"Just to say… this is a long and detailed review.
The Mediterra Art Hotel is a beautiful place to stay. The rooms are comfortable, well-maintained, and thoughtfully equipped with complimentary air conditioning, bottled water, tea, and coffee; the courtyard terraces surrounding and overlooking the pool create a genuinely relaxing atmosphere. The cleaning staff deserve a special mention for being both efficient and friendly throughout our stay. In the past, during stays at similar hotels in Greece, we have never had our room cleaned and fully replenished every day, so it was really lovely. There was also a staff member at the bar who was very smiley and chatty, and even spoke to us when he saw us walking the streets outside of the hotel.
However, despite the hotel’s attractive setting, facilities and good first impressions, our overall experience was sadly overshadowed by several disappointing interactions and policies that left us feeling unwelcome.
The most noticeable issue was the attitude of many staff members. We rarely received a greeting unless we initiated one ourselves, and on several occasions staff appeared to actively avoid eye contact or acknowledgement, even when we smiled and said hello. Hospitality is often defined by the small interactions, and these consistently felt cold and dismissive.
Our first proper experience of the staff’s potential distrust in us came after we were accused on three separate occasions of smoking in our room. This is something that we would NEVER do. It smells, stains and lingers, and in our opinion is very disrespectful. In reality, the bathroom had become very steamy after showering and had triggered the alarm. Even when staff could clearly see us with wet hair and towels immediately after showering, the assumption remained that we had been smoking, which felt unfair and frustrating.
The next unfriendly and unreasonable experience involved two bottles of beer we purchased from a shop across the street in the late afternoon. We were informed that we could not take them up to the privacy of our own room, and the member of staff instead said that we had to consume them in the courtyard. We understand that places will have polices about what you can and cannot take into a hotel; we have read up on this subject quite extensively and got the understanding that you should be allowed to take alcohol to the privacy of your own room. We are also fairly well travelled and have never experienced this refusal before. To make it worse, the following evening, a barman referenced the incident with a comment along the lines of, “Oh yes, you tried to take beer up to your room.” This gave the impression that the situation had been discussed amongst staff and left us feeling somewhat judged rather than treated as valued guests.
The hotel’s terms and conditions are also inaccessible online, and are not visible or given to you upon arrival. Picture of website is attached.
Service at the bar was another area that felt unnecessarily formal. Rather than simply ordering and taking drinks ourselves, staff would prepare the drinks, process payment, ask where we intended to sit, and then carry the drinks over. While there is nothing inherently wrong with this service, in practice it felt rather long-winded and somewhat restrictive.
The checkout experience unfortunately reinforced our impression that we were not particularly trusted. We were asked to wait while a member of staff inspected our room before allowing us to leave. Although room checks may be standard practice in some places, it was not something we have encountered before. Once the inspection was complete, we were simply told that the room was fine and that we could go. There was no “thank you for staying with us,” “we hope you enjoyed your stay,” or “we hope to see you again”—just a brief goodbye, which felt disappointing and quite ungrateful after nearly two weeks at the hotel.
Finally, the location can be quite noisy. This is obviously not entirely within the hotel’s control, and generally it wasn’t a major issue for us as we were often out in the evenings. However, on one night when we returned early because we were feeling unwell, we were kept awake until very late by a group of guests talking loudly and laughing on the terrace directly outside our room. Given that music stops and the main lights are turned off at 1am, it was surprising that the noise continued well beyond that point without intervention.
Overall, the is a visually stunning hotel with comfortable rooms, excellent housekeeping, and lovely communal spaces. However, the atmosphere created by some staff interactions, combined with several restrictive policies and a general feeling of being viewed with suspicion rather than welcomed as guests, meant that our stay did not live up to the standard suggested by the hotel’s appearance. With warmer, more guest-focused service from certain staff members, this could have been an excellent experience."
