The Style Perk Travels : The Yacht Week Greece Route 35 Recap

Happy Wednesday! I’ve been so excited to write this recap, yet I’ve been putting it off, because I wanted to make sure it was very thorough for everyone that is now interested in going to Yacht Week. This post will be more of a recap post with a few tips sprinkled in, and then I’ll eventually follow up with an advice post on how to prepare and pack, and what to expect when attending Yacht Week. I actually was so caught up in the experience that I didn’t capture all of the moments that I wanted to, but I captured enough to give you all a great idea of how it went. And of course you can find plenty of pictures of everything on the Yacht Week’s website and social media pages.

The White Party In Ermioni, Greece (photo courtesy of The Yacht Week album, photographer: Michael Vanarey)

I  had never heard of the Yacht Week until my friends were like “We’re doing Yacht Week for our 30th birthdays, be prepared!”. And I was like “Ok”! A quick description of Yacht Week is that it is often described as a spring break for young professionals, and it’s where you and your friends rent a yacht (skipper provided), and sail into various exclusive islands for a week, attend exclusive parties, and are surrounded by other yachts with fellow wanderlusters from all over the world. Sounds pretty amazing, right?!

There were ten people on our yacht, including the skipper, and the rest of our friends were on another yacht. Our yacht had four double cabin rooms (ie rooms that could sleep two), two bathrooms with showers in them (and I use “shower” veerrryyy loosely,lol), a kitchen area complete with cabinets, an oven and a stove, and a saloon area (dining/living room area if you will).

To give you guys an idea of how in advance you should prepare for the trip, my friends first mentioned it in the summer of 2014, and then sent emails out towards October of that year to confirm who for sure was down for the trip. Then they sent information on yachts so that we could choose one, and we booked our yacht in mid-January (you can pay in installments). I see now that yachts will be open for booking for summer 2016 on October 27th, so I say the sooner you get all of your friends on one accord and book, the better. That way you can make sure the yacht you want to rent is available. My friends actually almost missed booking our yacht, but by the grace of God (lol), we made it.

Also, you’re responsible for paying and booking your flight, as well as responsible for your food. We booked our flights in early May (about 3.5 months before the trip).

You pick out team names for your crew, and our team came up with the name “Pier Pressure”. You’re also encouraged to come up with theme days for your crew where you all wear similarly themed bathing suits (more on this in my advice post).

Team Pier Pressure – American Flag Day

If you’ve been following my other summer travel posts, then you know that we chose the Greece Yacht Week route. So the port of Lavrio was our meeting point. That is where we had something like an orientation for Yacht Week, checked in to our yachts, got groceries and floaties, and where our first party was held. We bought floaties, supplies for costumes for the Regatta (more on this later), and random things like shower shoes from the Jumbo store (similar to a small Walmart), and then bought groceries from the local grocery store. Later that night we ate our first group dinner together, with our skipper, which was coincidentally the only group dinner that he joined us for (more details on our relationship with our skipper in my advice post to come, lol).

The party the first night was decent. The club was more of an open air venue that had a swimming pool. My friends and I were all pretty tired, so we didn’t stay too long. We went back to spend our first night on our yachts, and in the wee hours of the morning we set sail to our first destination, Poros. Our skipper had warned us that the waters would be choppy, and they certainly were. When I woke up to use the bathroom, it was so rocky! I got super nauseous, even though I had on a motion sickness patch. I quickly popped two Dramamines and went back to sleep. When I woke back up, I felt much better, and the waves got a little calmer. Everyone else felt the same way, and we all eventually made our way upstairs to the deck. When we got to Poros, it was beautiful. All of the houses on hills looked like something from a story book. The main activity that day was water taxing over to “The Love Bay”, which was a small beach. Then of course there was a party that night back in town.

Poros, Greece

The Love Bay – Poros, Greece

On the second day of sailing, we were able to really enjoy being on the water, we listened to music, ate breakfast, sipped cocktails, and took in the beautiful scenery. Ermioni was our second stop, and that was the white party day. Everyone got dressed up in all white and went to a day party that was pretty fun. The next day we went to Porto Heli, where we partied and hung out at Nikki Beach Resort & Spa. Our skipper let us know that everyone really enjoyed Nikki Beach partly because it has really nice showers and changing rooms. If you’re not already aware, bathroom and shower life on a small yacht is…a different experience. So anytime a nice bathroom or shower was available during the trip, people got excited.

Ermioni, Greece

American Flag Day – Porto Heli, Greece

Yacht Life – Porto Heli, Greece

Our fourth stop was Dokos, and that was also Regatta day. The Regatta is where the skippers raced our yachts to our next docking point, and we dressed up in team costumes showcasing our team spirit. Our team ended up finding hot pink headband crowns for the girls, and white and black paper crowns for the guys at the Jumbo in Lavrio. We used pinwheels for our scepters, and naturally we were Trap Kings and Queens. 🙂 When we got to our docking point, everyone pulled out their floaties and had a good time just chilling in the water. You could also do some hiking, and it was beautiful at the top of the rocks. The water was sparkling, the mountain views were amazing, and you could really see God’s flawless work. Dokos was the only uninhabited island, so this was a day that you for sure needed to eat/cook on your boat. This was also the day that we spent the most time getting to know people on the other yachts. We actually thought we had run out of water that day, and the yacht next to us had run out of propane. So one of their crew members ended up cooking dinner for both of our crews using our yacht’s stove. That was a perfect compromise, and a great meal.

Dokos, Greece

Dokos, Greece

Our last stop before heading back to Lavrio was Hydra. That day, the way the yachts were docked, you had to do some serious climbing over other yachts to get onto the port. The actual planks to get over onto land were not sturdy at all. We definitely took our time in order to make it safely back and forth. It was fitting that Hydra was the last stop, because it was the best island. It looked similar to the other islands, however  the houses were mainly white with these bright pink flowers as part of their landscape. They were beautiful. You could hike in Hydra, take a donkey ride (super fun), shop the many boutiques, as well as cliff dive. It was also my birthday that day, so celebrating in another country was pretty awesome! We had our final dinner with all of the crews, and everyone got all dressed up, and it was really nice. My friends even got me a birthday table at the party that night, so special shoutout to them! 🙂

The last day, we sailed back to Lavrio in the wee hours of the morning, and that was just as bad, if not worse, than the first night of sailing. The waters were so choppy, and our skipper was going so fast! I wanted to kiss the ground when I got off that yacht. There was a final party back at the same club that the opening party was held at, but we decide to clean and pack up instead.

Riding donkeys in Hydra, Greece

Hiking in Hydra, Greece

Overall the Yacht Week was an amazing experience that I’m glad I got to go through with my friends. I definitely recommend it if you’re thinking about going, and look forward to writing an advice post about it in the next week or so. In the meantime I’ll be getting some fall fashion posts in.

This is the longest post I’ve ever written!  Hopefully you stuck with me through the end, or at least skimmed through it to get to this point, lol. Are you interested in attending the Yacht Week, or have you attended in the past? Let me know below!

Ok so I’ve been slacking on actually writing my advice post! I plan on doing it soon enough, but in the meantime, my friend Bree has plenty of Yacht Week tips for you on her blog. Check her out here!

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