Celestyal Crystal Review

You get what you pay for

Review for the Mediterranean Cruise on Celestyal Crystal
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cruiseesl
2-5 Cruises • Age 50s

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Sail Date: Jun 2019

My friends and I chose the 7-Day Aegean Cruise based on the itinerary: Mykonos (full day and night into the wee hours) Milos, Santorini (2 full days, and an overnight in between), Heraklion, and Kusadasi. The itinerary was in fact excellent. We loved having the luxury of time on Mykonos and Santorini. Of course we would have liked to have even more time, but that's for another trip.

Embarkation was very smooth and pretty fast. Access to the ship started at about 2:00 pm. We arrived at the Piraeus port around 3:30 and we were on board by shortly after 4:00 pm. Our cabins were not ready, which was understandable, but there were lounges to wait in.

The included excursions were: Santorini (visit to Oia), Heraklion (visit to Knossos Palace and the Archaeological Museum, and Kusadasi (Ephesus).The first two were excellent. I skipped the visit to Ephesus because I'd been there before; my several travel friends who went on that excursion said the ancient site visit was excellent. That was followed, with the same guide, by an over-long visit to a rug factory which was so intensely pressured to make sales (thousands of dollars per rug) that these seasoned travelers felt intimidated and quite uneasy. It sounds easy to have walked away and boarded the bus, but they assured me that the bus wasn't going to leave until some sales had been fulfilled.

Cabin Review

Port Reviews

Mykonos

Assignment to buses and distribution of tickets was chaos. Guide Yolanda had poor English skills and even if we could have understood her, the whispers (audio devices) worked sporadically.

Crete (Heraklion)

Well-organized, excellent guided tour of the Knossos Palace, and then time allowed for a visit to the Archaeological Museum.

Santorini

This oveview and walk in Oia and Megalochori was not nearly long enough, but it did introduce the towns, and bring us on to Fira. The excursion was successful in that I would very much like to go back.

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