Just booked RC for this summer and SO excited!!!! Advice re excursions and kids stuff welcome

[ChoccyJules]

Managed to squeeze onto a 7 day cruise at end of July visiting Ephesus, Santorini, Crete and Athens (not in that order). I can see that three of these require travel from the port to the place of interest so would be glad of any hints and tips, things to avoid or not bother with etc. Would also love your thoughts on kids clubs, dining, babysitting etc. We will be on Jewel of the Seas, which is just out of refurbishment.

The ship's excursions are very expensive and it's very easy and much cheaper to do your own. I got back from a cruise last week, I went from Venice to Bari, was supposed to go from there to Katakolon but went direct to Santorini, Athens, Corfu, Kotor and back to Venice.

Santorini: You'll be taken by tender to shore. What the majority of people including myself did was take the large speedboat from where we got off the tender - you cannot miss it, to Oia where a bus took us up the hill to the village and we spent some time there. It's full of tiny cobbled streets and gift shops. When we were finished we went back to where the bus dropped us and got the bus to Fia. We got the cable car back down the sheer cliff to the tender. The cost of the speedboat and bus cost €15 each, you buy the tickets in the ticket office and the cable car cost €5 each. You can walk down but it can take at least 30+ mins and you spend your time dodging the mules and their dung and on the way down there's a large area where the mules are tied and it stinks to high heavens. If you get the cable car there can be very long queues unless you're coming back a bit early.

Athens/Pireaus: it's very industrialized, there's not much to see really apart from the Acropolis where there are huge queues and the stones are very slippy. It costs €20pp to climb up to the Acropolis. When you get off the ship and come out of the terminal there's a small bus/taxi area, walk past that and keep left where you'll enter a large bus park, walk through that and come out the other side (1 min walk) and you'll see some tourist buses. You can get a hop on hop off tour bus, there are 2 colours, one is yellow the other is blue and I forget which one is €15 for the day. It will bring you past the Olympic village and first stop is the Acropolis.

This is great, thank you!