My husband and I chose Lotza Studios for a long awaited month off. We had been in e-mail communication with Gianna (who we assumed to be the manager) prior to arriving and she had been very helpful with her responses.
On arrival, we had arranged to be dropped off by taxi in the nearby carpark, as one has to travel by foot (or donkey!) through most of Finikia where Lotza Studios is located. We were met by a young local girl who walked us to Lotza, showed us our studio and pointed out how the hot water worked. We asked would we be seeing Gianna the next day, however we were not sure she understood as she didn't really respond. However, we were not too worried, as we assumed we'd see Gianna at some stage during the next day.
We didn't see Gianna once during the entirety of our month long stay. The only member of staff on site was the very pleasant cleaner, who however had no English. There was no information in the studio on basics:- where the local shop was, local restaurants, how to get around etc. The only thing we could find was a folder in Dutch, which seemed to be a review of local restaurants etc. done up by a previous visitor.
During our stay we had guests almost on a daily basis knocking on our door at all hours of the day and night, as there was no staff presence on site. This was because our studio's (Studio 3) proximity to the reception led guests to believe that it formed part of the reception. On two occasions, guests actually walked straight into the room while I was alone resting during the day. Suffice to say, I got quite a fright and we got to the stage where we were always worried that someone would knock on our door yet again.
We raised this issue by e-mail with Gianna a few days before departure, as we also didn't know how we were to pay the bill, due to lack of people on reception. We even suggested that perhaps she might make it more obvious where the reception was compared to the studios or make sure all guests were aware that there were no regular staff present, to stop this problem arising in the future. Her response to this was that we were the first people to complain!
On speaking to her later by phone to organise checkout, my husband again reiterated the problem and said he was surprised no one had mentioned this before, as it happened so often during our stay. Her response to this was that maybe it was just because we had stayed so long and most people only stayed for a few nights! She seemed to have no interest at all in following up the complaint.
We were not at all happy with this response and we now feel that her priorities are solely getting bookings and taking payment : anything that happens during your stay is your own problem. We found this attitude to be very bizarre for someone in the hospitality industry and indeed the whole set up with no staff, apart from a cleaner on site to be very unusual and certainly not the norm based on our previous stays on the Greek islands.
Lotza Studios certainly show a unique view of Santorini life from a local perspective, but it needs to re-evaluate its attitude towards the care of guests.
