Even though we were a bit appaled by the varitey of different comments written about this hotel, I simply felt obliged to write my review regarding this astonishing place.
I must add that the prices may be a bit high at the peak of the season, but they are perfectly available throughout the year.. We have just come back from the hotel and the hospitality was just lovely and warm. People at the reception have been more than willing to take us on a tour around the hotel, and I again must say to those who wrote bad comments about the personnel that this may be due to a small number of guests, so maybe they had plenty of time to "waste" with us, which may not be the case during the summer.
The restaurants offered the varity of meals and I really accentuate this, since I have heard comments from wealthier and perhaps more reliable guests, that this buffet is absolutely thrilling and refreshing. If you like, you can go downstairs and go for a swim or enjoy turkish hamam and sauna.
We had a superior room which was spacious and comfortable, and I have to say that it was very cosy and warm and it was the 2nd of January.
I recommend this hotel and advise people to go and enjoy, even for a while.

Staff and manager don't care about anyone or anything.
At the beginning they gave us an awful room that smelled bad. It took them 3 out of our 7 nights to solve our problems with the shower.
Everything is so expensive that other guests preferred to walk to Nikiti to go to the super market. Even water is overpriced. Food is so poor that we had the same dishes, for 3 days, altered (adding sauce etc.).
They are only polite until they sell you their junk. You have to pay for everything there. Even for a beach towel and you for the "free Wi-Fi". Internet speed is not faster than the stinky turtle they have at the reception.
You have to try to find a waiter in the restaurant. I will not say much about their appearance or behavior. TERRIBLE!
Every night we had noise from the tavern.
I felt like a walking wallet there.
Children were bored.
No disco or any other night facilities.
Rooms are so old you can find mould in them. This is not HEALTHY.
You can find no one to speak about your problems.
Hotel is overrated and overpriced. I stayed in a lot of 5 star hotels in Greece and in my experience this hotel should have three stars. Book a room from a Serbian site. They pay half the price from the rest.
The hotel is located between Nikiti and Marmara (around 10 klm from both) and there are no shops, restaurants or bars nearby.

In general I was very happy staying at this hotel. Before going I studied reviews from Tripadvisor and was aware of a few issues with standard rooms that I might have. So I thought that if I was not satisfied with the room I would try to upgrade it to a superior one or better, however after I had checked in I changed my mind - mainly because of the size of the balcony of that room, that was one of the biggest in the hotel (room 106: ground floor, main building) and beautiful trees (sycamore and pine trees) that were growing around the balcony, giving me the opportunity to enjoy beautiful scent of conifer trees. Another big advantage of that room was wi-fi internet, that was available right in the room and the balcony - and not only in the lobby (internet is charged: 1 hour=3 euro, 5 hours=10 euro). Another advantage for me was that the bed was wooden and not metal, exactly as I wanted.

My overall impression of the hotel was that it was a little, just a little bit less than 5 stars, but at the same time already not 4 (I stayed in a 4* hotel in Corfu so I had some comparison). Perhaps 4+ Or, if to put it more presicely - 5 stars can be definetely given to all types of accomodation but standard ones that still have room for improvement.

Facilities:

In my opinion the hotel has everything that one might need for a good holiday. There are 2 restaurants (one for buffet breakfasts and dinners, another - a la carte) and 3 bars working in a hotel, there are 3 swimming pools (1 exclusively for maisonette guests), gym and SPA, hairdresser and laundry service. The hotel also has an interesting museum of old things - definetely worth visiting. There is a mini-market on the territory where you can buy all the basic things and also souvenirs. If you like animation you may be disappointed since there is only 1 animation per week: a Greek evening combined with dinner. No aqua aerobics or other staff like that was seen. Some other Russian guests spotted some yoga people near the maisonnettes the other day but I assume it was the group of enthusiasts doing yoga on their own. No activities at the beach. There is also a small movie-theatre in the hotel where one can watch movies free of charge. Also you can have a few drinks at the bar or taverna if you wish.

Territory:

Superb. Many conifers with fantastic smell arond the hotel. Territory is beautiful and well-kept. Actually one day I happened to pass through the territory of another 5* hotel, Porto Carras, that is not so far from Neos Marmaras. I passed along the beach (some might like it since it is sandy and big) and hotel SPA and was unimpressed, especially after I had seen Athena Pallas territory.

Btw: a couple of very cute turtles live in the corner at the reception area.

Service:

Staff is definetely the hotel's main asset. Polite, efficient and quick. At all times handled whatever request I had with utmost professionalism and always found a solution for whatever I needed. Laundry service is to my taste a bit expensive - wherever else I was 'washing' meant that the clothes would be given back also pressed but this time I had to pay extra for it to be ironed. Rooms cleaning: impeccable.

Beach:

Pebble, but absolutely not as bad as some people write here. Yes, there are not so many sunbeds and umbrellas available and in July there might be some lack of this, but in September there were no problem. Chairs and parasols are charged: 5 euro for two people, 3 euro if you take just one chair. Many guests preferred off-chair stay nearby. The hotel beach was relatively clean, but if you stroll away to the unsurveyed municipal beaches to the left and further you may be disappointed as they seem to never have been cleaned. To get to the hotel beach one needs to cross a small and not so busy road or use a tunnel - and then descend a staircase. There is a small beach bar where you can get some snacks and drinks. If you are a coffee person - ask the gentleman working at the bar to make you some frappe (iced coffee). I think he makes the best one in the area.

A couple of hundreds meters to the right from the hotel beach there is another beach that belongs to Lily Ann hotel. There are also sunbeds available (charged) and there is a nice beach bar that works until midnight.

Rooms:

As I said, standard rooms may have some flaws. 'May' because a couple of my countrymen showed me their standard rooms that differed from mine and neither had those flaws nor had the above-mentioned advantages. Back to my room: furniture was of malachite green colours and not dark if you find the light switch:-) So no problems for me to read in the evenings. At the daytime it was somewhat dark but that was not because of the room but because of the trees. But I still vote for the trees;-)
TV: never watched so don't know what happened there and what channels are available.
Safe: electronic and free of charge.
Minibar: supply is as everywhere else, but I didn't like red wine.
Bath-tub: not present
Shower-cabin and shower: working well but are outdated and in desperate need for replacement. Bathrobes and slippers: normally not available in standard rooms.
Room size: in my opinion is a little bit small.
Air-conditioner: a stationary floor air-conditioner with centralised (!) temperature control. So you can either manipulate with fan, make it blow either stronger or weaker, or turn the machine off. But you can't change the temperature. But I should say the temperature is chosen well.
Bed: Split beds, not too narrow, but I would still prefer a whole king-size bed for just pampered me.
There were absolutely none of those sound problems that some reviewers described. Nobody ever disturbed my sleep. However I do not know whose idea it was to have bathrooms' windows face the corridor - so whenever I walked along the corridor I could have heard people's activity in the bathrooms. My bathroom faced my own balcony so again I was lucky:-)

Food:

Doxato is an excellent restaurant, I liked the quality of food but to me there could have been a little more variety of choice. Still the food was very tasty and well cooked. Most of all I liked pancakes with chocolate for breakfast, they were just delicious. Although there was a good choice of meat dishes, if you are a vegetarian you will feel fine too - the choice of vegetables and fruit is very good and that is an advantage.

The hotel taverna is great for lunch but if you would also like to see what's around I would recommend a taverna that is located about 1 km from the hotel. If you turn left from the hotel (hotel entrance at your back and sea in front), and walk along the subordinate road, you will pass some apartment blocks and fish taverna (that, perhaps, you can try too) then after a while you will see a taverna on the right, with a beautiful sea-view verrandah, right behind the sign saying something like 'slow down...children crossing' and a zebra crossing on the right.

Location:

Hotel is located between Nikiti (7 km) and Neos Marmaras (9 km). Very unfortunately for debit and credit cards admirers there is no ATM in the hotel. Cards are accepted but if you need something from the mini-market you are not lucky:-) So get some cash from home or get to the closest towns. Don't listen if somebody says you are in trouble if you don't hire a car. If you hire that is really great but if you don't you still can use the bus and go around. But beware of its schedule (goes 3 times a day). Staff in the bus speak English. There is also a shuttle bus going from the hotel to Neos Marmaras (6 euro for the round trip). Also you can use a taxi. If you want to see famous sights but don't drive you need to find out the English-speaking travel agencies to book guided tours from. You could do your homework or ask the reception staff to help you.

Prices: a little bit above average. Hotel prices are not so much higher than the prices in the area. But in general prices are a little higher than in Corfu where I was before.

Separately I would like to say special thanks to the hotel management and staff for what is done for tourists from Russia and CIS - there are two staff members at the front desk who speak very good Russian and that definetely helps the Russian-speaking tourists feel more comfortable. I also spotted a Russian flag by the hotel that was very pleasant too.

So overall I pretty much enjoyed my stay, the weather was way better than I expected, at the day time 9 days out of 10 the temperature was about +30 even in the end of September (1 day we enjoyed spectacular thunderstorms); I can definetely recommend this hotel to my friends. But I think that in a 5* hotel I would vote for:

- free beach chairs
- free beach towels (and not 1 euro per exchange)
- free internet (actually it used to be free but at some point in time this practice was stopped)
- bathrobes and slippers in standard rooms
- bath tubs in standard rooms
- dress code for dinner
- ATM in the hotel
- carpet on the way to the rooms replaced (main building)

For the second year in a row we had good times in this hotel. It is for families with kids, so if you are not with that group, maybe you should choose something else. Hotel is great, staff is great. Room was excellent (superior is much better then ordinary double), specious, and cleaned every day. This year we had impression that the maids were not so meticulous, they just cleaned the floor with out moving anything, so below table was dirt, around was clean. This year they start to charge for towel change, internet and hotel beach, obviously the economic crises had to do something with that. But those changes are superficial; they do not affect your stay almost at all. What needs improvement is the tavern at the hotel. This is the only place to eat lunch at hotel, and the choices of food are small, there is no soup that you can order, maybe once a week. And when you are with kinds, nice, different lunch every day is very important. I don’t think that chicken nuggets and burgers which are on “kids menu” are good. So praise, to all the Athena Pallase village staff, for great service, if this hotel should have better hotel beach, it would be a dream come true, but then again it would be more expensive. So I recommend it 100%.