Recently I was lucky enough to take a sailing on Celestyal Cruise’s Celestyal Olympia. I booked the Iconic Aegean three nights cruise. This cruise started at Athens, stopping at Mykonos, Kusadasi (Turkey), Patmos, Crete and Santorini.

Celestyal Olympia is a former Royal Caribbean ship, making its maiden voyage on 5 December 1982 it is now one of the oldest cruise ships in operation. It was, for this reason, I decided I had to make the jump and take the cruise, time must surely be against this classic cruise liner.

After starting her days at Royal Caribbean she was subsequently a member of the Airtours Sun Cruises fleet as Sunbird, later joining Thompson Cruises as Thompson Destiny, before joining Louis Cruises as Louis Olympia, finally changing her name to Celestyal Olympia when Louis rebranded as Celestyal Cruises.

While not the biggest ship there is a choice of restaurants and bars available. I really enjoyed the Horizon Bar, which is the old Viking Crown Lounge built around the funnel from the ships Royal Caribbean days, as well as the Thalassa Bar which is at the front of the ship below the mast overlooking the pools.

The ship is also blessed with a lovely wooden promenade, which was excellent for stopping and looking out at sea while underway. I booked a twin outside cabin as I do like the natural light and it was an affordable difference. The cabin had a lovely porthole and was pleasantly decorated.

I was a solo cruise traveller and this is something I was nervous about doing, how would I feel on a ship designed for couples and groups. However this is actually where the destination-intensive cruise schedule, stopping at more than one port a day, was really good, I very rarely actually noticed I was on my own.

The ship departed from Athens (Lavrion), which isn’t really Athens and is about a 40-minute taxi ride away from Athens city centre and far beyond the suburbs, this isn’t particularly the most convenient cruise port as there is not much to do nearby and it isn’t very well connected to Athens.

On the first day we set off from Athens (Lavrion) for Mykonos, where the ship dropped anchor and we used local tenders to take us into the harbour, it was lovely to stroll around at dusk before returning to the ship for something to eat.

On the second day, we docked at Kusadasi in the morning where I had booked the excursion to Ephesus an ancient city now an open-air museum. I was thankful to have booked the tour as the guide explained much more than be made out from the signs around. I always feel in these tour guides give you so much more at a place like this.

Later in the day the ship departed and headed for Patmos, where we docked in the bay. This was a tender boat ride into the town and it was quite a quiet little town with a handful of restaurants and shops, I had a short stroll around and some chocolate before looking out at Celestyal Olympia in the bay and returning via tender back aboard. That night was the open-air BBQ on deck, this was my favourite meal of the trip as the sun set over the bay. That night on-board was also a show about Greek mythology so I took myself down to the lounge to watch, there are many different languages used by passengers so these shows don’t tend to use words, but it was enjoyable.

The next day we arrived in Heraklion in Crete, and I originally planned to stay aboard and just relax around the ship, however, I looked up a walk into the town and headed to the castle in the harbour, which is a small and enjoyable museum. I returned to the ship and had a midday swim in the pool before we arrived in Santorini.

When we arrived in Santorini I decided I didn’t want to queue to take the cable car so I used the stairs to get up, which took around 25 minutes. At the top, I got myself an ice cream and relaxed taking in the picturesque views, before taking the cable car down. On reflection, I probably did that the wrong way round!

We then sailed away back to Athens, ending this rather too-short cruise. I felt like I had seen a lot in the time but as always I would have enjoyed a bit longer on this comfortable little ship.

The food on Celestyal Olympia was really good and overall this cruise ship is an entertaining way to get around the Greek Islands. It’s obviously an older ship but it is in no way scruffy or neglected. The cruise staff have been working for many years on the ship and it does have a welcoming and friendly experience.

Celestyal Cruises is a small cruise line focused around the Greek Islands. During the pandemic, a majority shareholding was sold to Searchlight Capital which have invested in a new cruise ship, Celestyal Journey which is joining the fleet in the coming weeks.

Have you cruised on Celestyal Olympia or with Celestyal? How did you find it?

Thanks for reading,
Liam 🙂