If you’re following me on Instagram (and this is just a very subtle hint you should!), you would have seen suspiciously blue landscapes that look nothing like Cyprus.
I have packed a suitcase and sailed off to see four Greek islands in one go – with Salamis Cruises and my little family. Little did I know that taking a 19-month-old baby will turn a holiday into really hard work, but it was all worth it.
There aren’t many options if you’re looking for cruises, up until last year Louis cruises were also operating similar tours, but from this years they are only leaving from Athens so you will have to take a short flight.
Salamis Cruises run a pretty varied schedules each summer, from three to five-day cruises in various islands in Greece and part in Turkey.
Depending on how long you want to stay, what islands to see, and what you can afford, you can pick one that works for you. My personal recommendation after this trip is to book the early or late summer trips, August is extremely hot and you’ll be too busy sweating and looking for refreshments to enjoy your surroundings properly.
The boat sails off from old port in Limassol.
Salamis Filoxenia has been around for a while and you can certainly see that on the boat, but it has been kept in pretty good condition and they clean it almost obsessively (like three times a day including rails on stairs, doorknobs etc).
Like all good holidays, it starts in a bar – we headed straight to the Sky Bar after leaving our luggage at the port arrivals (they will bring it up to your room).
We raised our glass to not having to fly anywhere and wait long hours in queues for this holiday and waited to sail off.
The sea was calm, only waves crashing against the boat and as we were passing small islands all around us, I almost felt like I was sailing through the archipelago in Finland (minus the summer cottages and dense forest).
We took our time exploring the boat, while trying to keep our little man from tumbling to the floor as he tried to run on a moving boat. Even though the boat looks small, the space inside is pretty generous.
As a new mum, first thing I did was to access the safety features and calculated the number of lifeboats, examine the capacity of each and divide between the number of passengers on board.
While having flashbacks from Titanic I was planning a worst case scenario in my head, and remembered that they would let women and children in first, so we would be fine. Husband would just have to hope that the Finnish embassy will send a dedicated boat for him.
The life vests were in our cabin, which proved a bit stressful. I did consider taking it with us under the pram, but walking around with a life vest might alert the other passengers and cause unnecessary panic. And believe me, that’s the last thing you want on a boat full of Cypriots. Just the queue for the food was like entering a Gladiator ring, I can’t image what happens when they have to get to the lifeboats.
After flushing all my worries away with few glasses of wine, and putting the little man to bed after 40 minutes chase around the boat, I ventured out to document some of the interior of the boat. Just because if you guys want to take a similar trip somewhere, you will know what it looks like – so helpful, right?
Starting with the reception area on the 5th floor, where also our cabin was:
Stairs downstairs to the restaurant and upstairs leading up to the Sky Bar. There was a lift with limited space, mostly used by teenagers chasing each other between the floors.
Hallway leading up to the restaurant. I wonder how much queue jumping it must have witnessed on this trip.
Sienna restaurant where they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner – you can get light snacks in the Captain’s Lounge and in the Sky Bar they even serve sushi.
Captain’s Club, mostly occupied by pensioners playing cards. We fit right in.
Outdoor area with paddling pool and big boys pool.
We sailed off from Limassol at 3pm and were due to arrive in Mykonos at 8pm, or so I thought. After making fools our ourselves at the reception where we were informed that the 8pm arrival was the next day, we quickly headed to the Sky Bar to mentally prepare ourselves for the fact that we will be on the boat, with a small kid, for 24 hours.
In the end, it wasn’t as bad as I thought.
We made sure that our Duracell Bunny had plenty of running around to do, so that by lunchtime he was running out of batteries and went to have a nap for few hours. In just a few hours on a boat full of Cypriots, he turned into a proper Greek, refusing to eat anything else than olives, bread, cucumber or feta cheese.
The hours passed pretty quickly and before we knew, we arrived in Mykonos. It is a shame we didn’t make it there few hours earlier to enjoy the sunset properly
From the little light there was left, here are few shots from Mykonos:
I wasn’t too heartbroken for not being able to get lot more shots from the island because I will be back in November to celebrate my birthday so I promise lots more photos!
Cheers to Friday!
