This accommodation has officially received our worst rating to date. Read the full review before you decide to book any apartment from AthensStudios.com.
Location:
The studio we rented from AthensStudios.com was Studio 4.2.4, located next to the Kolonaki area of Athens. The location of the apartment isn't bad but it isn't great because it's still relatively far from the main tourist attractions of Athens. The apartment is located about a 10-minute walk from the metro, or close to the Hilton hotel, and is about a 40-minute walk to the Acropolis in Athens. On great thing about the location is that there is a wonderful local bakery within a 5-minute walk of the apartment which is a great stop for breakfast. An important note about the location of the apartment that we should mention is that the apartment is located in the basement of the building, below street level, limiting natural light to the apartment at all times of the day.
Room Comfort & Cleanliness:
We stayed at this apartment in November of 2009 and we can honestly say that the apartment was in a terrible state, and unfortunately despite our best efforts to inform the owners of the problems, we don't foresee any improvements being done to the apartment in the very near future. To tell you the truth, it disgusts us to think back at the condition and cleanliness of this apartment as it really was dirty and very poorly maintained. Specifically, the couches were broken and dirty, the towels they provided had orange stains on them, the walls were cracked and had brown stains on them, the bathroom tiles and shower were mouldy and the curtains were dusty and falling down, not to mention that the apartment had an unpleasant stale smell. Moreover, the mattress and pillows were uncomfortable and because the apartment was located in the basement of the building the natural light throughout the day was poor. In fact, the bedroom was the only place in the apartment with windows (to the outside) which we kept covered the whole time so that the people walking on the sidewalk would not see into the bedroom. Although the apartment was a decent size with a large bedroom, decent sized kitchen, small living room and a small bathroom, we did not use the kitchen during our stay simply because we felt it was too dirty. In fact, upon seeing it, we closed the door to it and did not re-enter it during our entire stay. Although the living room and bathroom weren't much better, we had no other alternative but to use them as sparingly as we could. To top things off, the apartment had cockroaches roaming around the bathroom area at night. We can't believe that this company charges 15 Euros per day for cleaning on top of the prices you will see on their website!
The building that the apartment is located in was not much better. For example, the mirrors on the walls were cracked, the door handle to the apartment was falling off which made it difficult to enter the apartment and so on. We can tell you that the photos of the apartment provided on the website didn't depict the apartment accurately, so don't let that fool you. We do have to give credit to the photographer who did an amazing job making the apartment look better than it is. On the positive side, the apartment had wireless Internet.
Service:
As part of the apartment rental, a meet and greet service was included with the booking which we can tell you is no better than the apartment itself. After booking the apartment, we were instructed by the company, AthensStudios.com, to call their representative when we arrive at the Athens airport so that he could meet us at the apartment. We arrived from Cyprus at about 11PM and did not have a local Greece mobile phone card so we called them long distance using our left over Cyprus airtime. Nevertheless, we did call the representative who instructed us to call him again when we were nearer to the apartment, which we also did at our expense. When we finally met him in front of the building, he did not offer any help and proceeded to enter the building without saying much. Once inside the apartment, he quickly showed us the apartment, gave us orders about things not to do, dropped the keys on the table, gave us the code to the 2 wireless network connections (of which only one was available) and left. I think he knew if he spent any more time with us it would give us a chance to start noticing the many issues the apartment had. The whole process did not take more than 5 minutes. Although we don't expect much service from self-catering accommodations, we are use to some type of support network of who you can contact during your stay with issues or questions which we did not get at this apartment.
Food:
This does not apply since this is a self-catering place, but as stated earlier we did not use the kitchen either.
Overall Value:
We recommend that you DO NOT stay at this apartment, nor use AthensStudios.com to book any other apartment that they offer as a result of their poor customer service and willingness to address the problems with this apartment. John of AthensStudios.com claims that they charge a cleaning of 15 Euros per day for professionally cleaning the apartments before someone's arrival which we can tell you isn't going to good use as this apartment was dirty upon our arrival. If they use the same service for their other apartments, we would also stay clear of those. There are many options of apartments or hotels in Athens in the same price range so we suggest you go with those. Try Hotel Acropolis House or check out GTAHotels.com for the lowest hotel rates in Athens.
Other Notes:
We think it's only appropriate to share our experience with the rental company, AthensStudios.com, so you can judge for yourself whether you want to rent an apartment from them. After we checked out, we contacted AthensStudios.com to make them aware of the problems that the apartment has, but unfortunately we received a very poor response from them which is why we believe the apartment will remain in the same condition as it was during our stay. In fact, John of AthensStudios.com questioned our motives for brining up the problems due to the timing of our complaints. Since we arrived at the apartment at around midnight and their representative rushed out of the apartment before we had a chance to settle, we did not have the time to bring up anything at that time. With our limited time in Athens we could not afford to dedicate any time dealing with this issue until we were finished with our plans in Athens. Had this been a hotel where we would have access to someone, we would have dealt with the problems immediately. Since we felt that it would take significantly more time here to figure out who to speak to and come to some kind of mutual agreement, we felt our time was better spent exploring the city rather than dealing with the issues of a dirty, unmaintained apartment that we barely spent any time at as a result. The communications with the people at AthensStudios.com turned out to be unproductive and really ended up wasting our time as they did not believe our genuine complaints and simply ignored all the issues we raised. It's a good thing we didn't spend time doing this during our stay in Athens!
If, for whatever reason you decide to rent from AthensStudios.com even after reading this, we really suggest that you get references from international customers who stayed at the apartment before you book. Please note that there is nowhere on their website for guests to leave comments. We now understand why. Try GTAHotels.com for the lowest hotel rates in Athens instead.
Our Rating: 1/5 Year Reviewed: 2009
For the best possible price of accomodations in this area, please visit Expedia.ca
or Priceline.com
.
Photos:
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