Our tour guide was amazing, she gave us so much information about the palace and delved deeper into the history and provided us with so much knowledge about the palace and what took place there. It felt like we were getting an insider's scoop, or like we were taking an upper-level university course. It wasn't as surface level as a lot of other tours are ("this painting was done by this man" , "these bricks are this old", etc). Rather, she told us a lot about why things were the way they were and had us thinking about things very deeply and abstractly. Not only was the tour itself amazing, but our tour guide was wonderful. I had a moment where I was about to faint from dehydration and she rushed over to me and knew exactly what to do to help, then kept an eye on me the rest of the tour. I wish I could remember her name (I think it was Tatiana...? She was tall and blonde). Overall, an amazing tour and would definitely recommend.

The Palace and Museum were worth the visit, Heraklion itself is full of shops and restaurants, I am sure it has many other places of interest but after visiting the museum and getting something to eat we had no time to explore it further. It’s a long day out, half of it is spent travelling on a coach there and back with a stop for a drink and snacks each way although we weren’t very impressed with the choice of cafe or the coffee. In hindsight we would have hired a car but understand why some people prefer to travel by coach/do a tour.

The boat trip can be difficult for many people due to choppy waves. If you get sick from boat trips then you won't enjoy this trip. However, Santorini is well worth viewing. Unfortunately it is loved to death by the foreign traveller and you will find the crush of the crowd unpleasant. We did enjoy our experience, however, particularly an excellent meal at a Santorini restaurant overlooking the caldera. It is a very full and tiring day but worthwhile if you have stamina and are not affected by boat motion.

The help and contact from the local tour operator was good and we felt cared for and safe and comfortable in the coach which was clean and the driver was great. Michaelis gave interesting information during the drive without going on too much. Everyone in our group were pleased with the outing. Just a point about the tickets. I printed out all 17 ticket vouchers but never had to use them as the local operator emailed me another voucher.

Comfortable bus ride to East coast of Crete, followed by a boat ride by a local charter, lunch on board with a stop on Spinalonga, finishing with a short stop in Agios Nikolaos. Wish we would have visited the island before swimming in the bay. Avoid buying any food/drink at Spinalonga: huge rip off (5 euro for 330 ml of water???). Otherwise, decent way to spend the day.