Anek lines is probably the worst ferry company I used when I was in Greece. It was expensive, their website didn't display the prices and the staff were disgraceful.

When we went to get our tickets from Athens (Piraeus) to Santorini, it took us one entire hour to get the information we needed and that was using a Greek friend of ours to scour the internet and phones for info. This problem however is not unique to Anek Lines - the entire Greek ferry industry seems to be a mess.

When we finally got to the port, we went to find the ticket booth, but found that the ticket agency is actually outside it, meaning that we had to walk all the way around with our bags (around 10 minutes extra walking, just because of poor signage).

Getting on the boat was easy enough - just walk in the door and give your ticket to the man.

What happened next though got me a bit peeved. We entered the boat deck and were ushered immediately to a room. The chairs were all run down and tatty and there were some fuzzy TVs playing some crap movie. Then we realised it was a smoking lounge so we got up to look for a non-smoking lounge.

It was right next door, but the staff tried to tell us that we weren't allowed to go inside. We ignored them and went into a newly fitted out room that was almost empty. Other people had followed us by this time.

The reason they didn't want us to go into the non smoking lounge is because thats where the staff go to watch football matches.

So instead of allowing me to sit in a comfortable seat and enjoy my ride, they tried to lie to me so they could relax and watch football.

It should also be noted that the non-smoking room had no windows at all and was next to the engine. The non-smoking lounge had many windows and was much quieter.

Something to note is that I saw no safety announcement and I couldn't find the life jackets without going for a walk to the other side of the room, not something I'd do if the ship was sinking - I'd head for the exits!

The only good thing is that the ferry arrived on time.