Every autumn the same email arrives, and it has started arriving for 2027. A couple marrying in May or June want ten days in Greece after the wedding. They have seen Santorini at sunset on someone's feed and Mykonos at midnight on someone else's, and they ask for both. I usually talk them out of half of it, and this page is the conversation I have with them, brought up to date for the 2027 season with the rate cards that opened this month. A honeymoon charter is a specific product. It is not a party charter with two guests, and it is not a family week with the children removed. It is built around the two things the famous islands ration most carefully in summer, privacy and calm water, and it is bought the way everything on this list is bought: one yacht, one price, one week, the crew included. What follows is the route I build most often, the calm alternative, the anchorages couples write to me about in October, the honest arithmetic, and when to book so the yacht you want is still free.
What does a honeymoon yacht charter in Greece cost in 2027?
One price per yacht per week, fully crewed, and for two people the yacht is smaller than couples expect, which is the good news. The smallest fully crewed weeks on this list, three or four cabins for six so the boat is yours, come from each yacht's own rate card: SEA U, a 22 metre Riva with two crew, EUR 21,000 to 24,000; SEA YA, a 20 metre Azimut with three crew that cruises at 24 knots, EUR 24,000 to 28,000; Libra, a 2024 Bali Catspace 55 with a captain and a chef, EUR 18,900 to 26,900; Azul, a 2023 Lagoon 55, EUR 20,000 to 26,900. On the Greek Charter Index the crewed catamaran bands for 2027 start at EUR 17,000 a week at 15 metres. A step up buys space two people cannot use, which for some couples is exactly the point: Kimata, an Alegria 67 with a foredeck jacuzzi, EUR 31,500 to 42,500; Just Marie 2, a Lagoon Seventy 8 with three cabins for six and four crew, EUR 49,000 to 59,000. Then the lines on top: APA for fuel, food, drink and port fees, which the captain accounts for openly and returns unspent, Greek VAT at the yacht's certified rate, 5.2 to 12 per cent and never one flat number, and a gratuity of 10 to 15 per cent of the base at your discretion. The all-in multipliers this house publishes are 1.35 to 1.6 times the base on a catamaran and 1.45 to 1.7 on a motor yacht. Worked for two: Libra at EUR 18,900 lands around EUR 25,500 to 30,000 all in; SEA U at EUR 21,000 around EUR 30,500 to 35,500; Kimata at EUR 31,500 around EUR 42,500 to 50,500. The four lines are set out in full on the cost breakdown.
Why is the honeymoon route not the Instagram route?
Because Santorini is a magnificent place to be a hotel guest and a frustrating place to be a yacht. The caldera below Oia is 80 to 180 metres deep and no anchor holds; the yacht takes a mooring buoy at Ammoudi for the sunset, and the ferry and cruise traffic puts a swell through the bay all day. Mykonos has the opposite problem: the anchorages exist, and in July everyone is in them. Either island works as a single dramatic stop if your heart is set on it, and I have built the week planned around two with exactly that one Santorini night in it. Neither works as the spine of a honeymoon. The spine should run through the western Cyclades. Same Aegean light, same white villages, same volcanic blues, at a fraction of the traffic. At Polyaigos or Kolona you will often share the bay with nobody at all, and that is the product you are actually buying.
What is the seven-night western Cyclades honeymoon route?
This is the route I build most often for couples chartering out of Athens in June or September. The passages are short, every overnight is sheltered from the prevailing northerlies, and the drama builds through the week instead of peaking on day one. The miles are from the house distance table, as a yacht sails them.
Night one, Kythnos. Leave Alimos early and cross the 45 miles in the morning calm, before the Meltemi builds after midday. Kolona is the double-sided sand spit with turquoise water on both flanks, three to ten metres, and the honest note from the Kythnos anchorage guide is that the holding is weed and not always good, so the captain drops on a sand patch and checks it; Kanala on the south-east, eight to fifteen metres over sand, and Agios Stefanos, the best holding on the island, are the fallbacks if the wind has other ideas. First dinner is aboard, at anchor, with nothing around you but the spit and the stars.
Night two, Serifos. A morning swim at Kolona, lunch under way, and the afternoon on the south coast of Serifos: Koutala, five to fifteen metres over sand with good holding and the katabatic gusts expected, or the laid moorings of the marina at Livadi, which the Serifos guide prefers to the anchor in the bay. In the evening, a taxi up to the Chora, one of the steepest and least commercialised hilltop villages in the Cyclades, for the sunset from the top.
Night three, Sifnos. Kythnos to Sifnos is 25 miles in the table, so from Serifos it is a short hop. Vathy, three to four metres over sand with good holding in the south-west, is the night whenever the forecast is in doubt and often when it is not: a horseshoe bay with a chapel on the waterline. Sifnos is the gastronomic island of the Cyclades, and dinner ashore here is the one restaurant booking the crew will insist you keep. The three anchorages are on the Sifnos guide.
Night four, Milos. Twenty-five miles. Kleftiko, the white pirate caves on the south-west corner, is a settled-weather morning by the yacht's own tender, after the day boats have gone or before they arrive. The night is Adamas, five to ten metres over mud and sand in the effective lee of the Meltemi, the night that never fails, or Provatas on the south coast, three to six metres over sand with good holding, when the wind allows. The Milos guide has all four.
Night five, Polyaigos. A short hop from Milos to the largest uninhabited island of the Aegean. No port, no taverna, no road, turquoise shallows over a white seabed. This is the day the photographs come from, and the day most couples name first when they write to me in October.
Night six, Folegandros. The Chora sits on the edge of a 200 metre cliff, and dinner in its small squares is the most romantic evening ashore in the Cyclades; I will defend that claim against any island you name. The honest note from the Folegandros guide: the port at Karavostasi does not always hold, so the yacht sleeps at Vathi on the south coast, four to five metres over sand and weed, or Agios Georgios, four to six over solid sand, and comes with the forecast and a fallback.
Night seven, the return north. Folegandros to Sifnos is 45 miles; break the passage at Sifnos or back at Kolona so the last day is a swim, not a delivery, and disembark at Alimos the following morning. The full Cyclades, island by island, is on the Cyclades guide.
What is the calm alternative, if the wedding falls in the Meltemi weeks?
The Saronic Gulf, an hour from the runway at Athens, is the answer for couples who worry about seasickness, marry in the Meltemi weeks of July and August, or have five days instead of eight. No leg exceeds three hours and every anchorage is sheltered. Alimos to Poros is 25 miles: Bisti on the north coast for the sheltered night, or Russian Bay behind Daskalio with a line to the rocks for the swim and the photograph, both on the Poros guide. Poros to Hydra is 12: cars are banned, the harbour rises like an amphitheatre and by six in the evening the whole town turns gold; the yacht moors stern-to on the harbour wall over a 30 to 40 metre bottom on chains laid by the port, or anchors two miles west at Vlychos, eight to fifteen metres over sand and weed, for the quieter night, both on the Hydra guide. Dokos, twenty minutes away, is an almost uninhabited island whose Plakes bay, six to twelve metres, gives you the quietest night of the trip with no other lights. Hydra to Spetses is 25: old-money Greece, horse-drawn carriages and pine forests, Zogeria for the swim among the pines and Baltiza, the old port, for the evening ashore, on the Spetses guide. The whole five-night programme is the Saronic week, the shortest crewed week this house arranges. And for a couple who would rather have green hills than white villages, the Ionian is the third answer, Paxos and Antipaxos in three to eight metres over sand with no Meltemi at all; I have written the Ionian islands island by island.
Which anchorages do couples ask to return to?
The ones where nobody else was in the photograph. Polyaigos, above all. Kolona on Kythnos at first light. Vathy on Sifnos with the chapel on the waterline. Provatas on Milos when the wind allows the south coast. Plakes on Dokos, the night with no other lights. In the eastern Cyclades, which is the route on the honeymoon page, Soros on Antiparos, six to twelve metres over sand with shelter from every direction and arguably the clearest water in the Cyclades, and Manganari on the south coast of Ios, four to ten metres, protected from the Meltemi and open only to the south. And on Mykonos itself, Kalafati on the east coast, six to ten metres over sand, the best Meltemi shelter on the island and its least-visited bay, with one taverna ashore. Every one of these has a documented depth and holding on its own page, which is how the captain plans the day, and how you can check that what I have written is real.
Is a crewed yacht private enough for a honeymoon?
More private than any hotel, and here is the mechanics of why. Two of you, two to four of them, one boat. The crew lives in separate quarters, typically the forward cabins or the opposite hull on a catamaran, and the service rhythm is set by you, in writing, in the preference sheet before you ever step aboard: breakfast at ten, dinner ashore three nights, no service after eleven. Good crews are professionals at being present when needed and invisible when not; it is the core skill of the job. The rest of the privacy equation is route design. Anchor out instead of berthing stern-to in a busy port, and the evening belongs to you instead of the promenade. The charter contract follows the MYBA form, and for a couple with a public profile specific written confidentiality terms can be added before signing; I have set out what can be kept private on a Greek charter, and what cannot, on the discretionary services page. A honeymoon is the purest version of the quiet luxury brief.
Which yacht is right for two: sailing, catamaran or motor?
Three honest answers. A crewed sailing catamaran for a couple who want the swim and the anchorage more than the miles: Libra and Azul are the 2023 and 2024 builds at the entry, with a captain and a chef and five or four cabins you will not fill, and their reviews are the reason I quote them first; Kimata, the Alegria 67 with the foredeck jacuzzi, and Just Marie 2, the Lagoon Seventy 8 with a 37 foot beam and only three cabins for six, are the ones for a couple who want the volume of a much larger yacht and the privacy of a small one; Just Marie 2 draws 1.7 metres, which is what lets her anchor where the swimming is. A motor yacht for the couple who want to move: SEA YA, an Azimut 66 at 24 knots with a full-beam master suite, reaches Mykonos from Alimos, 90 miles, in about three hours and forty-five minutes, and SEA U, a Riva 72 with two crew, is the most private hull on the list. A power catamaran for the couple who want both, the beam at anchor and the speed between islands: Explorion, an Aquila 54, at EUR 21,000 to 28,000, or Majesty of Greece, a 2025 Fountaine Pajot Power 67 with a 22 square metre owner's suite and a foredeck jacuzzi, at EUR 34,000 to 48,000. And a sailing yacht for a couple who want to sail into the anchorage rather than motor: MELITI, a 26 metre Garcia with three cabins and four crew at EUR 26,500, on the honeymoon page. The hull types, side by side, are on motor yacht, catamaran or sailing yacht.
Which add-ons are worth paying for, and which are not?
A photographer for one golden hour: one hour, one evening, usually at Polyaigos or Kolona; phone photos never quite hold that light. An onboard massage afternoon: a therapist is arranged ashore on Sifnos, Milos or Spetses and brought to the yacht by tender while you are at anchor. A beach dinner set by the crew, table, linen and lanterns on an empty cove; this is logistics, not magic, tell me a week ahead and it happens. Provisioning to a wine list, sent with the preference sheet: Assyrtiko, Malagousia, and a Xinomavro for the one cool evening. And the chef, briefed on the two of you before you board, menus by night, the surprise cake, the champagne, what each of you cannot eat. Two to skip. Fireworks: summer fire risk makes permits close to impossible on most islands, and the wind makes the final call anyway. The oversized floral installation: spectacular at embarkation, wilted by Wednesday; a few fresh stems renewed at each port does far more. If the week is a proposal rather than a honeymoon, the flowers on board, the photographer at the anchorage, the custom menu, the toast at anchor at the hour you name and the ring where you want it found are all arranged; brief me three weeks ahead.
When should a 2027 honeymoon go, and when should it be booked?
Late May to late June, and September. The Meltemi, the dry northerly of the central Aegean, blows from June to September and peaks between mid-July and mid-August, frequently at force 6 to 7 in the central Cyclades, and it is the reason a July Cyclades honeymoon can spend two days waiting in port. June gives long days and a warming sea before the peak. September gives the warmest sea of the year, around 24 degrees, with the islands exhaling after August. If the wedding date fixes the week in July or August, the answer is not to cancel the yacht but to move it: the Saronic, or the Ionian, where the Meltemi does not reach. On booking: the 2027 rate cards opened this month, and the couples' yachts, the six-guest motor yachts and the three-cabin catamarans, are the first hulls to go because there are few of them. On this desk the requests for 2027 have arrived with a median lead of about a year. Six to twelve months ahead secures first pick of yacht and crew for June and September, and September is the most requested month on this desk. The whole calendar is on the month-by-month guide, and the lead times on how far in advance to book.
When is a yacht the wrong honeymoon?
Two honest cases. If either of you has never slept afloat and is anxious about it, a week is a long time to find out; the five-night Saronic, an hour from the airport with no leg over three hours, is the honest first week, and it is short enough to be followed by three nights ashore. And if the point of the honeymoon is a particular hotel, a particular spa, a particular view from a particular terrace, a yacht will spend the week competing with it; book the hotel, and take the yacht for two nights from Alimos to Hydra and back. Everything else, the empty bay, the chef, the table for two on the aft deck with nothing around you, the yacht answers better than any hotel in Greece, and I say so because most of the couples who write to me in October to book their anniversary week say it first.
How do I start?
With three facts: the wedding date, or the month if the date is open; whether you want to sail, to be there fast, or to swim more than either; and any date you must be back by. From those I can tell you which sea the week belongs in, western Cyclades, Saronic or Ionian, and which two or three yachts on the list fit two people and the season, with the base fee, the certified VAT rate and the APA on each, one price for the whole week. The honeymoon page has the week planned around two with the yachts named; the full list of crewed yachts is the long way round. Write to me with the three facts and you will have the real options within a day.
