"Let me start with the positives, because, to be fair, there are some.
The hotel is situated on one of the most beautiful stretches of coastline on the second leg of Halkidiki, at Agios Ioannis. The sea is absolutely stunning — crystal clear, calm and almost pool-like — with beautiful sand and a view that is genuinely difficult to tire of.
The hotel itself is brand new, attractive and very well designed. One particularly clever feature is that, whichever balcony you happen to have, you can enjoy the view without being roasted by the sun. A small but genuinely thoughtful detail.
There are swimming pools for both adults and children, and a lifeguard is present throughout the day. The grounds are beautifully landscaped, with lawns and gardens that are clearly well maintained.
The room was also excellent in terms of cleanliness. Housekeeping was thorough every day, towels were changed regularly and two complimentary bottles of water were provided daily.
One practical point worth mentioning is the parking. There is no covered parking, which can be rather inconvenient under the intense Greek summer sun, particularly when you return to a car that has been sitting outside for hours.
To be fair, however, the hotel does offer a chauffeur service to help guests get around, which is a genuinely useful and appreciated facility. It certainly helps compensate for the lack of covered parking and is one of the more thoughtful services the hotel provides.
And this is more or less where the five-star experience ends.
Because a hotel can, of course, tick every box required to call itself five-star. But true luxury is not about ticking boxes. It is about service, organisation, anticipation and those small details that make a guest feel genuinely looked after.
And unfortunately, this is where the hotel falls rather spectacularly short.
The Arrival
We arrived slightly earlier than the official check-in time. The staff kindly tried to prepare the room, so we waited at reception. Perfectly understandable.
What was less understandable was that, in the middle of the Greek summer, in a supposedly five-star hotel, nobody thought to offer us even a glass of water while we waited.
No water. No juice. Nothing.
In every decent hotel we have stayed at, there is some form of welcome gesture — a glass of water, a juice, something. Not because the cost is significant, but because it demonstrates basic hospitality and respect for the guest.
Apparently, here, even water requires a little more imagination.
The Umbrella Situation
Then we discovered the pool and beach arrangements.
There was no proper system for allocating umbrellas to rooms. No reservation system, no designated umbrella per room, nothing.
The result was entirely predictable: guests arguing over umbrellas, with some people occupying them and removing the towels left by others.
One would have thought that a five-star hotel might have anticipated this rather obvious problem.
Instead, guests were apparently expected to conduct their own little version of The Hunger Games: Halkidiki Edition every morning.
Even worse, several of the pool showers were broken. Guests were consequently forced to queue around the few that actually worked. And despite this continuing throughout our stay, there appeared to be no serious attempt to repair them.
For a brand-new hotel, this is rather difficult to understand.
And then came the beach.
When we couldn't find an umbrella on the beach, we were offered a private cabana with a daybed for the rather charming price of €120.
Naturally, we asked what the €120 included.
The answer?
Nothing.
Yes, absolutely nothing.
No drinks. No fruit. No complimentary water. No ice. No additional service whatsoever.
Just a cabana and a daybed.
Now, I have absolutely no objection to expensive beach beds. At certain upmarket beach bars, you can happily pay a substantial amount for a premium sunbed close to the sea. But at least there you generally receive something for your money: perhaps drinks on ice, chilled bottled water, a fruit platter or some other form of service.
Here, apparently, the €120 buys you the privilege of sitting somewhere slightly nicer because the hotel hasn't organised its ordinary umbrellas properly.
There is a certain elegance required when charging €120 for nothing.
Or, as British says: if you're going to rob someone, at least have the decency to make it look expensive.
The Beds
There is also a rather basic issue with the beds which, frankly, should have been noticed long before any guest had to point it out.
The beds are essentially two single beds pushed together, with two separate mattresses. This inevitably creates a gap in the middle. The solution they have chosen does not properly cover or eliminate that gap, which makes the bed noticeably less comfortable and, rather surprisingly, affects the quality of sleep.
This is not exactly a complicated engineering problem. It is the sort of detail one would expect a hotel supervisor to notice, test and resolve before guests start discovering it at 2am.
Unfortunately, we never actually saw the floor supervisor during our stay.
Either the supervisor does not exist, or — and this would perhaps explain a few things — the supervisor exists but is not particularly fond of supervising.
For a hotel aiming at five-star standards, details such as this should not require a guest review to bring them to someone's attention. The bed should be tested, the problem identified and a proper solution provided.
After all, guests do not usually ask for much from a hotel bed.
They simply expect it to be comfortable enough to sleep in.
Apparently, even that requires a little more supervision here.
The Room
The room itself was very good in terms of cleanliness, although even here there were some rather curious choices.
On arrival, we found six espresso capsules. Next to them was a little notice informing us that every additional capsule would cost €2.
Nothing says five-star luxury quite like counting coffee capsules.
The fridge was completely empty as well. Again, technically there is nothing wrong with that. But when you are staying in a hotel with virtually nothing nearby, one would reasonably expect at least some basic refreshments to be available.
Instead, apparently, the minibar has embraced minimalism.
Breakfast
Breakfast was another mixed experience.
To be fair, the buffet was extensive and there was plenty of food. However, it was extremely noisy and, more importantly, almost completely repetitive. The same dishes appeared every day, with very little variation in the desserts and surprisingly little variety of seasonal fruit.
After several mornings, breakfast began to feel less like a five-star buffet and more like a very efficient demonstration of the concept of copy and paste.
And then there was the coffee.
The coffee was, quite frankly, one of the biggest disappointments.
It was dispensed from a machine, with guests queuing one behind another to get a cup. In a hotel of this category, I would expect coffee to be served at the table.
And yes, we did ask for a Greek coffee.
There was an additional charge.
For Greek coffee. In Greece. In a five-star hotel.
I suppose the next logical step would be charging extra for the privilege of saying kalimera to reception.
There was plenty of staff in the breakfast room, but their presence did not necessarily translate into efficient service. Around 10am, as breakfast approached its closing time, the restaurant became increasingly busy and finding a table was difficult.
To give credit where it is due, guests were allowed sufficient time to finish their breakfast rather than being hurried out. On one occasion, however, the lights were switched off at around 10:30.
We shall generously classify that as an unfortunate incident rather than evidence of a new approach to breakfast service.
The Pool Bar
And then there is the pool bar, where the pricing deserves a special mention.
The prices were, to put it politely, rather ambitious.
For example, a pint of beer served in a plastic cup, with what appeared to be roughly half the cup occupied by foam, was charged at €7.
€7 for a plastic cup of beer, half of which seemed determined to remain foam.
At that price, one might reasonably expect at least a proper glass, a perfectly poured pint and perhaps someone to present it with the sort of ceremony normally reserved for a bottle of champagne.
Instead, you get a plastic cup, a generous head of foam and the comforting knowledge that your €7 has been very efficiently converted into air.
Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with charging premium prices at a five-star hotel. Guests understand that drinks by the pool will cost more.
But premium pricing usually comes with premium service.
Here, the prices seemed considerably more five-star than the actual experience.
Apparently, even the foam comes with a luxury surcharge.
The Lobby
There was also another rather unfortunate aspect of the hotel experience: some guests seemed to believe that the lobby sofas were their personal sitting rooms, complete with feet casually placed on the furniture.
Obviously, the hotel cannot be held responsible for the manners of every individual guest. However, a genuinely five-star property should also manage the atmosphere and standards of its communal areas. A discreet intervention from staff would have been entirely appropriate.
The Real Problem
The staff themselves, I must stress, were generally very pleasant. They were polite, friendly, smiling and willing to help.
But that alone is not enough.
Good manners cannot compensate for poor organisation.
And that, ultimately, is the biggest problem with this hotel.
It has the location.
It has the beach.
It has the architecture.
It has the pools.
It has the gardens.
It has the brand-new rooms.
It even has plenty of friendly staff.
What it appears to lack is proper operational organisation.
There seems to be no consistent methodology for dealing with the everyday details of running a five-star property.
Broken showers remain broken.
Umbrella allocation is left to the guests.
Breakfast becomes chaotic.
Coffee is treated as a vending-machine product.
Basic gestures of hospitality are overlooked.
Beds are designed in a way that leaves an uncomfortable gap between two mattresses.
The minibar is empty.
Extra coffee capsules are charged €2.
Greek coffee costs extra.
And when a shortage of umbrellas occurs, the solution appears to be a €120 daybed offering absolutely nothing beyond somewhere to sit.
That is not luxury.
That is simply a collection of expensive facilities without the service culture required to bring them together.
The irony is that the hotel has everything it needs to be genuinely exceptional. The location is spectacular, the facilities are beautiful and the property itself is new.
But there is a world of difference between looking like a five-star hotel and actually operating like one.
At the moment, this hotel seems to have mastered the former rather better than the latter.
Five stars for the location and facilities. Considerably fewer for organisation, service and attention to detail.
A beautiful hotel, sitting on a spectacular beach, with enormous potential.
It is just a shame that the management seems to have forgotten that guests are not merely there to admire the building.
They are there to be looked after.
And perhaps that is the most frustrating part of all.
The ingredients are there for an outstanding hotel. What is missing is someone in charge who actually puts the ingredients together."
