Tickets have arrived with info on Istanbul and Athens, no info on the Crystal and Island visits. Does anyone know if it's possible to tour the islands easily on your own, or if tours are the way to go?

Insight has not responed to any of my inquiries and I'd like to plan excursions ahead of time.

When we got on the Cristal, we met with David, the Insight TG and he went over the excursions and what he recommended and didn't recommend. I found his info very helpful. Also, we would meet with HIM in a seperate area before the excursions and be the first group to get off the boat, which was very helpful. There were also a few islands where he just did a walking tour (Mykonos and one other I forget right now)
to see the excursions ahead, go to the Louis Lines website and look up their excursions for the Greek Isle tour that starts in Athens and goes to Istanbul second and then follows your itinerary. Some islands are nice to just walk around on your own, some I would recommend the excursion. Oia on Santorini is an excursion I would recommend, as well as Ephesus in Kusadasi.In Rhodes we walked around on our own.. I did a trip report that goes over all the excursions. I will say, all the people who went on all the excursions had something good to say about them.

Thanks Karen for asking this question and Brooklyn for your reply. We are booked on this tour on 1 October and I was also wondering about the excursions on the islands. Will check out the tour tales and also the website. A bit worried about the floods in Istanbul at the moment .....

I haven't heard lately about that: I think it was by the Galata bridge area...

Hi Brooklyn, I had a look at your tour tales (very informative, thanks) and also the Louis Lines website. That also was a good source of information on the optionals for the islands. No mention of cost though. Do you recall the approximate cost of the optionals?

Brooklyn and Gilly, thanks for replying. How do I get to your tour tales? I'm really interested. I know which tours are available and thanks to my travel agent, I know how much they cost I just don't want to miss anything because I was scrimping for a few buck.

here is the tour tale [from the Tour Tales section below]:

Easy pace Turkey and Greece

I will look up the cost of the optionals on the Greek cruise and athens this weekend.
To get to the tour tales, Just go to the Tour Tales" section of the Board, and I think my report is still near the top.

Brooklyn, I gave the link to your tale just above.

oops, responded right from email and didn't read all the postings! thanks for doing that!