Howdy all. Today on Andy Roams I roaming with you from Athens to Santorini by ferry. There are many ferries that leave Athens at the port of Piraeus to go to all the famous and fabulous Greek Islands, so much so that I felt spoilt for choice.

As always these days I booked well in advance. I booked a ticket for around 68 Euros on Seajet Ferries leaving at 7am in the morning and arriving at Santorini (supposedly) at 1pm. That’s a total ride of 6 hours, with stops at I think five other islands on the way to Santorini, aka ‘Thera’.

My morning therefore started pretty early, but it seems I could have started even earlier. Yes, I really pushed the limits of how close to departure one can arrive and still make their transport. At airports I am sometimes four or five hours early, I hate the idea of being late or nearly late, I don’t want to be in a panic situation where I have to hustle to make it on time. Likewise with buses and trains, I like a good buffer before leaving.

But this was a 7am ferry. My hostel was somewhat near the centre of town, but I had worked out the metro trains, I needed to make one change. I can’t recall at what time I got to Sepolia Metro Station, but it would have been before six am. I had a total of around 30 minutes of training, but this didn’t account for wait times. I had to wait a good ten plus minutes at Sepolia, then I got off at an overground station and had another 15 or more minute wait for my train to Piraeus. Then I knew it was going to be close.

I got off at Piraeus and I think it was around 630am. I was concerned there may be a whole procedure for boarding and this would be cutting it fine. The port was just on the other side of the busy road from the station, there was an underpass, and then there were a number of ferries on the other side.

But I had no idea how many ferries and how big the port was. I followed signs that roughly pointed to the right dock for me. I kept going in that direction, and finding more ferries and more docks, it was MASSIVE! There wasn’t anyone that I found wearing a high vis vests directing people, it was not well organised to say the least.

So anyways, it took me everyone of the twenty five minutes I had there to find the Seajet Ferry to Santorini. There was running involved. Then I lined up when I thought I was at the right ferry for a couple of minutes and then worked out I was not on the right ferry. It was the next one along. I bolted those two hundred metres let me tell you.

I ran onto the back of the ferry, basically no formalities at all, there was a section below where people dropped their larger bags and then I went upstairs to the passenger cabin. And this was chaos. Long rows of seats, and it turned out my seat was in the middle of the middle section which didn’t inspire me.

I sat down though, took some deep breaths and was shooting a little vlog footage to camera and barely realised the ferry was moving off. It actually moved off at around 705am to 710am. I think I made it on board by 7am, but by no more than 2 minutes. Part of me as I frantically tried to find my ferry had already given up and accepted I wasn’t going to make it. But make it I did.

I noticed that people had moved about as soon as the ferry moved off because a good deal of the seats on the far/non entrance side were vacant. The entrance side was full. I was keen for the vlogging to get over to a window, but initially that wasn’t possible. I did get close, an aisle seat opposite the window seats. And I think I feel asleep at some point.

The experience on the ferry isn’t a highlight to be frank with you. Even with 30% of the seats free, it felt crowded. As the journey went on the views out of the window would have been spectacular had the windows not been frosty. However, sometimes the outside deck was open I think depending on the choppiness of the ocean at the time. Other times it was locked.

As other islands were reached people would get off and on in huge numbers. I was able to get to the window for an hour or so, but then after another stop that seat was taken by someone with a reservation so I moved about the whole time. A clear day and the islands really are stark in a beautiful sort of way.

We arrived over half an hour late at the main port at Santorini. It’s bloody impressive when you arrive, because there’s a small amount of flat land at sea level, the ferry backs in and everyone gets off and then it zooms off to the next location. I was met at the port by a ride organised by my pension – and I’ll go into more details about Santorini travel next time and then do a blog about the island’s sights – and we drove up this steep road to the top of the cliffs and then inward to the small town I was staying at – Karterados.

It was an unnecessarily stressful trip, the ferry isn’t great, but it does the job, but I got there in the end! So for more on Santorini, well, keep following my blog because it’s incoming! Thanks for popping by and reading today, take care wherever you are in the world and May the Journey Never End!!