Your points won't last long if you spend them for the Cat7
Mystique on Santorini. We got a great room at
Vedema, but some folks complain about how
Vedema is so remote compared to
Mystique and most other hotels on the island. We ate most of our meals at restaurants just a block or two outside of the resort. And just tonight, I was looking at a bottle of Vinsanto wine that we brought back from the
Gavalas winery just past those restaurants.
We stayed at
Vedema and had a very nice dinner one night at Mystique.
Here's
a summary of our itinerary from our trip last year.
We would recommend all of the hotels that we stayed at. Each was unique. Service was great at all of them. Watch for Cash & Points availability which may stretch your points. If you anticipate spending 4 nights at a particular hotel on a regular award, consider the possibility to stay 1 more night for 5th night free.
If you've never been to Athens before, plan for a full day to see sights there. 2 days max. The
Grand Bretagne is in a great location for seeing the downtown sights.
The
Arion and
Westin have a free and very nice airport shuttle. Their shuttle to/from downtown Athens only operates on a very limited schedule, though. Taxis are the better way for most people to return to the Astir Palace hotels at the end of a day. Athens' subway system does not reach to Astir Palace. We loved our suite upgrade at Arion!
We were glad to have had a night in Athens at the beginning of our trip since one of our bags didn't arrive on our flight. Had we continued directly to an island that same day, getting reconnected with our bag might have been difficult.
Vedema has a shuttle to their private beach restaurant (lunch only) and black sand (pebble) beach. Their shuttle can also take you into town and can sometimes take you all the way to Oia. They picked us and another couple up after dinner at
Mystique, though they don't usually do so. (The other couple got engaged there that night, so it was a special request.) We loved our suite upgrade at Vedema, and it suited us to be away from the more crowded towns for a few days. Vedema is not along the edge of the caldera and does not have a view of the caldera.
Blue Palace is new and modern. It's a huge place. I recommend a rental car on Crete unless you intend to remain at the resort the entire time. There is lots of discussion about this resort in its Master Thread.
We did not go to Mykonos, and the
Santa Marina is currently a Cat7 property. Read up about this a bit before spending points there. It is not very clear why this former Cat4 property is a Cat7 today. I suspect that its categorization is skewed by its expensive suites and villas. If you are not interested in Mykonos' party atmosphere, make sure that this is really where you want to go.
Also remember that breakfast may be included with most paid rates at many of the hotels but is probably not included with award reservations.
There's a great book called "
Greek Island Hopping" that I would recommend. It's especially good if you are considering any ferries between islands, but it is also good just as a tour guide for each island and Athens.
For summer 2010, there are also some new options such as
The Romanos, Costa Navarino and the
Sheraton Rhodes. Bonus is that these new properties do not demand as many points as many of the others.