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CONSULT THIS PAGE ONLY IF YOUR ITINERARY INCLUDES A CRUISE.
You will transfer to Lavrio (or Piraeus, depending on cruise departure) via coach (1 hour to Lavrio, 30-45 minutes to Piraeus depending on location of hotel and traffic). Times below are approximate and often change due to weather conditions.
- Itinerary for 4-day cruise will vary (not just the order of islands but the islands themselves). Please refer to www.celestyalcruises.com for most accurate and up-to-date information (details below were published winter 2024).
- ACIS now offers groups the possibility to take the cruise without excursions (they can add the excursions but will pay full price). At the briefing, confirm with the GL the specifics of your program to avoid misunderstandings.
- VOX headsets will be delivered to your hotel prior to the cruise. Be sure to distribute and STRESS that pax must have them on them every time they get off the ship for an excursion (Mykonos is an exception, as we don’t usually have excursions on Mykonos and it is STRICTLY forbidden for a TM to guide the group anywhere during the cruise).
5 Day / 4 Night Iconic Aegean Cruise: 5 Greek Islands and Turkey
Ship: (summer 2024) Celestyal Discovery
Mon 13.00 sailing from Lavrio (or Piraeus), 18.00-23.00 Mykonos, Greece (dock at Tourlos port if space available, free shuttle bus back and forth to town; otherwise tenders used and arrive into small harbor in town)
Tue 07.00-13.00 Kusadasi, Turkey (Ancient Ephesus), dock; 16.00-21.30 Patmos, Greece (tenders used)–sometimes order reversed due to weather.
Wed 07.00-18.00 Rhodes, Greece, dock
Thur 07.00-12.00 Heraklion, Crete, Greece, dock; 16.30-21.30 Santorini, Greece, tenders used
Fri 06.00 Arrival Lavrio (or Piraeus)
You Should Know/Do Night before Embarkation
- Hand out luggage tags for the bags that pax wish to have delivered to the cabins. You will receive these tags (usually filled out with pax info/cabin number) in an envelope from Andy’s Tours the day before at your hotel. Pax can have as many pieces as they want delivered, but each piece MUST HAVE a cruise tag indicating the ship with the cabin number and their name clearly filled in. Suggest that they do not put breakables in these pieces.
- Make a rooming list for the GLs (you will already have the cabin numbers in your materials from Evi).
- Tips are already included in the cost of the trip, and are not to be collected. However, pax can tip local guides on the excursions at their discretion (check tipping doc as TMs may need to tip as of 2025).
- Meals on board are all open seating. Speak with the GL about a strategy for disseminating information and also to help them keep track of their pax since the group will not be gathering as a whole except for before excursions (if they have booked them).
You Should Know/Explain/Do En Route to and at the Port
- Tell pax that when you arrive they must empty the bus of their belongings.
- Upon arrival at the port, an embarkation assistant will show you where pax will need to drop their luggage with cruise labels onto a conveyor belt outside the terminal entrance. These pieces will be delivered to their cabins directly. Additional labels are available at the port should you need them.
- After dropping luggage, pax should line up for security and check in with their passports available according to cabin groups.
- While in the queue, pax will be given a health form. The health form needs to filled out. If they are not asked for it between being given the form and boarding, they should deliver it to the Reception Desk on board.
- At the security desk, a photo will be taken of each pax. This photo will be linked to the Boarding Card Key (looks like a credit card). As well, pax will hand over passports to the ship’s purser who will keep them in the safe for the port authorities (in 2024 we did not need to hand in passports anymore. Will see for 2025). In exchange, each pax is issued with a receipt for each passport to be used to reclaim the passport at the end of the cruise.
- Boarding Card Keys are an ALL-IN-ONE: they function as pax identification, a boarding card (to be scanned each time the pax embarks and disembarks), a charge card (the ship has a no-cash policy), and a cabin key. Emphasize that they must keep them with them at ALL times.
- All belongings that the pax have on them pass through a security x-ray machine. Often the cruise photographer will snap shots of the pax at this point which will be for sale aboard later in the cruise. You may choose to have the group wait for all to clear security and board together or to proceed directly to the ship after clearing security.
- Arrange to meet with the group for a briefing BEFORE they all disperse. This can be around 40 mins after boarding in the main lounge or after the Cruise Director’s briefing—whatever works for you. NOTE: it is best to have arranged a meeting point and time prior to allowing the group to disperse. The cruise director prefers TM’s not to have their groups called over the PA system.
- Be the first up the gangway.
- Depending on your boarding time cabins may or may not be ready. If they are not ready suggest to the group that they explore the ship. Cabins are usually ready at about 10:00am prior to sailing. If cabins are ready, Pax will be directed to their cabins upon embarkation by the ship’s staff. They will find their luggage waiting for them outside their cabin door. Let them know that the luggage sometimes takes a while, and not to worry if their luggage isn’t there when they get to their cabins.
- They will be given a Daily Bulletin that they should keep with them at all times. Extra copies are at reception. You cannot stress enough how important it is that they refer to this document (new one delivered daily) as all info is printed in it and you as TM are given no heads-up on the schedule.
- There are no cash payments on board. On Day 1, pax are asked to register a form of payment with the Purser’s Office (cash or credit card). NB: This sometimes happens at registration when pax hand in their passports in the terminal building prior to embarkation. If the pax registers cash, (s)he must line up on the penultimate day to reconcile the account. If the pax registers a credit card, (s)he does not have to do anything more unless the final bill is incorrect.
- The exchange office on board can exchange USD to €. Instruct pax NOT to change currency into Turkish lira and not to use Turkish ATMs while in Turkey. USD and € can be used for purchases in Turkey.
- Tell the group that they do not have to collect excursion tickets if they have pre-purchased via ACIS. You collect them at the shorex office once on board.
- Tell the group that the Cruise Director will be having a very important arrival briefing (check in bulletin for time and place).
Once the Pax have Boarded
- They should go to their rooms. Luggage usually takes at least an hour to be delivered.
- They should explore the ship and review the daily bulletin.
- They should have some lunch (details in the bulletin).
- They must register some sort of payment with the Purser’s Office (if this hasn’t already been done at checkin, prior to embarkation).
- They must attend the required boat drill.
- They must meet with you at the pre-arranged group meeting before or after the Cruise Director briefing.
- If they have pre-purchased the shore excursions, they can ignore the announcements to sign up for shore excursions (you do this for them). If the group has not pre-purchased excursions via ACIS (rare), they will most likely have to sign up as individuals at the excursion office. There will be a review of excursions on offer at the end of the Cruise Director briefing.
- Once you have boarded
- All meals are open-seating.
- Find the Shore Excursion office and pick up the group’s excursion tickets if your group has pre-booked excursions via ACIS. Make sure that you double-check that you have the correct number of tickets. Note that each ticket has a name printed on it. Check about whether you will have a bus exclusively for your group. If the group is very small, make sure that you explain to the GLs (in advance) that, as cruise excursions are run by the cruise line, the group will be sharing the bus and guide with others.
- Ask the Shorex Manager about the procedure for collecting tender boat tickets for your group (they run a lottery for tour groups, where TMs all gather at a specific time/place and their names are drawn. They then collect tender boat tickets on behalf of their groups. A new drawing is carried out for each destination invoving tender boats, Mykonos and Santorini for most ACIS groups).
- At Your Meeting
- Remind everyone that they should keep the bulletin with them (extra copies are available at Reception)
- Advise the group that all meals are open seating. The Maitre d’ is reticent to reserve seats for a group; if pax wish to sit together, they need to arrive for a meal at the same time and enter together.
- Explain that breakfast and lunch can be taken whenever and wherever they are served (detailed in bulletin) buffet or dining room. Check the bulletin for dinner schedule as on some evenings buffets are available as well.
- No shorts in the dining room at dinner time. No swimsuits in the dining room ever.
- Tell the group that you will meet together before (10 or 15 minutes—whatever you decide) each excursion departure time indicated on the Bulletin to make sure everyone is ready and to distribute excursion tickets. The location is normally the main lounge for all English speaking pax but double-check this as it might vary according to the demographics of the cruise pax. Pax must have their Boarding Key Cards and VOX sets with them to disembark the ship.
- Be sure you have the VOX guide set to give your local guide for each excursion.
- NEW: If the group has not purchased excursions, make sure they understand they can still disembark at each port of call; they can refer to the Bulletin for details.
- Remind the group that they should ALWAYS have their Boarding Card Key with them and that if it is lost they should report it immediately to the reception to cancel it and receive a replacement.
- Tell group to set cell phones to airplane mode while cruising or risk getting satellite charges. Turn back on on land EXCEPT Turkey, where astronomical charges can be incurred.
- Also remind group that Turkey is 1 hour ahead of ship’s time (especially important if you are not arranging wake up calls).
During the Cruise
- On the first day especially, make yourself very available to the group. They will be disoriented and have lots of questions, so keep moving about the ship so that you bump into them and can have a chat. If you don’t have the information they need, direct them to the Cruise Office Reception desk. If you have stressed that most answers are in the Bulletin, they will refer to it first.
- Let them know your cabin number. Tell the teachers they can have you called over the p.a. system if they really need your help or they can call your cabin.
- You can either book wake-up calls for the entire group through reception (give reception a list of all the cabin numbers with ACIS written clearly across the top and tell them that you will let them know wake-up times on a day-to-day basis), or each pax can set their own alarm. It is recommended to at least set an alarm at reception for Tuesday morning in Turkey, as cell phones may switch over to Turkish time and confuse pax. Remind them that although breakfast and disembarkation times are very early, they will have down time in the afternoon.
- Remind the teachers to check their students are up in time for disembarkation for the shore excursions. It’s best to assemble the group in the main lounge 10-15 minutes prior to disembarkation for excursions so you can be sure everyone is there and you can disembark as a group. Shore excursion buses do not wait.
- Remember that since all meals are now open seating, the group will not have any times that they are together unless they are participating on excursions.
Penultimate day of the Cruise (Thursday)
- The Cruise Director will have a disembarkation briefing. Best to require group to attend so everyone hears information about settling accounts, leaving luggage out for porters before they go to bed (the meeting usually happens just after you get back onboard after Heraklion, Crete). You can then meet with the group after the Cruise Director has in order to answer questions and make announcements.
- Establish with group a time to meet in the main lounge the next morning ready to depart (this time will be determined by the bus transfer time that Evi will give you). Advise them to use the bathroom before they meet to depart.
- Advise group that you will not be checking into the hotel immediately upon arrival back in Athens, so they should be prepared for the next day’s activities.
Upon arrival at Lavrio/Pireaus
- Meet group in main lounge, confirm that everyone has passports, has everything they need for the morning and has used the WC.
- Contact the guide or driver to find out where you will meet.
- Disembark together, walk to the terminal building and collect your luggage.
- Luggage will have been arranged by the porters by deck level in the Customs building.
- Meet the coach and transfer to first activity of the day (hotel rooms will not be ready for check-in this early).