(First night at Giannis Apartments, second night at Hotel Corali, owned by same person - Gianni). This is about trust; the way in which the hotel went from being wonderfully welcoming, to being totally dishonest and untrustworthy; in the space of 24hrs. Being advised at 830pm on the second night that we would need to move to another hotel was not what we were expecting. The previous night had been fine, but we were told we’d need to move to another room (in the same hotel) on the second night, in part due to my late request for a twin room for my son and I, in part the request from the occupant of the room we were due to move into, to stay another night. We duly packed our bags on the second morning and handed them to Gianni/Father/Basil-Fawlty for him to transfer to our new room, and left for the day. We arrived back, after a full day out, at 830pm and were told, by Gianni/Basil, that we would have to move to another hotel as the occupant (who had already extended their stay by 1 night, remember; suspicious) had been taken ill. I will keep the details to this: we were given inconsistent information - firstly they said it was the old lady who was ill; then apparently it was the young boy; we then saw the family in that room walking out for the evening, seemingly...(First night at Giannis Apartments, second night at Hotel Corali, owned by same person - Gianni). This is about trust; the way in which the hotel went from being wonderfully welcoming, to being totally dishonest and untrustworthy; in the space of 24hrs. Being advised at 830pm on the second night that we would need to move to another hotel was not what we were expecting. The previous night had been fine, but we were told we’d need to move to another room (in the same hotel) on the second night, in part due to my late request for a twin room for my son and I, in part the request from the occupant of the room we were due to move into, to stay another night. We duly packed our bags on the second morning and handed them to Gianni/Father/Basil-Fawlty for him to transfer to our new room, and left for the day. We arrived back, after a full day out, at 830pm and were told, by Gianni/Basil, that we would have to move to another hotel as the occupant (who had already extended their stay by 1 night, remember; suspicious) had been taken ill. I will keep the details to this: we were given inconsistent information - firstly they said it was the old lady who was ill; then apparently it was the young boy; we then saw the family in that room walking out for the evening, seemingly fit and healthy; also that the hotel we were being moved to was better than this one . Gianni/Father/Basil is the type of character who is okay as long as he gets what he wants. Argue against him that it is not our problem to sort, but his, and he doesn’t like it. He’ll claim he has 57 years working in the trade - yet still hasn’t learnt how to treat his guests respectfully and fairly. (His son/Angelos?/Polly-Fawlty-style, welcomed us wonderfully initially, and I do wonder that had he been left to run things, this would never have happened.) We held our ground that we were not going to move hotel, but matters soon descended to a shouting match, in which it seemed the whole family intervened. But they would not budge, they played the ill-guest card, and out of empathy we felt there was little else we could do. We got a €30 discount, but only on asking - they should have offered this up front. My big mistake was to not check the reviews for the other hotel, had I done this I’d have realised how bad it was. The hotel we were moved to (Hotel Corali) was nowhere near the same quality. The hole in the shower room was 12” wide, and we could hear our neighbour at full volume, including conversations, full bowel movements, getting jiggedy, and possible climaxing (not sure about that last one, but the noises were certainly most strange ). All in all a very unpleasant stay. These things can often go over-stated but I’ve genuinely never experienced such poor hotel management in my life. Our thinking was that the occupants of the room we were due to move into had just wanted to stay for longer, and the lies about the illness were a cover up. I have no doubt that the inevitable reply from Gianni/Basil will claim differently, but make no mistake, this is a hotel to be avoided. If you can’t trust them to honour the booking that you make, avoid it at all costs. We have since found to our horror that other people have experienced similar issues (see reviews of Hotel Corali), being moved to the same hotel, into the same room with the hole (incidentally, as I write this, we have just had a conversation with the neighbours via the 12” hole - they are French but speak English and we wished one another goodnight). Sadly it would seem the entire family is complicit; he pulled in his daughter to further argue his case for him; and his son had assured us our bags would be transferred into the second room. We were well and truly conned, please don’t be the next ones to fall into this over-booking trap.
Postscript: we later walked past the hotel keeping our heads down and keen to forget this sorry affair, but Gianni insisted on haranguing us, saying that a boy had been taken to Athens hospital. Whether or not this was actually true, there was still no apology from him, and no acceptance on his part that it had been *his* problem to sort out; all blame attached to his guests, and none to himself. That day of our holiday was totally ruined by his inefficiency and arrogance; so please take care to avoid the same happening to you. Book elsewhere.More