Spinalonga & Agios Nikolaos from Heraklion region

Sadly, this tour was my only regret when visiting Greece, and my friends and I all agree that it should be avoided. The tour guide was nice, and Spinalonga island itself is pretty interesting. But the way the tour is set up was just an absolute nightmare and huge waste of time. Since I'm the one who booked it, I had to apologize profusely to my friends who got stuck along for the ride. We got picked up in Heraklion, so we were the first ones to get on (and off) a completely full double-decker bus that we would be stuck on for the next 12+ hours. The bus is advertised as being air-conditioned, but it was very hot and everyone was dripping with sweat, pressed up against the people next to them. I watched the clock, and we spent over two hours JUST driving through crowded side streets picking different people up all over Heraklion and Malia. That's not even counting the time it took to get from destination to destination - JUST the pickups. Then we did it AGAIN dropping everyone off on the way back. The tour ran way over schedule, which ruined plans we had for later in the day. TLDR; We spent 8+ hours on an oppressively hot bus for a few hours of sightseeing and a swim. 12+ hours total made us miss out on other plans we had made. It's the only excursion my friends and I regret in Greece. Suggestion: This could be fixed by charging a little bit more money for the tour and having ONE pickup in Heraklion, ONE pickup in Malia, etc. Think about how awful the exerience is for the people who get on the bus FIRST when there are so many scattered stops.

Such a fun trip. Our tour guide gave us great information. The stops were fun and interesting. The swimming was beautiful and refreshing, and the food was delicious. Thank-you!

If you want to visit Spinalonga, use a different tour company. 1) The air conditioner on the bus didnt work on a 41C/105F day. 2) Instead of 1 central pickup locations, there were 10 separate pick-up/drop off areas that added 2 hours each way for travel with no direct pick up or drop off. 3) The “lunch” was not served until after 3:30pm even though the first pickups started at 7am. 4) The food was mediocre at best. There was uncooked veggie patties for vegetarians and dry/heavily salted pork. 5) The pick up from the boat was a 10 minute walk even though buses were allowed to pick you up at the port. 6) The Spinalonga tours are separated by language which is nice. However, there are no announcements about which language is which tour.

Such an interesting area with an amazing tour leader who moved between 3 languages to ensure all her guests were catered for.

There aren't many tour options available for Spinalonga on a Monday, so I was glad to find this company. The tour ran smoothly, with connections from Heraklion and many, many resort areas in the east of the island. However, you do need to expect a very large tour group. We were two double-decked tour buses, of approximately 100 people, split into language groups (English/French/German on one bus, and Polish on another bus). The groups were split again upon arrival in Spinalonga into single-language groups, and the guides were very good. The tour I was on flipped the itinerary so we went to Agios Nikolaos first, followed by Spinalonga and finishing with a swim and 'lunch' (3:30pm by then). I would have preferred the original itinerary because it would allow lunch to be at lunch time and an afternoon drink at Agiios Nikolaos rather than spending time hunting for a snack to tide over. Overall, the tour was fine. I just wish I had known just how big the group would be. Although it was very well managed, I do prefer smaller tour groups.

Very nice organized tour. Especially the tour guide Jeanet was great! Especially the variety in activities was very nice. It was a bit annoying that the tour was trilingual, we did not know this in advance. With regard to booking, the organization could do better. Only at 11pm the night before we had been informed that we had to be at the bus at 8.45. But despite this had a very nice day.

I booked(spinalonga island trip) it’s was amazing experience with -status MLB travel agency from sart to finish everything was organized and perfect. Ricardo was very kind with us highly recommended.

History of Spinalonga. Great tour guide, very clear in multiple languages. Thank you Panos! The opportunity to swim in the gorgeous water. Mix with other tourists. A BBQ lunch with salad and beverages were included. It was fun shopping in Agios Nicholas too. I would do it again.

A combination of historic sites seeing, crystal blue beach relaxation, town visits, a cruise, decent lunch, and all at a good price, this tour has many in one. I had a very enjoyable time and I bet you will to.

Agios Nikolaos is beautiful and we enjoyed the day overall! That said, we were disappointed in the Spinalonga portion. We were told once we got off the boat we would be split by language and go with a tour guide. This turned out to be very disorganized once we reached the island, with several guides trying to make sense of the crowd and who was taking whom. We were then told there was no one to conduct the English tour for another 30-40 minutes and that we could walk around if we wanted or wait for a guide. We took some photos and wandered but figured we would have a better experience seeing the island with a tour guide. Once we met with a guide she described and led us through a single street and repeatedly asked if we had seen the other highlights of the island, scoffing when we said we had not. This was frustrating, as we were led to believe that a tour guide would be the one to “tour” us through these highlights. After finishing her “street tour” we only had fifteen minutes before our boat was scheduled to leave. We rushed to explore on our own, but missed out on most of the highlights. In waiting for the tour guide we were led to believe that she would show us around the island; we wish someone would have said to explore most of the island on our own. If you find yourself without a tour guide after arriving, we suggest exploring the island on your own.