How to see seven Greek islands in a week — in serious style

Times

17 hours ago

We've all seen them on a summer holiday and felt a twinge of jealousy. I'm talking about the smug people on yachts.
Picture this: you're sitting in a quaint Greek taverna by the harbour. A plate of moussaka and carafe of cheap plonk are under way. The sun is setting and you're feeling pretty good about your holiday, when — like an uninvited dinner party guest — a sleek superyacht glides up and drops anchor. You can even hear the champagne bottles popping. It's enough to make you feel sick.
Well, last summer in Greece, for the first and possibly last time, I was not on the harbour looking on enviously. I was on the yacht. And I can confirm, it was glorious.
Two years ago I made my cruise debut on the 25-cabin Elysium, the first ship from the boutique Greek cruise line Elixir. I well and truly caught the cruising bug. Last summer I tried out its second ship, Gemaya, which, with just five cabins, is even more exclusive. I must admit that the thought of sharing such a confined space with eight strangers was a leap of faith. But the cabins have Netflix, and the latest series of Bridgerton had just come out, so at least I had a back-up plan.
There are three routes around Greece and mine, Aegean Escape, ambitiously packs in seven islands in seven days. But, as I learnt on my last cruise, when the winds pick up — as they often do in the Cyclades, the schedule goes out of the window. We miss out Antiparos and Ios, but add Anafi and Santorini — which is fine by me, but it helps not to get too attached to your original itinerary. Think of it more like a rough outline of where you might go. When you're on a yacht this swish, though, it's hard to complain.
A private transfer drops me at Lavrio port to board the ship. I deposit my shoes in a basket and explore the yacht, which takes all of five minutes. After a tentative hello to my fellow guests, we're quickly slicing through the waves to port in Kythnos with a glass of rosé in hand.
After a long (and a much less glamorous) working life with the Swedish army, the 33m yacht Gemaya has had a serious makeover and is now spending a happy retirement cruising the Cyclades. Its interior rivals even the swishest of superyachts. You pad around barefoot on thick cream carpet that is probably a nightmare to keep clean — always a sign of true wealth, I think.
Cabins are wood-panelled with leather trims and Molton Brown toiletries. There's more than a little hint of Succession about it all. There are plenty of nooks where you can swerve the other passengers if you're feeling antisocial. An indoor dining room, upstairs living room with a sink-in corner sofa, and four separate outdoor areas including a hot tub and communal seating at the back where we do our best Logan Roy impressions, drinking whisky until the early hours. For the alfresco-inclined, you can sleep on a rooftop bed — a plum spot for stargazing.
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My first evening is spent at a long table in the dining room getting to know my fellow passengers over a dinner of squid ink linguine. Two sisters from South Africa; couples from Finland and Australia; and Ioannis Terdimos, Elixir's owner who seems to lead a very nice life, splitting his time between Dubai, Athens and the ship.
'This is another level of cruising,' says Terdimos, looking out at the topaz-blue water of Poliegos — an uninhabited island off the coast of Milos — where we head on our third day. 'People told us this would never work. Ten people, all strangers, together on a boat for a whole week,' he says.
It's true that on paper the Gemaya is a risky proposition. It's luck of the draw who the other guests are, and then you're stuck with them for a week.
But at the start of 2024 Terdimos did a few trial runs on the Gemaya. The boat was stocked with board games to keep people entertained. As well as Netflix, there's wi-fi, a video console and TV upstairs for children (although no under 14s are permitted, unless the yacht is chartered privately).
But the board games stayed in their boxes. 'They all wanted to eat together at the same table,' Terdimos says. 'We've had people make friends and swap numbers at the end of the week.'
Elixir is an exciting new cruise line to watch. After launching its first ship, Elysium in 2021, and a bit of a shaky start thanks to Covid, all cruises for the 2024 season were booked out. The company is adding a third ship to the fleet in 2026 and hopefully another the year after. The company is run by Terdimos and his ex-wife, Manya Louvari — Gemaya is named after them and their son, George.
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Thanks to the proximity of the islands, minimal time is spent sailing. There's fun to be had renting a moped at the port (£17 a day for most islands). On Kimolos — less touristy than its neighbour, Milos — I spend the afternoon stopping at beaches after zipping along dirt tracks past dusty fields full of goats.
Gemaya is even better than chartering your own yacht because for the whole week I don't lift a finger. There's a crew of five who do everything from serving drinks and turning down the bedrooms to organising watersports (sea bobs, water skis, snorkels and paddleboards).
Stefanos Bagkos is the happy-go-lucky ship's captain who makes sure we're up to date with swim stops via a WhatsApp group. Sometimes we drop anchor only long enough to paddleboard to shore and lay our towels on the sand before we're hopping to another island. In all honesty, sometimes it's hard to keep track of them. I spend a very undignified afternoon at a peaceful bay on Sifnos being hurled around on an inflatable doughnut attached to a speed boat — most definitely not demure yachting behaviour.
My favourite island is Folegandros, its arid brown mountain range protruding from the sea like the spine of a dragon. An early evening hike up to the Church of Panagia, where the whole island unfurls before you, is one of the highlights of the holiday.
As well as obviously feeling like Jackie Onassis sidling up to port and walking the passerelle (translation: gangplank) like you're on a red carpet, one of the other advantages of Elixir is that the cruises are all half-board, meaning you get to eat dinner where you want. Cruise passengers often come under fire for not spending money in the local economy, especially important in the Cyclades, a seasonal tourist spot where resident numbers on some islands are in the double digits. Some on our cruise opt for rosette-worthy fine dining but I never tire of freshly grilled sardines with a wedge of lemon and Greek salad at a paper-tablecloth taverna. There is one particularly standout meal, though, at the Makris restaurant at the Domes resort on Milos, an island with no direct international flights to the UK but one that is quickly becoming the must-visit for the jet set. Dinner of sea bass cooked in lobster butter is served with a view of the infinity pool that stretches into a yawning sunset with the lunar rock formations of Sarakiniko beach in the distance (mains from £23; domesresorts.com).
After becoming accustomed to stopping on tiny islands like Anafi (population about 300), I'm braced for chaos when we pull into the caldera of Santorini and our dinky yacht is immediately dwarfed by three big cruise ships. But it turns out to be the ideal way to see the Instagram-famous island: we visit the blue-domed churches of Oia — then retreat a safe distance away to the water for the night.
I sip my final whisky of the trip with the other passengers and watch the twinkling lights of Santorini in the distance. We swap Instagram accounts and numbers and vow to stay in touch. My Netflix account remains unused. Tomorrow I'll be on an easyJet flight back home, but for one final night, I feel like the one per cent.Katie Gatens was a guest of Elixir Cruises, which has seven nights' half-board on an Aegean Escape voyage from £3,260pp, including an open bar and transfers for travel between May and October (elixir.cruises). Fly to Athens