# The Ferry to Crete: The Honest Guide to Sailing From Piraeus > Nine hours overnight, a cabin for the price of a cheap hotel, and your car on the island for nothing extra. - Canonical URL: https://honestcrete.com/guides/ferry-to-crete-from-piraeus-honest-guide/ - Author: Fotis (Honest Crete, Heraklion) - Area: All Crete · Category: Getting around - Last field-checked: August 2026 · Updated: 2026-08-15 · Published: 2026-08-15 - How to cite: "Honest Crete — The Ferry to Crete: The Honest Guide to Sailing From Piraeus (field-checked August 2026), https://honestcrete.com/guides/ferry-to-crete-from-piraeus-honest-guide/" - About the source: field-checked guides to Crete by two Heraklion-based locals. Prices are hedged ranges in EUR; small businesses are kept anonymous; editorial is never paid for and advertising is clearly labelled. Method: https://honestcrete.com/how-we-check/ --- The ferry is the option nobody at the airport tells you about, and it solves a set of problems flying creates: your car comes with you, your luggage stops being a negotiation, and the journey happens while you are asleep. It also takes nine hours and can be miserable in a headwind. Both of those are true, and which one matters depends entirely on how you are travelling. **The one-minute version.** Piraeus to Heraklion roughly 8–11 hours, to Souda (Chania) 8–9.5. Overnight departures generally leave late evening and dock early morning. Deck seats from roughly €33–50, cabins from around €60 more, car in the region of €85–125. Gates E2 and E3 at Piraeus — about 25 minutes' walk from the metro, so allow more time than you think. Book cabins and car spaces well ahead for July and August. *Photo: The overnight boats dock in Heraklion early — you are on the island before the airport crowd has finished breakfast* ## When the boat genuinely wins **You are bringing a car.** This is the strongest case by a distance. [Hiring on Crete](https://honestcrete.com/guides/renting-a-car-in-crete/) for a fortnight costs real money; driving your own down and paying roughly €85–125 for the crossing does not. If you are coming from anywhere in mainland Greece with a full boot, the ferry is not a romantic choice, it is the sensible one. **You are a family.** Four flight tickets plus baggage plus an airport transfer at either end starts to look silly next to one cabin. Children treat a ferry as an event rather than a delay, which is worth something at eleven at night. **You want the night back.** A 21:00 departure and a 06:00 arrival means you have not lost a holiday day and you have not paid for a hotel. Arriving in [Heraklion](https://honestcrete.com/guides/is-heraklion-worth-staying-in/) at dawn, with the Venetian walls going pink and nothing open yet, is one of the better ways to meet the island — and it avoids the [late-night airport arrival](https://honestcrete.com/guides/late-night-arrival-heraklion-honest-guide/) problem entirely. **You are already island-hopping.** If Crete is the last stop after the Cyclades, the boat is simply how you get there. *Photo: The ANEK Lines ferry Elyros alongside in Heraklion**Photo: Conventional overnight ships are the backbone of the route — slower than the summer catamarans, and far more comfortable in weather* ## When it loses, honestly Two people with cabin bags, flying into Heraklion for sixty or seventy euros each, will not be better off on a boat. Nine hours is nine hours, the transfer to Piraeus from central Athens takes an hour with luggage, and a €60 cabin on top of two €40 tickets stops being cheap. The other honest limit is weather. The summer high-speed catamarans are quick and they are the first thing cancelled when the meltemi gets up; the large conventional ships sail through most of it but roll enough to matter if you are prone. In shoulder season, a north wind can turn a pleasant crossing into a long night. If you are the sort of person who needs a flat sea, book the biggest vessel available and take something before boarding rather than after. ## Practical things that catch people out **Piraeus is enormous.** The Crete boats go from gates E2 and E3, which are a good twenty-five minutes on foot from the metro station and further from where a taxi will cheerfully drop you. Arrive at least an hour before departure, more with a car. **Car deck spaces sell out before passenger tickets do**, particularly on the Chania route and particularly in August. Book the vehicle first and the humans second. **Cabins are small and the good ones go early.** An inside four-berth is fine for a night. Outside cabins cost more for a window you will sleep through. **Bring a jumper.** Ferry air conditioning has one setting and it is January. **The arrival is the reward.** In Heraklion you walk off into the port a fifteen-minute stroll from the centre, with [buses](https://honestcrete.com/guides/crete-by-bus-ktel-honest-guide/) leaving from Station A nearby. In Souda you are ten minutes from Chania town by bus or taxi. **The verdict.** Worth it with a car, with children, or with a taste for arriving somewhere by sea — the overnight crossing genuinely converts a travel day into a night's sleep, and the economics are strong the moment you have a vehicle or more than two people. Skip it if you are two adults with hand luggage and a cheap flight, or if a rough night at sea would ruin the first two days of your holiday. Book the cabin, not the seat, and check the weather before you commit to a catamaran. *Disclosure:* Photos on this page: Blue Star at Heraklion by C messier (CC BY-SA 3.0); Elyros and the overnight boat by Lourakis (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons, resized for the web. Nobody pays to be featured on this site. ## Quick answers **How long is the ferry from Piraeus to Crete?** To Heraklion, roughly eight to eleven hours depending on the vessel — the big overnight ships take nine or so, the summer high-speed catamarans around eight. To Chania's port at Souda it is usually eight to nine and a half hours, and the overnight sailing is the only realistic option. **How much does the ferry to Crete cost?** Deck or economy seats start somewhere around €33–50 one way depending on route and season, cabins from roughly €60 on top, and a standard car in the region of €85–125. Prices move with season and how early you book — treat these as calibration, not quotes. **Is the overnight ferry to Crete worth it?** If you are bringing a car, travelling as a family, or want to arrive rested without paying for a hotel night, yes. If you are two people with hand luggage and the flight is €60, the plane wins on almost every measure except the experience itself. **Should you book a cabin on the ferry to Crete?** For the overnight crossing, yes. Deck and airline-style seats are survivable but not restful, and the lounges fill with people who had the same idea. An inside cabin is the difference between arriving in Heraklion ready for the day and arriving needing to sleep it off. **Which ports in Crete do ferries from Athens reach?** Heraklion has by far the most sailings — up to several a day in season. Chania (Souda) has one or two daily, usually overnight. Sitia and Kissamos get a couple of crossings a week and exist for people going somewhere very specific.