The Old Town
The Street of the Knights, the Palace of the Grand Master and the lanes behind them. Entirely walkable, and the one thing nobody regrets doing on a Rhodes port day.
Cruise arrivals Written for a fixed window ashore
Rhodes by bus on a cruise day
You come ashore beside a walled medieval city, which is unusually convenient — the thing most people have come to see is within walking distance of the ship. Everything on this page is about whether you should go further than that.
Work backwards from the all-aboard time, not forwards from the gangway. The question that decides a port day is not when you can get somewhere, it is which specific departure brings you back and what happens if you are not on it. On the corridors with only a handful of buses a day, there is no next one.
What you can reach on foot
Worth saying before anything about buses: for a large share of cruise passengers the correct answer is to take no transport at all. The Old Town is immediately inland of the berths, and it is a UNESCO-listed walled city you can spend a full day in without leaving.
Mandraki harbour
The windmills, the fort and the deer columns at the harbour mouth — and the area the bus departure points sit near, if you are going further.
The bus stands
Near Mandraki, and split between the two operators. Which one you want depends on where you are going — they are separate networks with separate tickets.
If you want to go further
All routes →These are the corridors cruise passengers ask about most. Each route page carries the same warning in a more specific form: check the return departure first, and treat the walk at the far end as part of the journey time.
Lindos
The acropolis, the white village and St Paul’s Bay — the island’s one unmissable day out.
Faliraki
The long sand beach closest to town, and the coves just south of it.
Tsambika
Deep sand under a monastery rock. Get the walk right and it is the best beach day on Rhodes.
Be honest with yourself about the margin
The public bus is an excellent way to see Rhodes and a poor way to guarantee being somewhere at a fixed time. If missing the return would mean missing the ship, that is the case for an excursion — not because the bus will not turn up, but because if it does not, nobody on the ship knows you are waiting for it.
Arriving by ship
Can I walk into Rhodes Old Town from the cruise berth?
Yes — the walls are right there, and for most ships the Old Town is a short walk from where you come ashore rather than something you need transport for. If your day ashore is only the Old Town, you need no bus at all, which is the best answer this page can give you.
Can I get to Lindos and back on a port day?
It depends entirely on your all-aboard time and on the departures running that day, and the margin is thinner than people expect. The return leg is the one that decides it: you are relying on a specific departure from Lindos, and if it is full or does not run, the next one may be after your ship has gone. On a short call, this is a real risk rather than a theoretical one.
Is the public bus the right choice on a cruise day?
For Rhodes Town and the near coast, yes — it is cheap, frequent enough, and the consequences of a delay are small. For anywhere that needs a specific return departure to get you back, an organised excursion buys you something the bus cannot: an operator whose problem it is if you are late, and a ship that knows where you are.
Where do the buses leave from, relative to the port?
All of them are in the Mandraki / New Market block, close to the berths — the two operators’ own published coordinates put their central stands roughly twenty metres apart. So this is not a case of walking across town: it is a case of standing at the right stand within one block, which means knowing which operator runs your service before you go looking. The routes page says which is which.
Checked against KTEL Rodou — official schedule ↗ and Municipality of Rhodes — Δ.Ε.Σ. ΡΟΔΑ publications ↗ on 18 August 2026. Timetables change with the season — confirm before you travel.