Royal Olympic Stella Solaris

Pros: Beautiful old ship; excellent service
Cons: Single beds

We did a 7 day cruise starting from Athens to Piraeus, Santorini, Rhodes, Istanbul, Kusadassi for our honeymoon in August, 2000. We purposely chose a boat that wasn't your typical American cruiseliner experience. We wanted a small # of passengers and a...

Pros: The ship, the crew, the destinations and the home made potatoes chips
Cons: Hard to find -lets say the expensive shore excursions-

This is about the seven day "golden fleece" cruise beggining at Pireaus (port of Athens) and goes to Iraklion Crete, Santorini, Rhodes, Patmos, Kusadasi (ancient city of Ephesus),Instabul (Konstantinoupolis for us the greeks), Mykonos and back...

Pros: Shore excursions, dining, number of stops
Cons: older crowd, single beds

Still jetlagged from the 20 hour flight back to the states I thought I'd drop a note to sing the praises of the Stella Solaris. We just took the Golden Fleece cruise and it was wonderful. I would recommend this trip for anyone with an interest in...

Pros: Luxurious sized rooms with a full bathtub and ample closet space. Great crew and passengers.
Cons: Food was not fancy but even a picky eater like me found more than enough to pig out on thank you.

My mother and I sailed aboard the 'STELLA' from November 30 to December 11, 1999.We embarked at Piraeus, Greece after a few days of sight seeing in and around Athens.
I suggest this to all travelers to take a couple of days at each end of a cruise...

Pros: The Greek islands are all really beautiful.
Cons: The management of RO are incompetant and they treat their passengers with contempt.

While cruising the Greek islands on a four day cruise in September/October, our boat was stuck in Kusadasi, with the only explanation being 'operational reasons'. Even though we were in port, we were not allowed off the boat (we were told that if we got off, then we would not be allowed back on!)

First we were told that we would leave 12 hours late, first thing next morning (too bad for those with transfers or non-refundable tour components). Then, we were told we would leave before midday, then at 1, 2, 3, 4:30, before Royal Olympic told us that they had no idea how many days we would be stuck on the boat, with no way of communicating with the outside world. Fortunately, the boat eventually left later that night, but only after the distress left many passengers in tears and a group of passengers threatened to take over the cruise office in order to get someone to tell them what was going on.

We have subsequently learnt that the boat had been arrested by Turkish authorities for 12 months non-payment of port fees and that Royal Olympic still has fees outstanding.