It has been a few days since my wife and I disembarked from Windstar Cruises’ Star Legend after a wonderful eight night cruise sailing from Athens to Turkey. I am currently writing a detailed cruise report covering all the destinations and onboard cruise experience from the trip. In the meantime I thought it would be useful for my fellow cruisers to write about the highlight of the trip, dining under the Library of Celsus in Ephesus. This was an incredible experience and we ended up being incredibly lucky, as to why we were lucky I will explain in due course.
Windstar describe the evening as a ‘Windstar Destination Discovery Event’ and surprisingly it is included in the cruise fare. This cruise was my seventh Windstar cruise and the second that included a destination discovery event, the first being an evening on a private motu (island) in French Polynesia where I got to watch traditional Polynesian fire dancing.
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A brief history of Ephesus
Ephesus is situated near the Aegean Sea coastal town of Kusadasi in modern-day Turkey. It has a continuous settlement history dating back to the seventh millennium BCE. During the Classical Greek era, Ephesus was one of the twelve cities forming the Ionian League. In 546 BCE, the city fell under Persian rule but continued to thrive. Under Roman control, Ephesus became the capital of the province of Asia, boasting impressive structures like the Library of Celsus.
The Library of Celsus, built during the Roman period, was a building dedicated to Roman senator, Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus. The library housed thousands of scrolls and became the third largest and most important library in the ancient world after the libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum. At its peak the library was home to over 12,000 scrolls but these have now all been lost.
Today, Ephesus is a major archaeological site with excavations beginning in the late 19th century and continuing to this day. The city’s well-preserved streets, houses, and public buildings provide valuable insights into ancient urban life. However, only a small fraction of Ephesus has been fully excavated, leaving much more to discover.
Tour to Epehesus
The Windstar Evening in Ephesus event takes place in the evening, where only Windstar passengers have access to the site. I would however, strongly recommend doing what we did, which is to visit during the day as well as it takes a minimum of two hours to explore Ephesus. In the evening the focus is the dinner and the musical performance, not exploring Ephesus. Ephesus is a very large archaeological site and there is so much to look at and take in.
I would also advise against booking the official Windstar excursion to Ephesus as there are better third party options. I found a private tour on Viator which included a guide and driver who picked us up from Kusadasi cruise terminal in a comfortable Mercedes minivan. The cost of the tour was a bargain £25 per person ($30 USD) but did not include the entry fee to Ephesus which costs €40 per person. The cost of our private tour was under half of what a group tour would have cost with Windstar. As it was a private tour (just my wife and I) it was completely tailored to our interests and we had the guide all to ourselves. Here is a link to the Ephesus from Kusadasi tour we booked on Viator. Our guide Yesra who was incredibly knowledgeable and full of insights about what we were seeing as she guided us around the complex.
Here are a few pictures from the day trip to Ephesus.
The Event Itself
After returning from our tour in the early afternoon we spent a few hours relaxing on the Star Legend before it was time to get ready for the evening in Ephesus. During the evening in Kusadasi Port, the Amphora restaurant is closed, so any guests who wish to remain on board for whatever reason had to register with reception so they could eat in either Candles or Amphora. The nice thing about this is that many of the crew were given the evening off duty.
At just after 6PM an announcement was made on the ship’s PA system telling us all to head ashore where coaches would be waiting for us. It was all very relaxed with crew guiding us to the fleet of coaches lined up outside the cruise terminal.
Ephesus is a 30 minute drive away from the port and on the way we had a guide onboard the coach providing some commentary about the history of Ephesus and the Turkish region of Izmir. When you tour Ephesus in the day you enter at the east entrance by the Upper Agora and make your way through the complex, finishing at theatre and Harbour Street. This is why it is important to visit during the day as during the Windstar event we entered Ephesus from the souvenir area by the theatre and Harbour Street. There is no opportunity to visit the rest of Ephesus during the evening which is very large and as I mentioned earlier takes a minimum of two hours to tour.
We were lucky
On the above map you will see an ancient road known as Harbour Road, this may be of importance to future cruisers looking to book a Windstar itinerary that includes the Ephesus Destination Discovery event. The Celsus library has a maximum capacity of 230 guests but Windstar’s Star-class yachts (Star Legend, Star Pride and Star Breeze) have a passenger capacity of 312. This means that if your cruise has more than 230 guests onboard you will be dining on Harbour Road and not in front of the Celsus library. For me personally there is a night and day difference between the two settings. On Windstar’s smaller yachts like the Wind Star and Wind Spirit this will never be an issue as their passenger capacity is well below the 230 capacity limit of the library.
My wife and I were lucky, extremely lucky. The number of passengers on our Star Legend sailing was . . . 230. One more passenger and we would have been dining on the Harbour Road instead of in front of the library.
Here you can see Harbour Street next to the Library of Celsus.
Anyway, turning our attention back to the event itself. We were on one of the last buses to depart from the port and arrived at around 7PM where we were guided from the coach park to the library. The area in front of the library is lower than the adjacent Marble Road and provides an excellent photo opportunity. Before taking our seats for dinner we all stood in a line, were given glasses of wine by waiters and had our picture taken in front of the library by a professional photographer. The line wasn’t very long as the coaches arrive at slightly different times. Remember, this event is included in the cruise fare so receiving three complimentary physical photographs taken by a professional photographer is a lovely addition, well done Windstar!
After having our picture taken we walked past three members of the Aegean Chamber Orchestra playing string instruments and found some seats at a table that wasn’t full. There is no assigned seating at this event, so it is a great opportunity to get to socialise with other passengers you haven’t spoken to before.
During the evening free wine, beer, tea, coffee, water and soft drinks are served. Whenever I had emptied my beer glass it was swiftly topped up by one of the attentive waiters. This event is staffed by employees from a local hotel, not Windstar crew, but they did an excellent job.
Before we were served dinner, a local representative gave a short speech about the history of Ephesus, the library and thanking Windstar and the various local companies that made the event possible. Behind him you can see where the orchestra members played from during the dinner service. The orchestra played for most of the evening, playing many pieces of well-known classical music.
The Food
At the beginning of our cruise a leaflet was waiting for us in our cabin explaining the event and detailing the menu. The menu is a set menu comprising of two starters, a main course and dessert. The starters are vegetarian but a vegetarian meal is available on request.
I don’t want to be negative because it was a spectacular evening and a true once in a lifetime event, but the food, to put it mildly wasn’t very good. I appreciate it is a challenging event to cater for as there are no onsite catering facilities but the standard of food fell short of the Windstar standard.
The main course was a veal stew. I do not eat meat and my wife doesn’t like veal, so we opted for the vegetarian main course. It was literally just a plate of flavourless steamed vegetables. The starters were traditional Turkish/Mediterranean fare and they were passable. The quality and presentation just wasn’t very good. It is slightly bizarre, all of this effort put into organising this amazing event, but so little effort put into the food.
All I know is that we were not alone in being disappointed with the food. Come for the experience, the setting, the company but don’t have any expectations when it comes to the food offering. My advice would be to have a little something to eat onboard beforehand.
For those who are interested here is the food menu.
Here are a couple of pictures of the food menu, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the main course, sorry!
The event began to wind down at around 9.30 PM and we were on the last bus that arrived back at the ship at around 10:30 PM. On the pier there were about 30 Windstar crew, along with the Hotel Manager forming a line to welcome us all back to the Star Legend. The Star Grill had also been opened for us serving late evening snacks and desserts. A nice touch Windstar.
I will never forget the evening in Ephesus, it was a remarkable experience and the highlight of the cruise. Thank you for reading, I hope it was useful for those looking to book a Windstar cruise that includes this unique event.
Before I end this post here are a few more pictures and a video from the evening.
