Nearly June and we still don’t know what’s happening
Confusion continues over ferries – Blue Star appear to be one ship short for the services they are committed to, and are using the ANEK Lines Prevelis as a stopgap. Unfortunately the Prevelis, although reasonable inside, is far too slow to operate the Piraeus-Kos-Rhodes routes that also serve Symi. Indeed she seems to be far too slow for all Blue Star’s routes and every time she is timetabled for a route, complaints flood in, and as it is election season, these are actually listened to.
So this week the Prevelis is “serving” Symi on Wednesday and Friday, and can be confidently expected to run several hours late even on the specially extended schedule. Next week the equivalent sailings will be made by Diagoras, an old favourite on the route but no spring chicken and not much faster. This week the Monday sailings were made by Nissos Rodos, pretty much on time, next week they should have been the Blue Galaxy, but this seems to have disappeared from the Dodecanese routes without immediate replacement. As a result of all the complaints, there are a pair of Tuesday sailings, made by Blue Star 2
Supposedly Blue Galaxy will make her delayed appearance on 12 June and continue with the Monday sailings thereafter, with Blue Star 2 on Tuesdays and Diagoras on Wednesdays and Fridays up to 23 June and then the Wednesday and Friday sailings will be in the safe hands of Blue Star Patmos, fast, modern, and purpose built for the route.
On the positive side, Dodekanisos Seaways are now allowed to run the Kalymnos-Samos tendered route they won and were then stopped from doing,so Panagia Skiadeni only appears on Saturdays and Sundays while the additional stops by Pride and Express will continue. Sebeco Lines’ Sebeco 1 and Sebeco 2 are running as advertised (except during recent bad weather), so is the King Saron of Sea Dreams. That only leaves SAOS Ferries Stavros. She has been making here regular four calls a week (Northbound on Mondays and Thursdays, Southbound on Tuesdays and Fridays) but even there confusion reigns. The online booking system of SAOS ferries doesn’t seem to show her operating on all the days that the online schedule shows, including missing out dates when the ferry has actually appeared in Symi.
Puzzled? I certainly am, but here is my best guess at June’s combined timetable