Santorini all inclusive barely exists, and not by accident: this is an island of small cave hotels on a cliff rather than a coast of large resorts, so the few properties selling that board basis sit on the flat beaches at Kamari, Perissa and Perivolos. Everywhere else is bed and breakfast, and dinner is expected to happen somewhere else. Santorini Tours is a local operator running private tours and transfers on the island.
Santorini All Inclusive: The Short Answer
Santorini all inclusive barely exists, and that is not an accident. This is an island of small cave hotels on a cliff, not a coast of 400-room resorts, and the handful of properties that do sell an all-inclusive board basis are on the flat beaches at Kamari and Perissa rather than on the caldera.
What you will find instead of santorini all inclusive is bed and breakfast almost everywhere, half board at a few larger beach hotels, and self-catering studios inland. The caldera-rim hotels sell a view and a breakfast, and dinner is expected to happen somewhere else.
That is worth understanding before you search for it, because the island’s food is one of the reasons to come. Fixing every dinner to a buffet in the hotel you are sleeping in removes most of what makes a week here memorable.
What Board Basis Actually Means Here
Room only. The cheapest alternative to santorini all inclusive, common in studios and apartments inland and in the beach villages.
Bed and breakfast. The standard on Santorini, from budget rooms to cave suites on the rim.
Half board. Breakfast and dinner, offered by some of the larger hotels at Kamari, Perissa and Perivolos, and occasionally as an add-on elsewhere.
Full board. Rare.
All inclusive. Rarer still: a small number of beach hotels, usually the bigger ones with their own pool complex, sold mostly through European tour operators. When somebody advertises santorini all inclusive, it is almost always one of these.
What “all inclusive” covers. Buffet meals, local-brand drinks, sometimes snacks and ice cream. It rarely covers excursions, transfers, wine tastings or anything off the property.
Why the Island Never Went That Way
Geography. The reason santorini all inclusive never spread: the famous half of the island is a 300-metre cliff. There is no room for a resort with grounds, and the hotels there have twelve rooms rather than four hundred.
Water. Everything is desalinated or shipped in, which makes big pools and big kitchens expensive.
The market. The island sells honeymoons, views and sunsets at high prices, and that market does not ask for santorini all inclusive.
The food. Eating out here is a genuine attraction rather than a chore: inland tavernas, fish at Ammoudi, wineries with terraces.
Where it does exist. The flat south-east coast, where there is space, road access and sand: Kamari, Perissa and Perivolos.
The comparison. Crete, Rhodes and Corfu are the Greek all-inclusive islands. Santorini is not one of them and never has been.
Who It Suits
Families with young children. The strongest case for santorini all inclusive. A flat base at Kamari or Perissa, a pool, a buffet that solves the six o’clock dinner problem, and no negotiation about restaurants.
Anybody who wants a fixed budget. Santorini all inclusive removes the daily uncertainty on an island where a rim dinner can cost 160 euros for two.
Beach holidays. If the plan is sand, pool, sea and two outings in a week, it works well.
Groups who will not agree on anything. The buffet ends the argument.
Who it does not suit. Couples on a honeymoon, anybody here for the food and wine, and first-time visitors with five nights and a long list of sights.
The compromise most people end up wanting. Half board at a beach hotel, breakfast and dinner covered, with two or three evenings out inland. See where to stay.
What It Costs
Rough numbers for two people per night in the shoulder season, which is where the santorini all inclusive proposition has to be judged.
All inclusive at a beach hotel. Typically 180 to 320 for two, depending on the property and the month.
Half board at the same standard. 140 to 240.
Bed and breakfast at the same standard. 100 to 180.
Eating out for two. 35 to 55 inland, 90 to 160 on the caldera rim, and 45 to 70 for a beach taverna lunch with wine.
The arithmetic. If you eat inland, bed and breakfast plus dinners out usually costs less than the all-inclusive rate, and you see the island. If you would otherwise eat on the rim every night, the all-inclusive rate wins on money and loses on experience.
Drinks. The clearest saving. Local beer, wine and spirits included cover a real cost in a hot week.
What Is Never Included
Transfers. Never part of santorini all inclusive: airport and port transfers are separate almost everywhere, and there are only about thirty taxis on the island. See private transfers.
Excursions. Akrotiri, the volcano boat, the catamaran, the wineries and any guided day are extra.
Wine tastings. 20 to 35 each at most wineries, and worth every cent.
The good wine at dinner. House wine is included; Assyrtiko from a named estate is not.
Anything in Oia. Which is where you will want to be at seven in the morning and at sunset.
The cable car and the buses. Small amounts, and they add up over a week.
The point. A santorini all inclusive rate covers the hotel. It does not cover the island, and on this island the island is the expensive part.
Where the All-Inclusive Hotels Are
Kamari. The largest concentration of santorini all inclusive hotels: a long black-sand beach, a promenade, an open-air cinema and the biggest hotels on the island. See Kamari.
Perissa and Perivolos. Flat, cheap, sandy and lively, with beach bars and the most relaxed atmosphere on Santorini.
Monolithos. Quiet, shallow water, few hotels and the best beach for small children.
Not on the caldera. Firostefani, Imerovigli and Oia are cave-hotel villages, stepped and small, and santorini all inclusive does not exist there in any form.
Not inland. Megalochori, Pyrgos and the wine villages are guesthouse country.
The trade-off. The all-inclusive coast is twenty-five minutes from the caldera, on the flat, with parking. The view is on the other side of the island, and you will drive or take the bus to it.
How to Get the Best of Both
The version we would book for a family that wants certainty without missing the island.
Base. A santorini all inclusive or half-board beach hotel at Kamari, Perissa or Monolithos.
Keep two evenings free. One inland at Pyrgos or Megalochori, one on the rim, booked ahead.
Book the transport in advance. A private driver for two days removes the parking problem entirely and costs per vehicle rather than per person.
Prepay the two things that matter. Akrotiri with a guide, and a shared catamaran with lunch. Those two are the island’s highlights and neither is in any santorini all inclusive package.
Use the free half. Oia at seven in the morning, the rim path, Skaros rock and the beach outside your hotel.
The result. The budget certainty of a package with the parts of Santorini that a package never reaches.
See the personalised tour and the full itinerary guide.
Season by Season
May, June and September. The best santorini all inclusive value: warm, everything open, and packages priced below the peak.
July and August. The most expensive weeks and the busiest beaches, and the months when an included pool actually earns its place at two in the afternoon.
April and October. Fewer properties open on this board basis, cooler sea and much lower prices.
November to March. Effectively none. The beach hotels close, and santorini all inclusive is a summer product only.
Booking window. The packages that exist are bought early, mostly through tour operators, and the good weeks go months ahead.
See the weather month by month.
What a Week Looks Like on Each Basis
The clearest way to judge santorini all inclusive is to lay a week on it against the same week on bed and breakfast.
Santorini all inclusive at Kamari, seven nights. Breakfast at the hotel, the pool or the beach until noon, buffet lunch, an afternoon swim, buffet dinner at seven, the promenade in the evening. Two half-day outings, probably a coach excursion and a boat, both paid on top. Predictable, easy with children, and almost entirely spent within two hundred metres of the room.
Bed and breakfast inland, seven nights. Breakfast at the guesthouse, Akrotiri at opening, lunch under a vine at Megalochori, an afternoon at the pool or the beach, three wineries one day, a catamaran another, Oia at seven in the morning, dinner at a different village square every night at a third of the rim price.
The cost. Within about ten per cent of each other, once the meals out are counted honestly.
The difference. One week is a resort holiday that happens to be on Santorini; the other is Santorini.
Which is right. Genuinely depends on who is travelling, and with two children under eight we would take the first without hesitation.
Booking It Properly
Book early. The few properties selling santorini all inclusive board fill months ahead for July and August.
Read what is included. Local-brand drinks and buffet meals is the usual definition. Branded spirits, à la carte restaurants and anything on the beach outside the hotel are typically extra.
Check the board hours. Some properties close the bar at eleven, and lunch service can end at three.
Check the beach. Sunbeds directly outside are sometimes included and sometimes rented by a separate concession.
Check the transfer. Almost never included, and the airport is fifteen minutes from Kamari and thirty from Perissa.
Check the excursions. Hotel excursion desks sell coach tours; a private day costs per vehicle and usually less for four people.
Ask about half board pricing. The gap between half board and santorini all inclusive is often small enough that the drinks alone decide it.
The Alternatives Worth Comparing
Half board instead of santorini all inclusive. Dinner covered, lunch out, evenings flexible. The choice most returning visitors make.
Bed and breakfast at a beach hotel. The same pool and beach at 60 to 100 euros less a night for two, with every dinner a decision.
A studio with a kitchen. Inland or in Perissa, at 50 to 110 for two, with a supermarket ten minutes away and the money going on boats instead of buffets.
A caldera room with breakfast. Twice the price of the beach and the view that people travel for.
The mixed week. Four nights on the beach and three on the rim, which is the shape we most often see working.
Whatever the board basis, the island itself is the same, and the difference between a good week and a disappointing one here is timing rather than what your rate includes.
What People Get Wrong About It
Five assumptions come up every season, and all five cost people money or days.
“There will be plenty of choice.” There is not. Santorini all inclusive is a handful of properties on one coast, and in August they are gone by spring.
“It will be on the caldera.” It never is. The cliff villages are small cave hotels sold on bed and breakfast, and no package includes them.
“It covers the excursions.” It covers meals and local drinks. Akrotiri, the boats, the wineries and the transfers are all separate.
“We will save a fortune.” Against rim dinners, yes. Against eating inland, the saving is small and the cost is the island itself.
“We can stay in the hotel all week.” You can, and you will have visited a pool rather than Santorini. Two outings in seven days is the minimum that makes the flight worth taking.
Understood properly, santorini all inclusive is a base rather than a holiday, and the island starts at the gate.
Santorini All Inclusive: Frequently Asked Questions
Does santorini all inclusive exist? Yes, at a small number of larger beach hotels at Kamari, Perissa and Perivolos, mostly sold through European tour operators. It does not exist on the caldera.
Why are there so few? The caldera villages are cave hotels on a cliff with no space for resorts, water is desalinated and expensive, and the island’s market is honeymoons and views rather than packages.
What does it usually include? Buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner and local-brand drinks. Excursions, transfers, wine tastings and anything off the property are extra.
What does it cost? Roughly 180 to 320 euros a night for two in the shoulder season, against 100 to 180 for bed and breakfast at a similar standard.
Is it good value? If you would otherwise eat on the caldera rim every night, yes. If you would eat inland, bed and breakfast plus dinners out usually costs less and shows you more.
Where are the hotels? On the flat south-east coast: Kamari, Perissa, Perivolos and Monolithos, twenty-five minutes from Fira.
Is there all inclusive in Oia? No. Oia is small cave hotels with no vehicle access, sold on bed and breakfast.
Is half board easier to find? Yes, and for most visitors it is the better compromise: dinner covered, evenings still free.
Is it suitable for a honeymoon? Rarely. Honeymooners come for the caldera terraces and the restaurants, which is the opposite of the package.
Is it good for families? It is the strongest case for it: a flat base, a pool, an early dinner and a fixed budget.
Does it run in winter? No. It is a summer product and the beach hotels close from November to March.
What is not included that people assume is? Airport transfers, the boat trips, Akrotiri, the wineries and the good wine at dinner.
The Honest Verdict
Santorini is a bad all-inclusive island and an excellent island, and both of those are true at once.
If you want a package holiday where everything happens inside the property, Crete, Rhodes and Corfu do it better, cheaper and with more choice. If you want Santorini, the honest shape is a room with breakfast, a driver for two days, one boat, one guided morning and dinner wherever you happen to be at nine o’clock.
Where santorini all inclusive genuinely earns its place is a family week on the flat beach coast, with the pool solving the middle of the day and the buffet solving the evening, and two or three days spent out on the rest of the island.
We Fill the Half a Package Cannot
We are a local operator running private tours and transfers in our own vehicles, and almost everything worth seeing here happens outside the hotel gate: Akrotiri before the coaches, three wineries after four, the inland villages once the ships have gone, and Oia at an hour when the main street is empty.
Tell us where you are staying and we will build the two or three days that a santorini all inclusive booking leaves empty, with door-to-door pickup from Kamari, Perissa or anywhere else on the island.
Prices are per vehicle rather than per person, hotel pickup anywhere on the island is included, we guide in twelve languages, and an 80 EUR deposit confirms a date.
See the full day tour, the food experience, or contact us.
Every Village and Site on the Island
Any of these can be built into a private day. Each has its own page with what to see and how long to allow.
Caldera villages: Fira · Firostefani · Imerovigli · Oia · Finikia · Baxedes
Inland villages: Pyrgos · Megalochori · Emporio · Mesaria · Karterados · Vothonas · Vourvoulos · Exo Gonia · Mesa Gonia · Pigadia
Beaches: Perissa · Perivolos · Kamari · Vlychada · Monolithos · Red Beach · White Beach · Agios Georgios · Agia Paraskevi
Sites and landmarks: Akrotiri · Ancient Thira · Akrotiri Lighthouse · Nea Kameni · Palia Kameni · Thirasia · Athinios Port
All our tours: All Santorini tours · Full day tour · Sightseeing tour · Personalised tour · North part tour · Horse riding · South part tour · Sunset tour · Shore excursion · Caldera tour · Food experience · Wine tour · Historical tour · Small group tour
Planning and services: Famous sights tour · Private transfers · Transfers to Oia and Finikia · Transfers to other villages · Villages of Santorini · History of Santorini · Tours near you · Languages we guide in · Food and fun tours · Gay friendly tours · Our tour buses · Daily tours · Day tours · FAQ · Gallery · Tour photo gallery · About us · Contact · Blog
