ABOARD THE CELESTYAL CRYSTAL  – My first day on the Celestyal Crystal and who should I meet? The charming executive chairman of the cruise company himself.

When I sat down for a cocktail and some hors d’oeuvres in the ship’s Horizons Bar, Costakis Loizou was there. He is the son of the man who in 1935 started the company that became Louis Group – Louis Loizou, known as the “Father of Cypress Tourism.” When Louis died in 1971, Costakis took over the business along with his brother Vakis. Today, Louis Group owns and operates 19 four-and-five-star hotels and five cruise ships.

“This is where cruising started,” he says. “We hope every year we will be adding new islands.”

With the smaller Celestyal cruise ships, he adds, “We can go where the huge boats cannot go.”

The company prides itself on providing an authentic Greek cruise. As part of that goal, Celestyal is cruising to islands this year that it has never visited before. In response to passengers’ request, the Crystal  also is serving Greek cuisine on the Greek cruises instead of the customary international cuisine. I’m really looking forward to that. I’ve already tasted some of the ship’s delicious food and know it is far superior to the Greek restaurants I have tried in the states.

“It is a different experience,” Loizou says of our cruise. “It is a combination of modern Greece and the traditional old Greece.”

Although Greece has been having difficult economic problems, Loizou says the country is recovering. “We would like to show the world that we have been through a very difficult time but we will be fine,” he said. “I think we have everything that somebody should wish to have … We will be back. We are already coming back.”

Then Loizou says the very words that describe exactly why I think this cruise will be a most memorable one for me. “The things you have heard about and read about, you are going to see.”

Story and Photo by Jackie Sheckler Finch