics (domestic flight, ferry, accommodation).
As you may realise, the earlier paragraphs mentioned "I" many times, and not "the husband" nor "we". The husband's response to the purchase: "Wah, you so stress ah?"
And this is why I love the husband :)
After a few weeks of research, we, or rather, I, plunged into the first sign of commitment - buying our air tickets to Athens! It was an exciting but painful experience. I had to scour the online booking sites to get the best priced tickets for any weekend starting from May to September. I even had a spreadsheet listing the dates and the ticket prices for the different airlines.
There were too many variables and eventually I narrowed the airline selection to Qatar because of 3 reasons.
1) It had the shortest travel time after Singapore Airlines (which is Turkish Airlines in disguise)
2) It had the best timing, i.e. depart Singapore at night, arrive Athens at noon.
3) I've always wanted to take Qatar Airways ever since they sponsored the weather segment on the Channel News Asia. I can always remember their tag line - "Qatar Airways, the world's 5-star airline".
Now that I have the airline as a constant, we move on to vary the dates to get the lowest ticket price. The prices for June and July went up as high as $2500 per ticket (including taxes), and many of the flights are also sold out. This could have been a very good sales gimmick, but it did get me really anxious. Aug 22 - 30 was the "cheapest" ticket I found, at $1600. Despite being the cheapest, this is arguably the most expensive air ticket I've ever spent. My open jaw tickets on Delta to New York (which is gazillion miles further), combined with domestic flight to Chicago, and flying back from Chicago costed us only $1300 per ticket.
Now that I (we) have spent our largest purchase ever, it has indirectly opened the floodgate to book (& pay) the rest of the holiday logistics (domestic flight, ferry, accommodation).
As you may realise, the earlier paragraphs mentioned "I" many times, and not "the husband" nor "we". The husband's response to the purchase: "Wah, you so stress ah?"
And this is why I love the husband :)
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