First Time in Greece: What Nobody Tells You About Cruising the Islands

I spent three months researching Greek island cruises before booking the Rotterdam with Holland America Line. I watched YouTube videos, read forum posts, studied maps until I could name every island we'd visit in my sleep. I considered myself prepared. I was not prepared. The moment we pulled away from the port in Barcelona, I realized my research had missed the most important part: what it actually feels like to be there. My husband Mike caught me standing on the Promenade Deck with my phone out, staring at the Mediterranean like it owed me an explanation for being so impossibly blue. "You're going to get tired of that view," he joked. Spoiler alert: I did not. The Rotterdam itself surprised me in the best way. I'd expected a massive floating hotel, the kind of ship where you need a map to find your cabin. Instead, this ship felt purposeful—elegant without being pretentious. Our cabin on Deck 8 was modest but perfectly designed, and when I opened the curtains on the first morning and saw the water, I actually gasped. The cabin steward, Dimitri, knocked just as I was making this embarrassing sound. He laughed. "You wait," he said, "it gets better." He wasn't wrong. But I'm getting…