Written by RuinMyTrip Editorial from published research and official sources, not from a personal trip. It is not a traveler review and is never counted in the community rating. How we research.
destination · Santorini
Santorini is as beautiful as the photos, and as crowded, taxed, and shaken as the headlines say
Review of Santorini
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Share your experienceSantorini earns its reputation. The blue-domed churches of Oia stacked above the caldera, the volcanic cliffs dropping straight into the Aegean, and the sunset views from Imerovigli or Fira are real, not marketing. But the island is tiny, just 76 square kilometers, with around 15,500 permanent residents, and in a normal year it absorbs an estimated 3.4 million visitors arriving by air, ferry, and cruise tender. That math produces some of the worst crowding in the Mediterranean, and Greek authorities have spent 2025 and 2026 trying to manage it rather than pretend it does not exist. The headline fix is the cruise passenger cap. Before restrictions, peak-season days could see up to 17,000 cruise passengers dumped onto the island at once. Under the 2026 berth allocation policy, Santorini enforces a hard daily ceiling of 8,000 cruise passengers, with the occupancy formula tightened so large ships now count against the cap at full capacity rather than a discounted estimate. The number of scheduled cruise calls for 2026 is down about 18 percent from 2025, from 728 ships to roughly 595. Cruise passengers also pay a landing fee that scales with season: 20 euros per person in peak months of June through September, 12 euros in April, May, and October, and 4 euros from November through March. Separately, overnight guests pay a climate resilience accommodation tax collected at checkout, ranging from 2 euros a night at 1 and 2 star properties up to 15 euros a night at 5 star hotels during the April through October high season. The donkey rides up to Fira are still a live controversy. Roughly 100 donkeys and mules still carry tourists up the more than 500 steps from the old port, even though a cable car has run the same route for decades. A one-way cable car ticket runs about 10 euros for adults and 5 euros for children ages 6 to 12, covering a roughly three-minute, 220-meter climb, with an extra 5 euro charge per piece of luggage. Greece has had weight-limit rules for pack animals since 2018 after repeated reports of spinal injuries, saddle sores, and heat exhaustion, but animal welfare groups including PETA have continued to document poor conditions, and the rides persist because tourists keep choosing them for the photo. Then there was the earthquake swarm. In February 2025, an intense seismic sequence near Santorini triggered a formal state of emergency that ran from February 5 to March 3. A magnitude 5.2 quake hit on February 5, and by the time the swarm eased in late April, scientists had recorded an estimated 25,000 to 28,000 individual earthquakes, 14 of them above magnitude 5.0. About 11,000 people evacuated the island, roughly 7,000 by ferry and 4,000 by air. Research published in Science attributed the swarm to a magmatic dike intrusion more than 10 kilometers underground, not an imminent eruption, and no eruption occurred. No deaths were reported and no significant structural damage hit tourist infrastructure. The island has been stable since, with any residual tremors rare and generally too weak to feel, but the scare rattled summer 2025 bookings and it is a fair question for anyone planning a trip now.
What was great
The caldera views are the real deal, and no amount of crowding photography discourse changes that Oia at sunset or Imerovigli at dawn looks exactly like the postcards. The 2026 cruise cap has visibly thinned out the worst pinch points, with the daily passenger ceiling of 8,000 cutting what used to be 17,000-passenger peak days by more than half, and the island's own tourism data shows the cable car and clifftop paths moving more freely as a result. The volcanic wine industry around Pyrgos and Megalochori is genuinely distinct, grown in low basket-trained vines that survive the island's near-total lack of fresh water, and it is one of the few experiences here that still feels local rather than staged for a tour bus. The 2025 seismic crisis, while frightening at the time, resolved without casualties or major structural damage, and scientific monitoring after the fact found the dike intrusion did not reach the surface. The island's civil protection response, including a coordinated evacuation of roughly 11,000 people, is now cited as a case study in disaster preparedness rather than a failure.
What nearly ruined the trip
The fundamental math does not work in visitors' favor: about 3.4 million people a year funneled through an island of 15,500 residents and 76 square kilometers means a tourist-to-resident ratio over 100 to 1, and daily density that can top 200 visitors per square kilometer even with the new caps. Every layer of the trip now carries a fee, a cruise landing charge of up to 20 euros per person in peak season, a nightly accommodation tax up to 15 euros at 5-star hotels, and cable car tickets that run 10 euros each way plus 5 euros per bag if you are avoiding the donkey path. Peak-season hotel rates reflect the demand too, with mid-range properties averaging around 287 dollars a night island-wide and climbing past 536 dollars in high season, while genuine caldera-view suites in Oia run well past 1,000 euros a night and need to be booked four to eight months out. The donkey situation remains genuinely unresolved. A functioning, faster, cheaper cable car has existed for decades, yet roughly 100 donkeys and mules are still worked up the same 500-plus steps daily, and welfare investigations keep surfacing untreated wounds and overloading despite weight-limit rules on the books since 2018. And the February 2025 earthquake swarm, however well it resolved, is a real reminder that this is an active volcanic caldera; 11,000 residents evacuated within weeks, and travelers booking far in advance are making a bet on geological quiet that scientists cannot fully guarantee.
Safety
★★★★☆ Mostly fineValue for money
★★☆☆☆ OverpricedComments
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