Athens Ivy Suites

First, the elderly man manning the reception was cordial, but eccentric. He brought us up into our room to do the check-in instead of doing it at the reception. We felt uncomfortable that he stepped into our room with his shoes on, and without asking for our permission to come in. He then specifically made a big deal to us not to touch the aircon remote apart from pressing up and down to control the temperature as adjusting other settings would affect other rooms. Bearing that in mind, we were careful not to mess with the air con control although we felt the room was stuffy, and the air con was weak. We stayed one night in this condition and feedbacked to him the next day that the air con was stuffy. He took a look at it when we left the room. It turns out that the air con was not even turned on in the first place!!! Because of his lecture to us not to mess with the air con control, we were afraid to touch other settings and ended up sleeping without aircon for the first night!! To be fair, he apologized to us and said he was too occupied when we checked in but did not offer any form of service recovery. We were glad not to see him again after 2-3 days as the other ladies who manned the reception afterwards were much friendlier and welcoming than the grumpy old man. Next, the shower handle was broken!!! We discovered this only around 10pm on the first night. We went down to tell him immediately but as it was late and he was leaving for the day, he said there was nothing he could do now and asked us to wait until tomorrow morning when he will get it fixed. We were understanding of this situation and put up with the broken shower handle for one night. It was fixed the next day but it still left us with a very bad taste in the mouth! This should have been spotted by the housekeeping! It appeared to us that the housekeeping did not do a very thorough job cleaning the room if such a big broken item was unnoticed. The room also did not feel particularly clean. Again, there was no form of service recovery offered. The rest of the stay passed by uneventfully but the two incidents which happened on the first night really turned us off. Unfortunately we had booked 5 nights here… We read overwhelmingly positive reviews of this place but our experience left much to be desired. It’s really a very average 3 star apart-hotel with no frills. The location is great but honestly there are many other hotels in the same area which look more comfortable and inviting (with nice, bigger lobby etc) and at similar price point. Athens Ivy Suites feels like a serviced apartment stay, not for somebody who wants the hotel experience. We will also caution that the room is not entirely soundproof. When we slept the first night without air con, we could hear music from the streets. From the second night onwards, it was “quiet” but we realised that is only because the noise from the air con drowned out the music. Also, the shower is open concept (no door) which not everybody will be comfortable with. The only thing we enjoyed about this place was the free breakfast at the Italian restaurant downstairs which was excellent.