Santorini Tour: Explore Oia, Fira, and Volcanic History

Embark on a day tour to Santorini from Heraklion and explore the ‘Lost Atlantis’. Visit the picturesque towns of Oia and Fira, learn about the island’s fascinating history, and take stunning photos. Optional boat trip to the volcano available. Book now!

Duration: 14 hours
Cancellation: 24 hours
Highlights
  • Oia’s Main Street - Oia is a scenic village on the north west edge of the Santorini island within the Cyclades. It extends for almost 2 kms along the northern edge of the caldera that forms the island of Santorini, at a height of between 70 and 100 metres above sea level.
    Oia typifies the white-painted houses of the Cyclades, in many cases built…
What's Included
  • Return tickets for the fastest ferry Sea Jets (2h15min each way to Santorini)
  • Additional insurance for tour participants
  • Guided bus tour on the island of Santorini (air-conditioned bus, certified tour guide)
  • Pick-up from the specific bus stops, no more than 800m from your hotel (EXCEPT Heraklion city)
What's Not Included
  • Pick-up from remote areas or hotels (we will notify you at the moment of booking).
  • Pick-up from the hotels within the city of Heraklion (you should arrive to the port on your own).
  • Entrance to the museums, other personal expenses.
  • Lunch
Additional Information

Santorini, situated in the southern part of the Cyclades, sprawls across an area of 76 square km and has a 70 km long coastline. Several myths are linked to this island, often referred to as the ‘Lost Atlantis’ or the ‘Pompeii of the Aegean’. Around 1450 BC, the island got its unique crescent shape, due to a massive volcanic eruption that caused most of…

Location
SeaJets Kiosk of Heraklion Port - Santorini Cruise
Participants staying in Heraklion city, have to arrive at the port on their own. The pick-up is offered only from the areas outside of the city of Heraklion. At the SeaJets kiosk in the port, you shall exchange your voucher for a ferry boarding ticket.
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.3
(47 Ratings)
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Faustinac
Oct 5, 2024
Beautiful Santorini - The tour is very well organised from booking, confirmation of the tour, picking up the tickets, logistic for buses arrangement. The tour guide is great too! My husband and I spent a great sunny day on the Island. The ride was about 2 hours from the port of Crete to Santorini. Quite an easy ride! Santorini is beautiful! Worth to visit!
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Getaway484676
Sep 28, 2024
A highlight of our vacation - I highly enjoyed this tour. It was well organized and prompt. We got our ferry tickets at the port, got on the ferry (we had assigned seats and the ferry ride was nice and clean) and the bus met us after getting off the ferry which was very convenient. I loved having the freedom to explore on my own for about 1.5 hrs in each place after being taken to the main areas. This was just what I wanted and the value was there for the cost! Perfect day trip to Santorini - one of the highlights of the vacation.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Indie_y
Sep 20, 2024
We love Santorini - Thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Santorini, the place is picture perfect. Trip was well organised and a great experience. Would recommend if you want to see the beauty of this island!
Review provided by Viator
Shyamalm160
Sep 6, 2024
A must - Highly recommended. We travelled in a comfortable double-decker bus. Our driver was very experienced as we reached great heights, and manoeuvring is no easy task. Importance of time: each attraction was timeboxed and thanks to passengers, everybody adhered. Panos our guide: absolutely a book of knowledge. Explained the significance of each attraction with dates. He has a great sense of humour and made the day memorable.
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Gary_m
Aug 17, 2024
Excellent taster for Santorini - to experience more, a 2-day trip would be advised. - Luckily there were only two cruise ships when we arrived by SeaJet and Santorini turned out to be not as busy as we feared. The coach was ready and took us to Oia in the north-west, where we had a short tour and then free time. The guide was excellent and informative on the trip. We then went back towards Fira, with longer free time and lunch. The coach returned to the port where the SeaJet was waiting to return to Heraklion.
Review provided by Viator
Dirgha_s
Sep 7, 2024
Most visit island - It’s marvelous day trip surround Santorini .Although I have taken long time to get operater program detail , I found fantastic destination and well guided in the tour .
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778maurizioc
Sep 6, 2024
Visitando Santorini - For those who love the Greek islands you can not miss Santorini... however: Santorini is a popular destination, so expect a lot of people especially in midsummer. The sea? Definitely clean but the coast is volcanic which means very dark sand, therefore hot, and pebbles. The best beaches in my opinion are in the eastern part of the island; Kamari very nice, but pebble beach, so it is absolutely necessary to wear rubber shoes to enter the water; further south there are beaches that go from Perissa to Perivolos, equally beautiful, but without pebbles, so you do not need rubber shoes to enter the water. Restaurants: quite expensive in general (it does not seem to be in Greece....); advantageous for lunch, because eating a meal even light, you can take advantage of umbrellas and sunbeds offered free of charge by the restaurant itself (of course I am referring to the restaurants along the coast that also run the beach). How to get around: useful to rent a vehicle to get around the island that is not very big anyway; you can opt for a scooter or a quad bike for the younger ones; a car for the older ones.... with a vehicle you can visit various interesting places, such as Fira (the capital), Oia for its sunsets (choose an evening without clouds), the beach with red sand (which is not as red as in the photos, but beware of the slopes to get there... ); and anything else you want to visit. We stayed at the "Sun Springs Suites, near Kamari Beach, but talk about it in another review.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
Keramy_a
Sep 29, 2024
Chaos at the start - When we were dropped off at the port our bus driver said nothing about where to go so we made our way to the kiosk with our voucher and asked a man, who did not have a queue in front of him, where we should go. He told us that if we were going to Santorini for the day we had to join the line for Desk 1 which we duly did. After half an hour of queuing, and as the time of departure neared, we got to the front of the queue only to be told that we were in the wrong queue and had to go another desk with our voucher. There, our tickets were ready for us and our guide was waiting (we had not seen her if she was there 30 minutes earlier). It turned out that we were going on the smaller catamaran, which left 20 mins before the larger one, so we had very little time to spare when we eventually boarded. It really would have helped if the bus driver had told us which desk to go to and/or the guide had had a tall sign (identifying herself) clearly visible when we arrived. There were hundreds of people waiting on the dockside in various queues when we arrived and it was stressful waiting in line thinking that we would not get to the top of the queue before the ferry left. Once we got underway the ride over to Santorini was uneventful and we found our bus on the other side easily. We had picked a day when only 1 cruise ship was due to be at anchor in the caldera but, even so, the place was overrun by tourists and main streets of Oia and Fira were too crowded for my liking. The views were beautiful but the island was obviously suffering as there was litter everywhere. The trip back was rough and I was glad that I had taken some Kwells as several people were filling their bags up. The bus back to our hotel was easy to find as we had been given a numbered voucher in the morning by the driver. Overall it was a very high price to pay for a day trip. Our ferry tickets showed that they were only 15% of the price that we paid for the outing and the bus trip in Santorini and the guiding were not worth the rest.
Review provided by Viator
678susans678
Oct 7, 2024
Not a good way to see beautiful Santorini! - Don't get me wrong: Seeing the city of Oia on Santorini is breath-taking and I highly recommend it... but taking this specific tour of Santorini was disappointing. The tour is advertised as 12 to 14 hours but it was actually closer to 9. It seems the 12 - 14 hours advertised has to do with potential delays in the ferry service. We spent about 4.5 hours (round trip) on the ferry, which was expected. A bus took us to Oia, and then to Fira. We were given only 90 minutes per stop to walk around and/or get lunch. The rest of the time we were on the bus (where you don't see much of interest) or waiting about an hour at the port for the return trip to Heraklion. So you can imagine how a promised 12 - 14 hour trip that lets you explore Santorini on foot for only 3 hours would be disappointing. Plus, Oia and Fira are very similar. Both have those amazing white buildings built high up in the cliffs, overlooking the ocean. Oia really should have been the only stop, giving us way more time to explore that town. Fira was very similar to Oia and I don't feel it was worth our time to see Fira at the expense of such limited time in Oia. I recommend that you figure out how to get to Santorini on your own via the high-speed ferry, get a taxi from the port to Oia, and spend the day in Oia (or stay overnight).
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Roger
Sep 1, 2024
Not worth money - The fast ferry was the highlight, but the island is completely overflowing with Touris. It's not worth it because of some photos
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