georgiec166
Google
We were very disappointed in our stay at Nikki Beach. We looked at over 100 hotels in Europe before booking this trip, looking for somewhere luxurious and relaxing. ||We booked Nikki Beach as had been wowed by the pictures and ability to have a semi-private pool and a swim up bar. It seemed just what we were after.||Sadly we felt let down by the resort on almost every front except for the views, comfortability of the bed, standard of cleaning during our visit and massage in the spa (provided by a third party).||First, the room. It was described on booking a ‘shared reflection pool’ and the pictures indicated it was a good space to submerse yourself. It turned out to be only about a foot deep - meaning it was no better than for wading in. We didn’t mind the pool being shared, but the dividers between the balconies were also woeful, meaning we felt overlooked from all angles. ||For the price, we paid a big premium for the shared ‘pool’, we felt very short changed.||The room also lacked basic amenities such as an iron (which was clumsily provided when requested) or a dressing table / desk to get ready at. When we arrived it was also still dirty around the bed with hair / fluff from previous occupants visible. Fortunately this was fixed quickly and the cleaners were very good the rest of our stay and worked around our schedules. ||Secondly, the service was lacking at every point of our visit. We saw other guests get a tour on arrival (we didn’t). When we filled in the first feedback form on the second day the manager came to see us by the pool (and didn’t introduce herself before doing so) to try to solve issues but did nothing material apart from add an iron to the room. We also never saw or heard from her again, having it been clear we had been unhappy.||The pool bar staff were unreliable and often sat chatting / smoking / on their phones when multiple customers were at the bar. For a hotel that is 5 star with the facilities it has, the behaviour and service from the staff was unacceptable.||Third, the restaurant and bar experience was really poor for a 5 star resort. ||Restaurant: We had to send back very undercooked chicken on our first night - it was raw inside and even with the small amount eaten upset stomachs. This is really dangerous. ||What made this situation worse was the waiter trying to justify it saying that’s how they cooked it and it was ‘safe’ - we encountered no other place in Greece that served pink chicken, let alone raw. We also would have expected it to have been removed from our bill due to this, but it was never offered.||We decided to try the restaurant again at lunch a couple of days later but found the pork this time to be pink. Having had the waiter respond to us before with the chicken that that’s how it was cooked, we persevered. We then had very upset stomachs the rest of the day. It seems this is a consistent problem for the chef- speed over quality (as everything came very quickly).||The prices were also expensive for what it was (basic poolside food) and we were shocked at the set fee for room service (10 EUR every time you had something delivered rather than a percentage fee) meaning it didn’t make any sense to order cocktails to our room pool (which we would have liked to do).||We would have eaten at the hotel more but after the first two poor experiences decided we had to go out for lunch and dinners, which interrupted relaxation time.||Bar: Cocktails were also completely inconsistent. On our final day the woman bar tender on shift made our cocktails a lot smaller than we had had the days previously. The quality also varied wildly per cocktail. For 15EUR a piece we would have expected more.||Fourthly, the gym was poorly equipped (just some weights and a treadmill in a basement) and while the spa did provide an excellent massage it was annoying that you couldn’t book it from reception and instead had to walk round to the basement spa itself to do it.||Finally, the hotel at times was full of children running around and in the pool - which isn’t what we would expect from a Nikki Beach facility nor what it was advertised as when we viewed it.||All in all, book Nikki Beach if you want to spend too much money on a nice view and decent sized rooms but you’re not fussed about service, food or amenities. ||We have given the resort 2 stars rather than 1 due to the views, size and cleanliness of room overall and the massage in the spa.