Greece, Italy,
And
Croatia
Nov. 5 – Nov 23, 2024
Introduction
We wanted to take some kind of trip in the fall but were unsure just where we wanted to go. We were looking for a warmer weather trip than the past couple of trips (Iceland in September, Paris and German rivers in November, British Isles in April) but there is a trade-off with looking after our late season crops in the garden. We somewhat wanted to return to a Wind Star cruise after having been on other lines. I came across a Wind Star itinerary that included a transit of the Corinth Canal, which was something I wanted to do, so that became a focus. Although it included several ports we had been to previously (on our 2021 cruise around Italy), it also included several new/different ports.
First a word about the Corinth Canal: it is a man-made canal, cut across the Isthmus of Greece, much of it through solid rock over 200 feet high. It was completed in 1893 and the main part is only about 4 miles long. It is also only 83 feet wide so the Star Legend would only have about 5 feet of clearance on both sides between it and the rock wall.
A ship about the size of the Star Legend going through the Corinth Canal
So, the plans were made, reservations put in place, and tickets purchased. Of course, things were going too well. About 2 weeks before our departure date, WindStar notified us that the Corinth Canal administration had decided to close the canal for maintenance and repairs a week earlier than planned, 3 days before we were scheduled to transit the canal. So, we were to miss the canal and visiting the ancient Greek city of Delphi which we would have visited the same day as going through the canal.
We had a good cruise anyway, even with several days of rain and somewhat cool weather. We will have to try again to find a good warm-weather cruise.
As with the past few reports, this will be a largely daily log of our travels, excursions, and activities, broken up into manageable size “Chapters” of a couple of days each. There will also be a separate chapter on our cruise ship, the WindStar Legend, although I will lift much of that chapter from our Iceland cruise aboard the sister ship, the WindStar Pride. There were some differences and changes that I’ll mention.
The “Set-up”
As usual, I made all the cruise arrangements through the “Vacations to Go” travel company and James Bingley there has always provided excellent service, as he did again this time.
WindStar Legend (anchored off Croton, Greece)
The cruise would start in Piraeus, the port serving Athens, Greece, and end in Venice, Italy. We have visited both Athens and Venice recently, so we decided to not spend additional time in those cities at the beginning or end of the 16 day cruise. Instead, we flew into Athens the day we were embarking on the yacht and we were to fly out of Venice the day we disembarked. Well, that was the plan anyway.
Getting There and Back
Unlike most of our past trips, we would have to take connecting flights this time. We have had direct flights to Athens and Venice previously, but in the off-season, Delta does not offer the direct flights to/from Atlanta. Instead, we had to go by way of JFK airport in New York but we did get one unplanned benefit from this routing.
Approaching JFK airport: Long Island in the foreground and skyline of New York city in the distance
I had done my usual practice of booking less expensive seats with the hope of the good Delta-1 seats being offered at reduced upgrade prices prior to the flight and it worked this time with the Delta-1 seats being offered at reasonable prices, so I grabbed them. After doing this, I discovered that Delta had recently opened a lounge at the JFK terminal exclusively for Delta-1 passengers and it was supposed to be very nice, even having a full restaurant serving three-course meals. We would not need the restaurant, but it would be interesting to check out the new lounge as well as a good way to pass a couple of hours waiting for our flight to Athens.
Small part of Delta-1 lounge at JFK airport
We enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine and a few snacks in the lounge and then boarded our flight about 9:00PM. If you want to see what a night-time takeoff from JFK looks like (lots of lights!), check this short video. We had a full dinner on the flight that evening, then a breakfast the next morning as we approached Athens. It was a smooth flight with departure and arrival very close to on-time and I was able to get a little sleep while Susan slept pretty well.
Athens area with Piraeus in distance
The Athens airport is not very big and we quickly cleared Passport Control, grabbed our bags, got through Customs, and looked around for our transfer that we had arranged through WindStar… and looked, and looked. WindStar had requested our flight information so we knew they were to provide the transfer, but after 15 or 20 minutes of looking all over, we gave up and brought out our Uber app. The Uber car arrived in about 5 minutes and provided a very good ride to the port. Later checking turned out that one part of WindStar knew about the transfer but had apparently failed to communicate properly with another part of the company. We received a refund of the pre-paid transfer fee (which turned out to be almost exactly what our Uber plus tip had cost) and an apology.
The return flight turned out to be a bit more complicated. We again had to go through JFK but would not be in Delta-1 seats and not even on the flight we had planned. This part gets a little complicated, so I will cover it as the last day(s) of the trip.
One final word of warning: I recently got an early Christmas present (or was it a birthday present?) in the form of a new camera (a Canon R5 and a 24 – 105 mm F4 L lens) so you are likely to see even more photos than usual in this report. I also tried a new technique that I had planned to use in the Corinth Canal, time-lapse videos, and you will see a couple of these in the report.
The Itinerary
We’ll take a quick look at the full (planned) itinerary here.
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Wed, Nov 6 |
Flight in |
5:00pm |
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Thu, Nov 7 |
Gythion, Greece |
7:00 am |
5:00pm |
Substitute for Corinth Canal |
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Fri, Nov 8 |
5:00pm |
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Sat, Nov 9 |
5:00pm |
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Sun, Nov 10 |
9:00am |
5:00pm |
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Mon, Nov 11 |
9:00am |
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Tue, Nov 12 |
Noon |
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Wed, Nov 13 |
9:00am |
4:00pm |
The first time |
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Thu, Nov 14 |
8:00am |
5:00pm |
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Fri, Nov 15 |
9:00am |
5:00pm |
The second time |
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Sat, Nov 16 |
10:00am |
6:00pm |
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Sun, Nov 17 |
At Sea |
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Mon, Nov 18 |
8:00am |
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Tue, Nov 19 |
2:00pm |
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Wed, Nov 20 |
9:00am |
6:00pm |
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Thu, Nov 21 |
10:00am |
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Fri, Nov 22 |
Disembark |
Flight out |
Or so we thought |
Enough of the “preamble”, let’s get moving. We’ll start with a look at our yacht, the WindStar Star Legend. This will be very similar to the look at the WindStar Star Pride in the Iceland trip report since they are nearly identical sister yachts. After looking at the Star Legend, we will get started with embarkation in Piraeus, Greece.
Chapter by Chapter
Chapter 0: The WindStar “Star Legend”
Chapter 1: Pireaus, Gythion, and Corfu
Chapter 2: Croton, Catenia, Naples-1, and Civitavecchia
Chapter 3: Naples-2, Messina, Dubrovnik
Chapter 4: Zadar, Venice, departure
Some closing thoughts
In General
Despite missing the Corinth Canal and the flight cancellation hic-up at the end, the trip and cruise generally went pretty well. We saw old friends (crew) from previous Windstar trips and made new friends. We revisited some places we had been before but saw new sights there, and we visited several new areas. There were several days of marginal (or just plain bad) weather but we generally managed to work around those and we did have some very good weather. The yacht, the Star Legend, and its crew certainly met our expectations with a nice cabin and location, very good food (I did gain a couple of pounds), friendly crew, and good entertainment. The itinerary and the excursions we took turned out to provide a good mix of history, general education, and interesting experiences, as well as quite a few samples of good wine. What more could you ask for?
We will be looking for another WindStar cruise to take in the future.
I hope you enjoyed this trip report. If you have any comments, please send them to me at: mhammoc@bellsouth.net