One of our friends had been bumped from a scheduled cruise by a charter 5 years ago. Between additional charter bumps , better pricing for just making a new booking and Covid they finally landed on this cruise. We have a group of friends who travel in a pack and as soon as one family booked, we ended up a group of 36 going on this cruise. We originally were booked on Brilliance but then the new speed rules went into effect and low and behold we were on Enchantment. No problem we booked for the ports not the ship.

We flew into Athens 2 days early and stayed at the Electra Palace in the Palatka district of Athens. We could not have asked for a better hotel. We toured the Acropolis, Acropolis Museum, viewed the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, had dinner a local restaurants. To our benefit, Athens weather in May is very pleasant. We have had other friends visit in July and they said the heat was terrible. It was almost cool at night and the day we visited the Acropolis it was cloudy and in the 60s to low 70s. To top off the pre cruise events we had a welcome reception at the hotel (our group paid for it) in the shadow of the Acropolis. I highly recommend the Electra Palace for a couple of days precruise stay. It is about 45 minutes from the airport and about 30 minutes from the cruise port depending on traffic. Luckily one person in our group is an expert on transfers and all of our transfers were prearranged on private busses.

We showed up to the port to board Enchantment about 12:30 pm and were on board by 1:30 pm. The boarding process at the Piraeus Terminal was smooth. My wife and I were in an aft Junior Suite. Most of our group was near us on the 7th deck with one couple next door. The cabin was a nice size with plenty of closet space for my wife and I. The junior suite bathroom with tub is large for a ship cabin. The aft balcony was large and we hosted parties of 6 to 8 several times throughout the cruise. When we booked the cost of a Jr. Suite was only $200 more than a balcony and that was well worth the money. The small difference was probably because we booked on Brilliance which has far more junior suites than Enchantment, lucky us. Read more