Minoan Lines Schedules 2026

Minoan Lines was founded in 1972 in Heraklion and still carries Crete’s name in its own. Since 2008 it has been controlled by the Grimaldi Group’s Compagnia di Navigazione, which holds 95.9% of the stock — a Cretan company under Neapolitan ownership, running both the island’s lifeline to Athens and a share of the Adriatic corridor to Italy.

Nine and a half hours to Crete

The core route is Piraeus to Heraklion and back, timetabled at 555 to 570 minutes — between nine and nine and a half hours, run overnight. Seven departures appear in each direction in our data. The ships that made this crossing what it is, Knossos Palace and Festos Palace, have worked the line since 2001.

Milos is the newer piece

Three of the routes here reach Milos in the Cyclades, which sits conveniently between the two ends of the Crete run. Piraeus to Milos takes 240 to 270 minutes, the return 270 to 285, and Heraklion to Milos 260 to 280 with the reverse at 300 to 310. That last pair is worth noticing: the same water takes up to fifty minutes longer westbound, so a symmetric return plan will be wrong.

The Adriatic runs are a different business

Patras to Ancona and back are timetabled at 1,290 minutes — twenty-one and a half hours, effectively two nights and a day at sea — with Ancona to Igoumenitsa at 930. These are cabin voyages carrying freight and vehicles across the Adriatic corridor, not island hops, and the company runs them alongside the Crete service from the same fleet of eight vessels.

What is missing from this listing

Our data holds the Ancona departures and the Patras return but no Igoumenitsa-to-Ancona leg, even though the corridor is worked in both directions. The Trieste extension of the Adriatic route is absent as well. Treat the Italian side of this page as partial and check the operator for the northbound legs.

Discounts are structural, not seasonal

The company runs a standing set of fare reductions rather than occasional sales: student awards tied to the Panhellenic examinations, family and group rates in economy seating, island-hopping combinations, and a separate reduction on carrying a car on the Piraeus–Milos line. On a nine-hour overnight crossing where the accommodation class is most of the price, which reduction you qualify for changes the fare more than which day you sail.