We had a tour booked, which meant an early start. Jane decided she didn’t want to get up for breakfast and ordered room service instead. I, on the other hand, was never going to miss out on a bit of silver-service attention.
Unfortunately, I was woken at some ungodly hour by the tenders being lowered right outside our balcony. I grumbled about that briefly before being woken again by Moses, our butler, delivering Jane’s pain au chocolat and coffee. It still took me a good fifteen minutes to drag myself out of bed and into the shower before heading upstairs for breakfast: Bircher muesli followed by a bacon and scrambled egg bagel. I’m still not sure whether the scrambled eggs were overcooked or made from reconstituted powder, but they had a rather odd consistency.
As we were anchored out in the bay, a tender was needed to get ashore. Our meeting point was the Queens Room, which turned out to be far less chaotic than the previous attempt in the Royal Court Theatre. One thing we were told was that government-issued photo ID might be required, as some passengers had been asked for it in Piraeus. I was therefore dispatched to retrieve our passports from the safe just in case. Spoiler alert: they weren’t needed.
Tendering was relatively painless, and before long we were ashore, handing our tickets to the guide. We were booked on a two-and-a-half-hour walking tour of Mykonos and the Naval Museum. It proved to be a fascinating and informative tour led by an engaging guide, winding our way through the narrow whitewashed streets of Mykonos before ending up at the famous windmills. After that, we wandered back through town for a coffee before returning to the ship for lunch.
After a quick lunch, we headed up to the Grills Terrace on Deck 12 to relax in the sun — or in my case, the sun, while Jane sensibly chose the shade. The day had started reasonably cool with a little cloud cover, but after lunch the clouds disappeared and the temperature steadily climbed. By 3pm I was thoroughly cooked and in need of a break, while Jane happily claimed my sun lounger as I retreated to the room to cool down. Even my phone was complaining that it was overheating and needed time to recover.
At 5pm we made our usual appearance in the Commodore Club for cocktails and a Doom Bar. Jane once again opted for a Mai Tai as we chatted with our waiter, Ankit. We were only staying for one drink, as Jane wanted to wash her hair and, without a functioning Dyson Airwrap, drying and styling it now takes ages.
For dinner we’d ordered chateaubriand with triple-cooked chips and a peppercorn sauce for me. Thankfully, it turned out to be absolutely delicious.
V609 – Greek Islands Daily Programmes
V609 – Greek Islands – QG Menus
Mykonos