Wow! But...
This hotel makes an amazing first impression. Its crisp clean architecture, beautifully offset with honey-coloured wood and bamboo slatting, imaginatively interlinked with multi-level, freeform pools and lots of greenery, creates a luxury serene atmosphere. The location on the top of the hill offers expansive views of the countryside around Tsilivi. It’s a pity that the serenity is frequently interrupted by planes, low and almost directly overhead, landing and taking off from the nearby airport. Also, the serenity was interrupted at times by unnecessarily loud (and very boring) music from the virtually empty bar in the centre of the pools area. Most people were just relaxing on the sunbeds. The beat was difficult to ignore, however.
The rooms are spacious and comfortable with plenty of storage. The balconies are huge and ours was well shaded from the direct sun by olive trees making it comfortable to sit out at all times of the day. However, our room suffered from fickle air conditioning which took a lot of getting used too. Fiddle with the controls at your peril because the temperature settings bear no resemblance to the actual room conditions. We lurched form freezing cold to boiling hot which made sleeping a challenge at times. However, 3 visits from maintenance and some gentle adjustments eventually got things settled. The “sofa”, which I guess doubles up as an additional bed, is the most uncomfortable one I have ever sat on!
The food was a little disappointing. Breakfast was fantastic. Lots of choice. Fresh fruit, delicious yoghurts, fresh bread, pastries and deserts! Eggs are cooked to order in any way you want and brought to your table. The evening selection was very limited and seemed to repeat after about 3 days. It was full of flavour and there was plenty of salad but there were virtually no vegetables (unless you count pasta, rice and potato as a vegetable). As someone trying to manage diabetes through diet, I avoid these and rely on plenty of fresh vegetables. I don’t know whether it is Greek thing, but there were vegetables at breakfast but not in the evening! There was a wide range of very delicious deserts.
The dining room was much busier at breakfast than dinner suggesting that a large proportion of guests were bed and breakfast only. We also observed a turnover in guests which suggest that our 2-week stay is not the norm and may explain the repetitiveness of the dinner menu.
Be warned in you are on a bit of a budget. Extras are eye-wateringly expensive which, to our mind, led to a virtually empty bar (we stocked up in town and sat on our balcony for pre and post dinner drinks) and spa staff were wandering around touting for business and looking increasingly desperate! As a result, we found the lack of an inviting social space to meet up with new people in the evening rather disappointing. There was no evening entertainment at all.
The staff are wonderful. Without exception they are attentive, approachable and friendly with nothing too much trouble. They are the real standout in this hotel. The hill top setting does suggest that trips to the town are going to be arduous because the road down is winding and steep. However, we found that if you ask at reception, you can have a buggy ride down and on your return, a phone call to reception will see a buggy despatched to come and collect you. We went into Tsilivi for lunch and supplies virtually every day so we made full use of this service and got quite friendly with Eric, one of the drivers. Once again, his pleasant approach and friendly chatter made us feel very welcome.
There is no doubt that this is a beautiful hotel with excellent staff and an attentive approach to service. Overall, our niggles didn’t spoil our stay. They just took away some of the gloss.
