The Oia Experience

5.5 hour semi-private tour (maximum 18 participants)

COST: 148 EURO P.P. (CHILDREN UP TO 3 Y.O. JOIN FOR FREE)

(Private boat trip from Old port to Ammoudi port of Oia – Oia village – Blue domes – Winery and wine tasting experience – Fira)

This tour is specially designed to avoid queuing up at the cable car and getting to Oia within a short period of time, giving you a very good chance not to be there later on when it’s crowded. The tour emphasizes in Oia village, where you will spend a total of 2.5 hours but also includes the Santorini wine experience and the Blue Domes in Firostefani. Tour ends in Fira where you can spend time before taking the cable car back to the Old port.

Your qualified fluent in English tour director will be waiting to welcome you at the pier of the Old port at the point where your ship’s tender boats will let you off. Instead of taking the cable car, enjoy 20 minutes of cruising along the coastline of the 1,000 feet cliff on the gulf of the Caldera with the private boat that we will charter for our guests. As we understand that your limited time at the island is precious, we try to minimize all delays and this private boat will be only for our guests, and the tour will start at the designated time without any delays. Admire the spectacular view of the island from sea level, as the black cliff towers above you and take pictures of the houses that hang like grapes from the edge of the cliff.

You will then arrive at Ammoudi, the picturesque fishing port of Oia. It will take you less than 10 minutes with your private Mercedes Sprinter minibus to drive up to the village of Oia. Your local expert tour director will orientate you and give you information about the island of Santorini and Oia village, and then you will be free to wander around and explore on your own. The village of Oia is full of narrow streets, which typifies the white-painted houses of the Cyclades. In many cases they are built directly into niches which are cave houses used by the crew of the ships, on the lip of the volcanic crater, between which are narrow alleys and blue-roofed churches with cupolas and neoclassical mansions that used to be captain’s houses in the 19th century.

After you gather all together again, you will drive south towards a local winery, and along the way you will make a photo stop at Firostefani to take pictures at the most famous blue dome Christian Orthodox church of the island.

Continuing the drive you will visit one of the most famous and oldest wineries in Santorini. Established in 1880 inside a natural cave 8 meters below ground, there is also located the only wine museum in Greece which is considered one of the best wine museums in the world (ranked as #2). You will enjoy a tour of the wine museum that presents the history and life of wine from 1660, and then enjoy in a private hall a wine tasting experience of 4 wines, one of which is the famous Vinsanto, accompanied with hard dried bread. An electronic audio guide will be provided to you with information for both the wine museum, but also for the tasting experience. Then you will all get back to your vehicle and drive back to Fira.

In case there is no availability at the winery, we will visit a different carefully selected winery in Santorini for the tour and tasting experience of 4 wines, including the famous Vinsanto.

Once back at Fira your tour director will show you the way to the cable car, and also provide you a map of Fira, in case you would like to spend some time exploring the alleys.

Your transportation vehicle will be an agile Mercedes Sprinter or similar minibus, driven by an experienced professional non-smoking driver. Throughout the tour you will be accompanied by a fluent in English qualified tour director, who will provide interesting commentary on board. Your tour director will give you a tour of Oia village and the winery. Smaller vehicles may be used for 6 or less participants.

The price includes transportation, throughout escorting by an English speaking tour director, the wine tour and tasting in the winery.

Food, beverages, gratuities and return tickets for the cable car are not included.

* In the case that we are running more than 1 groups of the Oia Experience tour that day, a private boat big enough for all our guests will be chartered and each group will have a private tour director and a private Mercedes minibus.

Important note: We feel obliged to notify the travellers that are wishing to visit Santorini island in a day's excursion from a cruise ship, as there are certain dates during the season that their cruise ship will arrive along with 2, 3 or more cruise ships. Having in mind that Santorini is a small island and with small villages and narrow roads, at these specific dates the places visited are bound to get very crowded. Even on those dates, we can guarantee the implementation of our excursion's itinerary and returning on time to get back to your cruise ship. On the other hand we cannot do anything about the crowded areas, eg streets of Oia, Old Port etc, that will not allow our guests to enjoy the magnificent environment the island offers as they should. Nevertheless we promise to do our best efforts for our guests to experience the best Santorini has to offer.

More in this category: « Santorini Exploration

Overall Rating (2)

4.5 out of 5 stars

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Reviews (2)

  • Mary Hoegen

    Rated 5 out of 5 stars

    We had a great day with Lily in Santorini/Oia. She was very knowledgeable and passionate about her country. We enjoyed our time with her.
    We toured Oia, Fira and the wine tasting at the museum.
    Please do yourself and your fellow guests a favor if you have young children---this is not the tour for you. It is hot and lots of walking. The wine tasting is not for children. Our experience was impacted by a family who made a poor choice to attend this tour. The guide did her absolute best to make it work for everyone. She was great.

  • Sylvia Zaleski

    Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

    1. Taking the tender boat to the port nearest Oia did not give us an advantage in arriving before the crowds. The driver was waiting in a nice minivan - however the road/parking area was very congested and it took the driver quite some time to maneuver out of the crowded area and drive to Oia. As a result we walked through Oia with large crowds of people. Our tour guide did not suggest particular coffee shops or restaurants to stop and enjoy the view. The guide did take us to several of the best scenic view/photo spots.
    2. The Tour guide who accompanied us in the minivan did not give island or historical information along the drive. When she did speak, she did not use the van microphone, so persons further back could not hear her.
    3. The wine museum tour was informative but nothing I would go out of my way to tour.
    4. The wine tasting experience was totally impersonal - we were seated in a glassed room and an audio tape was played describing the wines. The young staff person who poured the wines did not interact or point out which wines we were tasting and the audio description moved ahead more quickly than she could pour the individual wines. We expected snacks with the wine tasting from the tour description, however, only hard dried bread was passed around for palate cleansing.
    I will not recommend this tour, the guide, nor the winery tasting experience. The one positive was a nice size group (11 persons) in a good vehicle with a good driver.

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