Conrad Athens The Ilisian — Attraction in Athens

EDIT: following a visit in October I have regraded my review to one star. This was a terrible experience where their customer service failing tragically. Payments taken from my credit card without authorisation or informing me what they intended to take. It then took one week to receive my money back. Despite having a contract for a group booking that included wifi, they charged all my guests for wifi and refused to honour the contract. I attend the hotel on multiple visits with a large group of 35 delegates, using both restaurants. The reception staff seemed uninterested in resolving my issues, claiming to have no ability to make any resolutions and that my only recourse was to email a manager. Our prebooked set menu in the restaurant was also not as we ordered. On the plus side, my option was better than expected, however, this was besides the point.

Considering this is one of the most expensive hotels in Athens, I expect a high level of service. Unfortunately this will be my last time staying at this hotel for personal and business bookings. I hope that the management take this experience as a lesson in refreshing it's staff on customer service, honouring contracts and realising the lost revenue that this experience has now resulting in.

Original review: Great hotel. You are greeted with a warm welcome. The rooms are very large and the bed is a king-size and very comfortable. My favourite part of the room is the bathroom with the double ended marble surrounded bath deep filled bath. There is a separate shower cubicle if that's your preference. Iron and ironing board in the room and a spacious balcony.

The negative parts of this room is after paying such a large amount for the room, they don't provide a free bottle of water, instead charging you €8.50 for a small bottle of water. The most expensive minibar I've ever seen, but there are local shops just around the corner.

The restaurants are excellent and I recommend the restaurant on the roof where you can enjoy views of the acropolis. Alternatively you can eat in any of the choices of restaurants just walking distance from the hotel.

Excellent gym with a well stocked range of equipment and dumbbells which range up to 35kg. Plenty of treadmills and synchro machine. Free coffee and drinks. If you want to use the indoor pool or Jacuzzi it's €15 euro per day. Steam and sauna is free.

Overall a great hotel with very friendly staff. I would highly recommend a stay at this hotel. (When they manage to get...

Hi, I'm afraid after spending the entire week here I need to alter my review.

The Good:

The service staff are great. Our cleaner was always very friendly and very attentive and thorough. The breakfast was nice and hygiene standards were upheld (masks required and disposable gloves encouraged when handling food). Location is great - very close to Evangalismos metro station which takes you all around Athens.

The bad: The hotel is very dated, not just from the outside (which dates back to the 50s - there are photos in the lobby of it being built and visited by Conrad Hilton) The issue is that the internal rooms and spaces are 20+ years old and it is showing its age. The flooring in my room was damaged in many place and the sofa showed signs of wear and tear. The executive lounge is closed. The offering at the moment is a "happy hour" in the main restaurant between 5-7pm however only a single drink is offered. Whilst I understand the Covid pandemic has sparked this, its not surely the reason the lounge continues to be closed because the bar on the roof was open all day and night and was happy to offer a wide range of food and drink. There were people smoking cigars under the canopy and very high ratio of staff working within. The outdoor pool is closed for renovation. Not a big deal to us and this was mentioned on the hotel website. The noise from 9am all day was however slightly problematic). On this point my biggest problem was the indoor pool was closed, and apparently this is also due to covid? The attendant in the gym explained this. There was a VIP attending from Northern Macedonia. This meant that there was a mandatory xray screening on entering the hotel of all items and there were police in every part of the hotel common areas including the lifts, the entrance to our floor and they patrolled all areas. When I asked reception staff, two non-uniformed (I presume managers) told me that (and I'm paraphrasing) "shouldnt complain, because they have to undergo xrays themselves, and its due to a VIP and that we all benefit from the increased security". If I had known this prior to booking, I wouldnt have stayed. The food and drink cost was absiolutely outrageous. A gin and tonic was 18 euros. A burger was 30 euros.

This hotel was approximately £130 per night and I would rate this 2.5-3 stars and not 5! I think they need to do a lot better before I'd...

We stayed at this property from June 11-14. As a Gold customer, here are my observations:

The lounge on the 11th floor - executive concierge was not friendly in any way. They always had a frown on their faces and would do their best to avoid looking at guests. I don’t understand why they have the most unfriendly people working the executive lounge. Note - the staff IN the lounge area was great.

Housekeeping staff was always friendly. We never got the room serviced because we don’t need it, but they always checked on us to see if we needed anything.

Pool/Spa comments:

We were looking forward to using the spa facilities on Day 1 to relax after our long flight. Unfortunately after arriving at the spa, we were told that the women’s spa facilities were not working for the entire duration of our stay. That was very disappointing.

The spa attendant suggested that we go to the outdoor pool instead. After walking to the outdoor pool, we were told by a pool attendant that we needed to go BACK to the spa to get pool towels. Really? Why don’t they have towels available AT the pool? Are towels really that precious that they need to be guarded by the spa staff? And why didn’t the spa attendant just give us towels when we were in the spa the first time? The next day we noticed that the pool attendant was getting towels for guests, but only the guests he knew. Other guests were told to go to the spa to get their own towels.

pool towels are too short for the deck chairs at the pool. So we asked for two towels each, so that we could fully cover the deck chairs with the towels. We were told that we could not have two towels each. The limit was one towel each. Again - seriously?? How is this good service?

Breakfast in the restaurant had a great selection. Unfortunately the service was not great. It was almost impossible to get a cup of coffee, and when we did, it was usually cold. We noticed most of the staff just standing around talking to each other instead of helping guests. Also - orange juice sign reads ‘fresh orange juice” - but that is not the case. orange juice is from a box, not fresh.

in-room internet was very slow. We are self employed and we have to keep up with emails while traveling. It was almost impossible to do this with the internet at the Hilton.

All in all I would not stay here again. Not a good value...