Day Trip to Albania with Saranda and Butrint National Park from Corfu"We booked the excursion including transfers, which turned out to be a mistake. We knew our hotel was a bit far from the port, but 2 hours and 25 minutes before the boat's departure was quite early (pick-up time 6:35 am). Even worse, and frankly outrageous, was the situation upon our return. We had to wait 75 minutes on the bus because they were still waiting for other boats with tourists from other day trips before we could finally get back to the hotel.
Furthermore, the time allotted in Butrint was far too short. We only had about 1 hour and 15 minutes there. The tour guide apologized several times for having to move on, but that's simply unacceptable. We had about 45 minutes for lunch, which was okay (drinks not included; a 0.33l Sprite cost €4.50!). In Saranda, we had another 1 hour and 15 minutes to look around. Saranda isn't really worth it – just restaurants/bars along the promenade with three or four souvenir shops selling the usual kitsch, a pebble beach, and countless stalls offering boat trips – nothing special there. We didn't have time to explore further up the town, but even from the bus, we didn't see anything particularly interesting.
We were the last ones on the ferry back to Corfu, so there were hardly any seats.
We were almost the last ones back at the hotel, arriving around 9 pm.
In short: about 14.5 hours of travel, including 11 hours of transfers and waiting, with only about 3.5 hours of actual activities.
This definitely needs improvement or a different plan!"Marc Martin · September 2026