Hotel Arathena

If you are looking for a relaxing holiday in a scenic place this is for you . We had the most amazing 2 weeks . The staff are so friendly& helpful . The hotel is peaceful & relaxing with a beautiful pool area . Bedrooms are beautifully rustic & are kept very clean

This hotel is run below its potential. First the good points: it's a quite unique design and quirky which makes it interesting; it's a quiet location; there's a short walk to the centre for restaurants, bars and the square; the pool is adequate; the restaurant area is a great space; the room we had was spacious, clean and functional (albeit tired and in need of an update), it also had a ground floor external area to sit out in, there were rooms with better views, but that's the luck of the draw; the breakfast was exceptional. The not so good points: on arrival the first thing you're told is that you will need to either hire a car (assuming that you do not want to stay at the hotel or town all the time) at 100 euros per day, or get a taxi at a minimum of 65 euros per trip to the local beach; you are also told there is no bus service (but there is and it takes some working out, but if you are able to use apps it's possible to use the bus); the staff are generally helpful but not in every regard; the restaurant in the evening was poorly promoted and fairly expensive, but so is dining out generally; their internal bar areas are not appealing or well staffed and there is no atmosphere, so consequently during our stay it was not well used. Their prices for drinks are slightly more than the town, and their wine was poor quality for the price. Also on arrival you are offered sailing trips, one with transfers from the hotel to the port and one without transfers offered. We went for the one with transfers and this is how it panned out: two for the sail boat trips with transfers 130 euros each. Let me keep it short and just say it was not as advertised and not worth the money.

Arriving late at night to the hotel we literally got taken to our room. After travelling all day and arriving to temps of over 30 degrees we weren’t even offered a glass of water! Rooms were lovely, well equipped and spacious. Paid for a balcony but ours was not big enough to sit out on, we would have been touching knees. Rooms were well cleaned every day and mini bars replenished daily (although you pay for everything in mini bar). Breakfast was lovely, big choice. Staff were lovely. There were signs up saying you CANNOT take food from the restaurant. The pool area is lovely but only 17 sun beds and half had been replaced with hardboard where rattan had obviously come apart. Although they had cushions on top, those ones were so hard and uncomfortable to lie on. They need to invest in new ones and either some more or some reclining chairs (as there is not an enormous amount of space). There was only about 4 umbrellas which is not enough especially as the temperature is so high throughout the summer. You can only get a drink between 10 and 3 by either using whatever is in your mini bar or asking at reception who will and said they will only serve basics. The proper bar opens at 3pm for any drinks and a few snacks like toasted sandwiches and mozzarella/tomatoes. There is a very small supermarket about 4 min walk, it does not have a lot of choice but have some basics. It’s open 8-1 then closed until 5-8 so very limited. So you need to think carefully about food and drink when booking this hotel. No pool towels are available and there is nowhere that I could find in the village that sold them. The village is very pretty and we ate in 5 restaurants and they were all very good. Local wine is very good. There was a few shops all pretty expensive. High end clothes shops, swimwear shops, linen clothes shops. A pretty square and it is quite buzzy at night. Restaurants need to be booked. It’s rare to get a table but just walking in. The pool area is very very quiet, you find yourself whispering which isn’t that comfortable. In the bar area they have background music and I think they should extend it to pool area to make it more relaxing. The restaurant at the hotel is lovely. Independent from the hotel, it’s high end but great quality food and wines. They give a discount if you are staying at the hotel. The day we were leaving we asked reception could someone come and help with our luggage and the lady said “the man isn’t here”. I asked her is there not another man on site, she said she would call me back. It was 3 or 4 flights of stairs. After a while she called back and said “I found a man”. To say I was grateful is an understatement. So I would say it’s a very pretty hotel in quite a rural setting. Breakfast is great but found food/drink for rest of the day needed thought. It would be good if you could purchase crisps or savory snacks at hotel or if they extended the bar hours and menu. Sunbeds & umbrellas need ad