How the ferries actually work
Our hard-won island-hopping system
We love the Greek ferry system — it’s one of the best parts of traveling here with kids. But it runs on its own schedule, not the airlines’, and a few things we learned the hard way will save you a lot of stress:
Ferries rarely line up with your flights
Plan for the gap rather than fighting it. On arrival, your flight often lands too late for a same-day ferry — so we splurge on the Sofitel right at the Athens airport the first night. It’s connected to the terminal, the kids crash after the flight, and you catch a fresh ferry the next day. On the way out, do the reverse: take the ferry back to the mainland the day before you fly and stay near the port — we loved the Piraeus City Hotel — then taxi to the airport in the morning. Trying to ferry in and fly out on the same day with kids is asking for a meltdown.
Book the slow ferries — and go business class
Counterintuitively, the big slow ferries (Blue Star) are better with kids than the fast catamarans — more room to move, open decks, calmer in swell, and you can walk around. And here’s the tip most people miss: book business class. It’s more spread out, has comfortable assigned seating, and is far easier to manage with younger kids — and it’s genuinely not much more expensive than economy. Worth every euro on a multi-hour crossing.
A few more ferry truths
Book the popular summer routes ahead — they sell out. Build in buffer days; weather and strikes can cancel sailings, and you don’t want a missed ferry to mean a missed flight home. And lean into it: the crossings, with a snack and the wind on deck, end up being some of the kids’ favorite memories of the whole trip.
