Booked and stayed here late september based on all the positive reviews on trip advisor and in all honesty my family and i completely fail to see what all the fuss is about. From the moment we arrived there were problems. We were left stranded on the dock when we were supposed to have had someone there to collect us. Thankfully a taxi driver who had seen we were completely stranded assisted us and contacted the hotel and asked them to come and collect us. When they arrived they said they had been there waiting but couldn't find us and took off. We knew that was complete nonsense as we were first off the boat and were scouting for the van immediately.... the place is just too small to be able to have missed it. Anyway upon our arrival we found the village to be very quaint, well maintained (and quite pretty from within) and certainly conveniently located.
Upon arrival and then being shown to our villa it became immediately evident there were major noise issues with our villa...and for the entire property. Many of the villas were backed directly onto the main road. So i immediately went back to the reception. I asked were there any quiet villas and expressed concern we were unlikely to be able t get sleep with all the noise inside our villa from the traffic. The owner responded in a rather ridiculing and unobliging fashion saying the villas were not noisy and we won't notice it. I again said its going to be pretty hard for us to sleep here but he again dismissed my concerns and basically blew me off. After that I knew there was no point pushing it any further. Very unimpressed with the uncaring attitude particularly seeing the place looked to 70% empty and other potentially quieter villas in the centre of the property available. It was if they wanted the guests that were there under there watchful eye. Now maybe we are missing something here with all the glowing reviews reporting serenity, comforts, fantastic breakfasts and so on but after 1 week i can assure you all of that is a major fallacy and i must seriously question the authenticity of these reviews. I can 100% assure you this place is anything but serene or quiet and logically how can it possibly ever be quiet when the villa bedroom walls provide the direct boundary to the main roadway that runs alongside the village? Anything that has wheels goes past the place from dawn to dusk into late evening reverberating into the villas, echoing all around the courtyard and throughout the entire place. It's very very noticeably noisy, not peaceful at all. Between the hours of midnight and 3 am it is quiet but that is it. We were so thankful we had kept some earplugs from our international flight or we would not have slept a wink the whole stay and even then it wasn't easy as the noise penetration into the bedrooms from the passing motorbikes and vehicles was unrelenting, unbelievable!....so you would always be waking, conscious of the noise. Then there are the barking dogs that are also unrelenting in both evening and daytime hours making even daytime relaxation difficult.Then to the beds. They would have to be THE most uncomfortable hardest beds we have EVER slept on during our past 2 years and 2 months traveling through the greek islands. The so called sofa bed was simply un-sleepable. Even our young daughter who has proven she can sleep on basically anything found her limit here. It was not even a fold out with a mattress, but just a lounge that had incredibly uncomfortable saggy cushioning. And these reports of sumptuous breakfasts are complete fantasy. The breakfasts were the worst we have ever had anywhere in Greece without any shadow of a doubt. There were 2 people (one being the gardener come chef come baggage handler come cleaner etc) always in the kitchen but neither would offer any service or oblige any requests and neither possessed any customer service skills whatsoever. If you ask can you please make me an egg, or is there any bread, or is there any anything.... because everything what was there was so tired it was inedible, you just get glared at and told no. The same old fruit in the fruit bowl everyday... same thing with the cake tray. A small litter of left over broken cake pieces in one tray that nobody wanted yet were continually put back out day after day. The only thing you could eat were some stale pieces of bread rolls, and the jams were hopeless....again nobody wanted them....and you could see why. The honey bottle had this lid with a slide lever which only allowed the tiniest trickle to be extracted after 5 minutes of desperately trying to get some out!!!The coffee was also very ordinary. Any eggs that were there were so cold and unappetising you wouldn't think of touching them. Same went with the boiled eggs. Cold and undoubtedly the same ones that were there a week ago. We weren't the only guests to see this either but most, like ourselves recognised the unfriendly unobliging nature of the two men in the kitchen and just raised their eyebrows in misbelief seeing the same old food being put out day after day. What we couldn't understand was how was it the shops down the road had an abundance of fresh fruit, bread, jams, cereal and so on yet none were able to find way to this place to feed the guests at breakfast. Very very strange indeed. The air-conditioning was useless as well. There was just the one split unit upstairs that was somehow meant to feed the downstair area....too bad if you were trying to sleep downstairs on the other terribly uncomfortable lounge. The shower was tinsy tinny but had a good nozzle but the water was very heavily chlorinated, i suspect fed from the pool perhaps? And the toilet had this crazy push button on the side that made it impossible to press without breaking your fingers. the girls had major problems with that. And then the stair case leading too the upper level was so dangerous. If you took a slip on that in the middle of the night going to the toilet downstairs you would wing up seriously injured. My wife missed a step and nearly broke her ankle. There is no handrail or anything and the tiles are very sharp on the edges....a serious safety hazard even in daytime. All i can say about Iapetos villas is they look pretty and have nice well maintained gardens and have some nice views overlooking the mountains but so far as providing comfort for the guests they fall a long way short of the mark in very basic and key areas. While Symi island was a truly fantastic island, in-fact a highlight island out of the 5 dodecanese we visited during our one months stay, i must say Lapetos villas is an epic fail in providing the customer the basics in comfort, safety, and an acceptable level of customer service. Thankfully Symi island and the local friendliness of the place provided the back up necessary feel good. Symi is truly an amazing must see island with some incredibly beautiful beaches and views. Don't miss it!....but I'm sure there are better accommodation opportunities to be had. Im sure the owners will chime in to deny all this but instead of doing that they should deal with the truth and at least fix the problems they can (super hard beds, lousy food, woeful customer service skills, air cond and try to do something about insulating the noise penetration into the villas!!
