Argostoli, Cephalonia, Greece
Ship: Silversea Cruises’ Silver Ray
Itinerary: 11-Night Venice to Athens
View from our balcony today
This morning, Silver Ray is anchored off the coast of Cephalonia, Greece. The ship is operating tenders to shuttle guests back and forth from ship to shore. It is already getting very hot today by the time we board the tender and we disembark at the town of Argostoli around 11am.
The ship’s tenders dock right in the center of town, so there is no need for shuttle buses here. As we would soon learn, this is definitely a port where you should book a shore excursion.
Tender in Argostoli
As we walk to cross the main street of the town, we are lured by the signs promoting a Hop-On/Hop-Off tour. We have done HoHo tours in many cities around the world and have always enjoyed them. Since we did not have an excursion, we thought: what the heck?
We paid our 10€ per person fee for our tickets and then learned this is one of those little road trains, not a double-decker bus. We were told that the train would take us on a 20-minute drive to a place where we could get off and see turtles, at least I think that is what the ticket salesperson said. Then, we could re-board the train for the 20-minute ride back. The entire tour should last 40 minutes.
Hop-On/Hop-Off Train
This tour was a disaster. We basically spent 30 minutes sitting in heavy traffic and simply being driven around a few city blocks, with nothing, and I mean NOTHING to see. There was a guide speaking broken English trying to explain some of the buildings along the way, but nothing we saw looked that interesting anyway. We never did see anything about turtles, but maybe we just missed it.
Our advice would be to avoid this tour if you ever visit Argostoli. Either book a ship’s excursion, or just stay onboard and enjoy the ship.
Epic Fail
We did find some shops along the main street and purchased some souvenirs. As we went back to the tender dock to head back to Silver Ray, several of the ship’s tour buses all arrived at the same time, dropping dozens of guests off to be tendered back to the ship. There was only one tender at the dock and the next one was 15 minutes away. That meant nearly 100 guests had to stand out in the heat and sun waiting for the next tender to arrive. This seems like a small misstep on Silversea’s part. If they are aware that several tour busses are arriving at the same time, they should have 2 or 3 tenders lined up ready to board guests.
Once we are back onboard Silver Ray, we once again head to The Marquee Grill for lunch. This is our favorite lunch spot. Rickee again ordered the Fish and Chips and I decided to try the steak sandwich on baguette.
Steak Sandwich at The Grill
This evening, we took in a beautiful sunset overlooking the pool deck.
Sunset At The Pool
We did not make any advance plans for dinner this evening and did not really decide to eat dinner until about 8:45pm. This revealed one of the shortcomings of Silversea, at least in our opinion. At 8:45pm, with no reservations, there are really only a handful of choices for dinner. First or second choices would be Atlantide or S.A.L.T. Kitchen, which both offer open seating. However, we had eaten at S.A.L.T. the night before. The third choice would be Spaccanapoli for pizza and fourth would be room service. Neither of us was in the mood for pizza. We did not want to mess up the suite with room service and have the smell of food permeating the room while trying to sleep, so we opted for Atlantide.
When we arrived at Atlantide about 9:00pm, the restaurant was very busy. The Maitre’d informed us that there were no tables for two available. What he meant to say was, no tables for two that he would recommend.
There is a row of 5 two-top tables where nobody is seated. That is because these tables back up to the wait staff staging areas where waiters stack dishes cleared from tables. This is a very noisy area and, to make matters worse, the wall behind the tables is open so that the noise travels right to the tables. Bad design.
Avoid these two-top tables if you want a quiet meal
The Maitre’d did seat us at one of these tables, but later offered to move us to a window table, which was much quieter and in a better location.
Rickee ordered an Artichoke and Beef Carpaccio starter.
I ordered the Seared Scallop starter. Unfortunately, there was little to no sear on the scallops.
“Seared” Scallops
Rickee’s main course was one of the vegetarian options, Grilled Panisse Cake: Confit red onion petals, olives, slow cooked cherry tomatoes and arugula. It was a little strange.
What is this?
I ordered the Veal Chop.
Veal Chop
Our dinner at Atlantide was good but we still find the menu to be very limited compared to the original Atlantide menu from our last Silversea cruise.
Tomorrow is a day at sea, the only one on this itinerary.
