Realistic budget for Greece

klensing

FI and I would LOVE to go to Greece for our honeymoon (we've been talking about it since before we were engaged!).  We don't want anything TOO over the top, but we do want to feel like we're splurging a little.  Can anybody give me some insight into what a realistic budget would be for an 8-10 day honeymoon to Greece, visiting Santorini, Crete and Mykonos?  Also somebody suggested Rhodes to me as a less expensive island, so that might be a possibility.  Thanks!

sunshine_day_dreams

I don't know specifically for Greece, but we are visiting several countries in Europe for our honeymoon.  We'll be gone for 4 weeks and we're spending under $10k.  I would suggest looking on vrbo.com or looking for "vacation rentals" instead of hotels on Trip Advisor.  We rented apartments this way for all of our trip, which are much cheaper than hotels, put you in less touristy areas and give you the option to cook meals in if you want to save a bit more.

I would also suggest checking out some of Rick Steves' guidebooks for Greece from your local library.  He gives a lot of budget tips and tells you the cost for just about everything he lists in his books including hotels, restaurants, tours, transportation, etc.  That way you can get a good idea of how much you'll be looking at based on your preferences.

LaFemmeRousse

We spent about 2.5 weeks total in Greece and Turkey two years ago and probably spent $6k.  We had two nights at a splurgy hotel and did the rest at more average ones- tourist class, not hostels but not luxury.  We found cheap flights, took public transportation everywhere possible, and did the lowest class of ferry tickets, but also ate a lot of nice dinners, did some shopping, did one day at a spa, and booked several semi-private tours.

careyblackmar

We went to Greece last summer and stayed in a small resort called Sirene Blue on the island of Poros and can't say enough about it.  The weather, food, and people were absolutely wonderful, and the prices of food and wine were the best we'd seen in Europe.  We spent $865 each for 4 days in Greece - that included a night in Athens, 3 in Poros, transportation between them, and breakfast and dinner daily.  I highly recommend looking into it!  https://sireneblue.reserve-online.net/

rfelix14

When are you planning on going? August is high season for Greece and you'll find that things are a little less expensive in September. My FI and I are also honeymooning in Athens, Mykonos, Paros and Santorini for 2 1/2 weeks (we couldn't avoid high season:( We used tripmasters.com to put everything together (it's a really cool site becuase you can play with the quality of hotels, days you want to stay in each place etc).

Another option that might be affordable is a cruise.

strlzfan11

Have you considered cruising the Greek Isles?  NCL has some good itineraries for that area of the world.  I'm sure other cruise lines do (check out cruise critic).

Reilly626

Ive been twice, to do it right, visiting Mykonos, Athens and Santorini, I would say 10k!!! But its soo worth it...    Look up Hellenic Holidays website, his trips are good..

dougie80

I agree with one of the previous posters about cruising being a surprisingly cost efficient way to travel around Europe. We did a mediterrean cruise last year (not Greece, but Spain, France, Italy ports) and it was such an easy way to see everything we wanted to see with no packing/unpacking, and no worrying about trains and ferry schedules. Some itineraries have longer port stops than others (ours all had 7AM-7PM stops), even overnight for some, so that's something to watch for. There's a great discussion board on cruisecritic.com that answered all my questions.

That being said... The political situation in Greece is pretty tenuous right now with the huge cuts in government spending. There have been very regular strikes all over the country for the last couple of months, which means that on some days there are no trains and no open ports, plus no access to the big historical/tourist sights. If you're not going until next year the situation might be better by then. But for the next several months at least I personally wouldn't want to risk travelling to Greece, and not being able to get anywhere, or see anything that I'm there to see.