We booked our boat tickets the day before at the Kissamos harbour directly (26 euros per person for the full return boat trip). Balos is also accessible by road but the road is very rough for 12km so basically you can only go there with a 4WD. The boat leaves the port around 10:40pm so we arrive 15-20min before. The boat was not fully crowded but again in summer, it might be extremely busy so you might want to arrive a bit earlier to get in the front of the queue and secure a seat. This is one of this big boat where there is a sort of (disgusting) canteen in the middle floor inside the boat. We did not take any food with us as we thought the boat would sell some sandwiches but we were wrong. It was like a real canteen so all food were served in a plate and there were not any take-away options except snacks e.g. muffins or fruits. **TIPS** If you do not want to experience a crowded unpleasant canteen experience, pack your food & drinks with you for the day!
After a good 45min of boat drive, you arrive at the beautiful Balos lagoon. There, this is slightly scary to see the debarking of hundreds of tourists on a tiny small lagoon, esp. the sandy beach is quite narrow. However, the landscape is absolutely beautiful. Blue lagoon on your left and greenish very shallow transparent water on your right.
**TIPS** It is a good idea to position yourself to be debarking amongst the first passengers (or at least the first big wave) as you would have more options to settle. While we chose to settle in a narrow area right in front of the blue lagoon (between the two blocks of umbrella), you could also decide to settle on the other side of the shallower little lake (on the right when you arrive from the boat), this is more likely to be quieter.
Balos (Blue Lagoon)
**TIPS for any beach you are going to** We have these little transparent waterproof pockets where we put our phones and money in so that we can leave our towels/clothes and keep all valuables with us at all times and enjoy the sea together while leaving our towels on the beach.
Note that there is no shade at Balos so make sure you bring enough sun cream and a hat with you.
**TIPS** You can rent an umbrella from the boat for 4 euros for the day. We found it out at the end of the day but it could have been a good idea as the sun was very strong, esp. in the island later in the day.
You will be able to stay at Balos for about 2 hours and then you will re-embark the boat and after a short ride got to the peninsula's offshore island Imeri Gramvousa, located just in front of Balos. This stop is for another ~1h30.
There you can either relax on the tiny little beach (my advise is to go as far as possible in the beach to avoid the crowd) or climb to the ruins of a Venetian fortress built to protect against the pirates.
View from Imeri Gramvousa
We came back around 6-7PM to the harbour. It was a very good day, with a lot of sun!
In the evening (our last one in Kissamos), we went to Maria Beach Restaurant in Kissamos, located just in front of the sea (at the edge of Mavros Molos side). The food was really good. I had the prawns platter.
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