Diva Hotel — Hotel in Athens

Our plan was to stay in the Hotel Diva for one short night (arriving 10pm, checking out for the airport 9am). We were driven by a friendly taxi driver, who'd picked us up at the ferry port. Upon driving up to the hotel door, he says: "Oh, the Hotel Diva, I'm not sure you want to stay here..... Listen, you're really nice and maybe you should know that this is the place where people, you know..... have the sex." When we asked him to elaborate, he said" You know, by the hour.... for sex" ||Since it was our last night and it was pouring rain and 10pm, and especially since we'd already the reservation we agreed to at least check it out. The website had shown a clean, modern spacious rooms.....||||What we did see took us some time to process. The reception has a small desk and a modern looking, newly designed cafe. Up the narrow staircase, to a matchbook room, with a large queen size bed with a terrible gauzy-arabian-nights fake canopy, and a bolted tv to the mirrored walls. Everything seemed clean, although the carpets were dingy and pocked with cigarette burns. The wall were rice-paper-thin and we slept to the sounds of the roaring mopeds speeding down the street below. Porn is played on two 24 hour channels........ Not exactly a family destination.||||Our conclusion: The taxi was right. Our guess is that the place, at one time or another, was a no-tell-motel, that may have gone under new management, and are slowly trying to renovate it to a cleaner, although, still...

For the money, this was our favorite stay of a two-week vacation through Athens & the islands. The room was clean and nicely decorated. The bathroom had new tile, and the bed was framed by yards of chiffon that created a "four poster bed" look, just like in the pictures. The staff was so friendly that they checked us in super-early, even though we didn't ask for special treatment, and we had a fantastic time with the bartender and his friends. || Our room was not incredibly spacious, but we had enough room for the two of us. The mattress was typical of other hotels we visited on this trip: two very firm twin-sized beds pushed together to form a king. || The location is the only reason the hotel is so inexpensive - its not in an especially interesting area for strolling tourists, and its quite a hike from the metro. However, the metro workers were on strike when we arrived, so that hardly mattered! The taxi meter from Piraeus was 9.50 Euros, but she demanded 15 because of the port pickup and the bags... which we were happy to pay in exchange for not having to figure out the bus system from Piraeus to the hotel. However, for the duration of our stay, we were able to catch the trolley/tram to everywhere we wanted to go. The tram is not as tourist-friendly as the metro, but its...

My husband I stayed here in Oct 09, the hotel isn't as close to the metro as we had hoped and we ended up getting a taxi on the first night with our bags, the rest of the time we walked though, it was about a 15-20 minute walk. Breakfast was nice, we had toast, cheese, ham, jam, honey, a boiled egg, cake and coffee. ||The hotel was very quiet whilst we were there but then it wasn't exactly high season. There are a number of local shops close by with a newsagents directly opposite the hotel, and 2 streets up is the most gorgeous little cake shop! we often went there on our way back from the city centre!||||The room was clean and comfortable, we were in a room at the back of the hotel so there wasn't a lot of noise, it had a small balcony but it only looked out on to a courtyard at the back so not exactly a great view but who cares? we were hardly in the hotel! ||We couldn't fault the staff, they were very friendly and helpful. The bar tender even bought us a beer on the second night. The only niggle I had was that there isn't a lift so we had to drag our cases up two flights of stairs.||On the whole it was perfect for us, a great cheap base to...