Variety Cruises

Variety Cruises is a family-run operator of small ocean-going ships based in Athens. Its voyages combine multi-day passages at sea with guided excursions ashore. The company cites small groups, regional cuisine, historic sites and encounters with local communities as guiding principles of its program. Each departure carries no more than 72 guests, setting these voyages apart from cruises aboard large ocean-going ships. The company’s history traces back to educational tours in Greece, but the Variety Cruises brand itself was not created until 2005, when two companies merged.

From educational tours in Greece to a cruise brand

In 1949, historian Diogenis Venetopoulos began offering educational tours designed to introduce international visitors to Greece and its archaeological heritage. In 1968, Venetopoulos added a one-week cruise called “Classical Greece.” Aboard the wooden kaiki Eleftherios, it sailed around Greece and was designed for fewer than a hundred guests. This voyage marked an early transition from study tours and group travel to ship-based itineraries.

In 1978, Lakis Venetopoulos took over the company as a second-generation leader. In the years that followed, the company expanded its choice of destinations and, according to its own history, modernized its fleet through several partnerships to meet the safety standards of the SOLAS Convention. In 1996, the seven-day concept ventured beyond Greece for the first time, when the company launched an international cruise destination in the Seychelles. This expansion combined the original focus on history and culture with new island regions. Variety Cruises was established as a brand only in 2005, when Lakis Venetopoulos and Dimitrios Vassilakis brought Zeus Tours & Yacht Cruises together with Hellas Yachts.

In 2012, Variety Cruises introduced a new class of small ships with the Variety Voyager. The company’s current fleet overview lists it as carrying 72 guests in 36 outside cabins. Other ships are even smaller: the Callisto is designed for 34 guests and has 17 outside cabins.

Small ships, diverse cruising regions

After repositioning the brand as an adventure operator in 2022, the company retained its approach of small ships and themed shore excursions. In 2023, it added a program in Tahiti and French Polynesia, with the Panorama II operating seven-, ten- and eleven-night voyages. The company’s website also lists cruising regions in Greece and Turkey, the Seychelles, Italy and Malta, Croatia and Montenegro, as well as Cape Verde and West Africa.

The Variety Voyager represents the larger vessel in the class, while the Panorama II is associated with the newer South Pacific program. Its cruising regions include the South Pacific and the eastern Mediterranean. In 2020, the company also founded Variety Cares, focusing on clean seas, equality and education. This initiative builds on the longstanding connection between travel, learning and archaeological heritage.