Personally i'd skip the onboard meal and go out for food in Rhodes town,some lovely and cheap places along the harbour front at mandraki,along where the tour boats are rather than the cruise ships but it's only a few hundred yards,there's a long row of pavement restaurants/cafes/gelaterias,best one in my opinion called the pink panther.

If you want a good few drinks in the old town head for cocoon and pafutto,best bars in town and not so big with the tourists as such,more young greeks.

Taxi down to Lindos is 55-60e(each way) as i remember but i never really use taxis. The bus is cheap and pretty good,for lindos you'll need the orange(main highway) bus from the bus station(literally right by the harbour),if you want to do kalithea spa on the way back you'll need to get off the bus at Faliraki centre(junction with the main lindos road),walk down ermou(bar street) to the square by mcdonalds and get the blue(coast road) bus to rhodes town,this stops at various places in kalithea so just ask the driver to let you know when the stop for the spa is imminent. but if you have to be back for 1pm you'll be pushing it if you go on the bus,plus to be honest you need a good few hours in Lindos to make it worth the trip. I imagine you've got meals included on your boat so want to get your money's worth but sticking to it might mean you lose out on the best of the places you want to see.,in my opinion anyway.

http://www.ando.gr/eot/eng/Taxi.pdf Taxi price list

Hi and thanks for the info...

We wanted to get back to the ship to break the day up, cool down before taking a leisurely stroll into the old town before we have to get back in time for the sailing at 5pm. We don't want to be spending all day mauling about as the idea of this particular break is to chill and relax.

Last time we did one of the cruises out of our island of Cyprus was to Lebanon and Syria. One we've done a number of times before but this time we took the day trip in Syria to the Crac de Chevalier crusader fortress which involved close on 3hrs in each direction on a coach and we don't want a repetition of that. Much as we loved the fortress, we were almost back in Lebanon by the time we got off the coach and were totally knackered when we got back.

We've done a lot of eating out recently as we've been spending a lot of time with friends who are leaving Cyprus to return to UK so it would be nice to make the most of the buffet service on board ship. The food on these short mini-cruises has always been excellent and certainly a lot better than the boxed packed lunch we will receive if we take the full day trip.

I was a bit shocked at the cost of taxis! I thought Cyprus was expensive but those prices are comparable to an airport run from our house to Paphos airport which is a little over 60km.

On the evening we arrive, we would like to have a wander around and find a quietish bar not necessarily a tourist bar but nothing too noisy. After all, we will be travelling with a lot of voluble people on our cruise. The Cypriots can talk - a lot

Me and my other half spent a week in Rhodes almost 20yrs ago so we're looking to go over some old ground and maybe find the shop where we bought a rather large oil canvas of believe it or not, a Parisienne street scene.... From what I recall of the old town there were lots of shops selling fur coats (we have a fair number in Cyprus too) and umbrellas. It would be interesting to see if that is still the case.

Now our other 2 friends are very partial to sweets/desserts so somewhere for a good ice-cream as a half way stop back to the ship before we sail would be welcomed. Does the Pink Panther offer this kind of thing?

We've since had another look at the excursion list and it looks like we may well plump for the Lindos excursion which combines a trip to Panayia Tsambiki where the icon that disappeared from Cyprus reappeared so it may well be a fitting excursion. It's a half day tour and the cost is 20EUR per person which when you compare it to the taxi cost, is quite reasonable. Sadly, we probably won't get to return to Kalithea this time but there's always chance of another visit in the future.

I just wish they would restart the Cyprus to Greece ferries again though. It's absolutely crazy that we're in the middle of the Med and we can't travel anywhere by ship unless it's an organised cruise!

Thanks again.

Shell
Limassol, Cyprus

You're welcome.

RE: the taxi prices,you compare it to a 60km trip on Cyprus,Rhodes harbour to Lindos is about 50km or so so really it's about the same,the advantage being you get whooshed there in an hour in an air conditioned Merc rather than crawl there on the stopping bus i suppose!

To be honest i don't think Kalithea spa is worth going out of your way to see if you're pushed for time so if you miss out on it you're not really missing out so to speak,Tsambika is probably similar,i can't say i know anyone religious enough(Greeks aside of course) to put it on their 'must do' list but the views are pretty spectacular and if it's included in the price it's a nice place to stop,if you don't mind the steps up to the top in the baking hot sun
That story of the burning effigy is spooky but is it to be believed..........i think not??

There's scores of galaterias along by Mandraki,it's like a row of kiosk sized shop fronts with seating in rows out on the pavement,much like any cruise port i imagine,some of them sell what i'd say is the best cakes on earth

Is your cruise a Louis line one by any chance,we looked at a trip a couple of years ago to Cyprus and all we could find was a Louis cruise ship that offers limited deck space on it's return trip if the boat isn't full but you only know if it's available about 48 hours in advance so we didn't bother,i recall Cyprus-air were doing flights to Paphos for about 50-70 euros.

Do the cruises to Haifa still run from Cyprus,or ferries of some kind?

Hi again

We're sailing on the Calypso which is now a Louis cruise ship (previously a Thomson ship) and first stop is Kastelorizo then an overnight in Rhodes with the next day in Rhodes before returning back.

Cost was around 420 EUR per person. The Greek island cruises departing from Athens are cheaper but flights from Cyprus to Athens are not particularly cheap so it's swings and roundabouts.

They still operate the mini-cruises to Egypt, Israel etc depending on what's happening in the world at the time of course....

The only ship that operates a ferry service with passenger cabins is Grimaldi Lines but embarkation and disembarkation points are limited but it makes it's way from Southampton to Cyprus via Italy, Greece, Turkey & Egypt with stops in Israel after Cyprus (Limassol).

http://www.cruisecyprus.com/grimaldi_itineraries_and_prices.htm

Other than that, it's a scheduled mini-cruise with no unscheduled hopping off or abandoning ship as you're only allowed off usually with a copy of your passport and your boarding card.

Hope that helps?

Shell

Hmmmm......i've just asked my landlady to look it up(she owns the travel agent downstairs) and she's still getting info saying that Louis cruises offer deck space for ferry passengers depending on how full the cruise is!

These flights i was on about don't go from Athens,they go direct from Rhodes to Paphos,the guy that owned the Bedrock here until recently uses them,but it's a 'seasonal' service,with the emphasis on winter,it's on cyprus airways,but i'm told it's only an october onwards route and not very frequent at that.

There used to be a regular ferry service from Rhodes to Limassol and onto Haifa but it stopped running once when there was some regional war on and never restarted,which i suppose is why we no longer get Lebanese Delboy's trying to sell knocked off clothes and camera's any more!

I don't know if you've been to Kastellorizo before but it's a lovely little island

No, we haven't been before to Kastelorizo but it's been on "the list" for a couple of years!

Fascinating little island that we're looking forward to visiting with an added plus of being so close to the coast of Turkey.

We took the flying dolphin over to Marmaris when we were last in Rhodes and later went back to Marmaris for a holiday.

There are still many places we have yet to visit from our island in the Med but finding the time is always a problem as we have regular visitors (mum & dad come for 4 weeks each year plus another friend every Christmas/New Year) which does take up my holiday days and we go to Malta each February to meet up with mum & dad when they go there on holiday.

I wish retirement would hurry up then I may have more time to travel

I've never seen anything about Louis cruises offering up deck space but I do know they're doing some 199 EUR prices for cruises from Cyprus next month!

Shell

Well, we're back and we absolutely loved Kastelorizo!

What a fascinating little place it is... We had a good walk around starting by going to the left when we disembarked the ship, up to the castle and then making our way back down to the waterfront. We had a drink in one of the little cafes by the water and then strolled around to where the hotel is on the other side and back again. We popped back on the ship to grab our swimming gear and hopped into the sea for a nice cool dip. Fabulous!

Then off we went to Rhodes....

We had dinner on board ship and then headed off into Rhodes Town for a walk round and a couple of beers. Next day we headed off after breakfast to Lindos but didn't get much more than 90 minutes there which was a bit disappointing as the shops were only just opening up a little before 10am while we had to be back at the coach stop for 11am. We stopped of the the Tzambika monastery for about 30 minutes on the way back (not the one at the top of the hill, thank God) - we couldn't have managed any more steps that morning! That was enough for us though... Not being a religious person it was plenty of time for us to have a look round and grab a bottle of water in the shade of the courtyard.

Back to the ship for lunch and then we had time for another wander around Rhodes Town in the daylight and grabbed lots of photos. Will be posting them on my blog very soon.

I'm sitting typing this and my head still thinks it's at sea!

Shell
Limassol, Cyprus

Did you know that most of the people listed as being resident on Kastellorizo don't actually live there, the Turks once said that if the population drops below a certain level they'll claim it for Turkey, by force if needs be, so the Greeks that moved away to Australia etc after WW2 all put themselves back on the electoral roll to keep the population figure up.

Glad you had a nice trip