Piraeus to Mykonos

Saturday, April 12th, 2014 Mykonos
This morning we got up at 5 am, showered, ate some yogurt and raisin buns in our room and checked out of the Faros Hotel in Piraeus by 6:00. It was about a 20 minute walk to the pier from which our ferry would leave at 7:30 but we had to board by 6:30.
On the way there, we passed a couple of bars that were still open and blaring music, but with few patrons. Other than that the streets were quiet until we neared the ferry terminals. Then it was really busy.

 This isn't our ship but it's another Blue Star ferry that's identical. Blue Star is probably the biggest ferry company here. We were glad that we'd ordered "airplane" seats for 39 euros instead of just economy class for 34 euros. We had guaranteed comfortable seats inside while economy is just any hard seat anywhere, inside or on the exposed deck. For an almost 6 hour trip, the better seat is well worth the extra cost. However, although we had booked both seats online at the same time, our seats were not together.
Luckily, a nice woman with 2 children volunteered to trade seats with me so we could sit together. We were surprised that the ferry was so full. She told us that today was the beginning of the 2 week Easter holiday so a lot of Greeks were traveling to their home towns. There were some tourists on the ship but it was mainly Greeks.

 We sailed for 4 1/2 hours before we docked at the island of Syros where a lot of people disembarked. Syros is another of the Cyclades (kuh-klah-dez) islands. Then a bit later we made a brief stop at Tinos and finally arrived at Mykonos about 1:15 pm, only half an hour late.
As soon as we walked onto the pier we saw a man holding up an Aeolos Hotel sign. He led us to a van and drove us about 10 minutes from the new port up to the hotel. The hotel is 2 story around a small pool and jacuzzi in a courtyard. There are about 20 rooms maybe. Everything is all whitewashed stucco with blue trim. It's a family run hotel and the owners are very pleasant. We have an upper floor room with small balcony overlooking the pool. We can actually see the ocean in the distance too. We're up the hill from the town but we're well within walking distance. Being just a bit up the hill is a lot cheaper.
We had paid 200 euros ($300) total through booking.com for 5 nights, including breakfast, with no refund for cancellation. I told the owner that we might have trouble getting a ferry to Naxos on Thursday so we might have to leave Wednesday. He said that was no problem, he'd give us our money back for the final night. He also told us that he pays 25% to booking.com. From now on, I might research hotels through booking.com but I may try to book directly online. If you search tripadvisor and want to select a hotel seen there, you are immediately linked to booking.com. They must be making some serious cash from this, using volunteer reviews from travelers like us to create their ratings. Wish I'd thought of it.
After a trip to the supermarket for the usual supplies, we enjoyed the sunshine on our balcony. In the sun it's quite hot while in the shade it's still springtime cool. A few hardy souls were swimming in the pool but I'm not too sure about that.
We discovered that we can get either a Wednesday or Friday fast ferry to Naxos. We like it here so much I asked the owner if we can stay 6 nights instead of 5. That's okay. Tomorrow we'll go down to the "Sea and Sky" travel office to book tickets on the Friday afternoon ferry, since there doesn't seem to be much point in booking online. Then we'll push back our apartment reservation on Naxos for a day and all will be well.
We're tired from our early morning and long day so we didn't even go out for dinner. We just ate some spinach filled pastries, some raisin pastries and some cashew nuts in our room. Anita is already asleep. Tomorrow we'll tour Mykonos town.