Hercules Residence - My Greek Vacations — Hotel in Athens

Great accommodation. First impressions did not disappoint, and throughout our stay, we had minimal problems. Well built rooms, clean and well maintained, enough space for storage, good space for just relaxing in the room. Security seems solid. The ammenities are onpar. The gym is great, enough for a satisfying workout. Play area for children and great wifi coverage for each room. Place to keep bags for arrival and checkout time differences. As for the rooms, each room had a washroom, plenty of cupboard space with hangers - and spacious beds. The lounge area was great. Nice vibes, for relaxing at night after you've been out with friends or family. The kitchen had everything needed for sustenance.

To the nearby amenities. There is a supermarket nearby, like 3min walk. There is a great pizza place too where we had pizza as a late night meal. Tourism wise - acropolis is close, 10-15min drive and around 25-30min walk. I suggest the walk as you go through a park over a hill and the veiw of athens from there is absolutely stunning, and believe it or not, the acropolis hill is right infront, so you get a really good hightened veiw on your walk there. Monastriaki square is also closeby, if you walk opposite to the direction of the walk to the acropolis, great pedestrian streets and views. There is a nightmarket and winter festival like 5min walk behind the accommodation. Mostly quiet at night and easily accessible. Close to the port too (where you can go island hopping)

We had a problem though: the water heater in our accommodation kept failing. It kept showing error messages, sometimes wouldnt start, or give varied temperatures of water even while in the shower. It was not adressed or fixed when we were there and it caused many delays and discomfort.

Overall: great location, great...

Hercules Residence is a truly wonderful (almost luxurious!) accommodation for travelers during the pandemic. I highly recommend for medium or long term stays, in particular. Great for digital nomads too!

The entire building is VERY well maintained and features three amenities most Airbnb’s and hotels don’t have right now: a full gym, a kid’s indoor play area, and free laundry! It’s also pet friendly (with some restrictions- no animals on the furniture, for instance.)

Overall the wifi in each room is quite reliable at roughly 25mbps- so this is great for remote workers.

The Kitchen is very well stocked with almost everything you need- pots, pans, 2 types of coffee makers, colanders, cutlery, dishwasher, trash bags, etc… all that is missing are cutting knives but we bought one at the local AB grocery store for 5€.

Also there is an en suite in almost every bedroom aka PLENTY of bathrooms. This is great for families or even couples that want separate bathrooms.

The overall location is pretty good BUT for short term stays, you may feel it’s a tad too far from the touristy center of Athens. You are technically in the city center already but the neighbood is not touristy at all. It is roughly 30+ min walk to Plaka and the Parthenon, 20 min to the acropolis, etc… I personally enjoy the walk, but this may not be accessible to kids and older folks- but you can just uber. Know that this walk is BRUTAL in July/august heat.

The neighborhood is pretty quiet with a few exceptions. Sometimes (oftentimes really) the local street cats howl and fight at night. Additionally, the building occasionally attracts large groups of Greek party-goers that blast music, fill their apartment with cigarette smoke, and cause a ruckus. This has happened maybe once a month but lasts for one...

I have the impression that a couple of years ago (perhaps around 2020), the owner made a huge investment in the rooms, but since then, no maintenance has been carried out. In my studio, a lot of things were broken and/or not functioning properly: 1) the glass box in the wash was not closing properly (making the water spill out to the bathroom floor); 2) one handle in the box was broken; 3) hangers in the bathroom were loose; 4) the lid for the batteries in the remote control was sloppily glued with a sticky black tape; 5) the mechanism that should allow the TV to go around the living room and bedroom was loose and could not stand still in any of the rooms. It was clear that all of these issues were not new - most of them were clearly old, but they were never fixed. I reported the issues and they offered to send someone to take a look, but when on a vacation (AND WHEN YOU CHOOSE A HIGHLY RATED PROPERTY), you expect the room to be neat and functional and not to make your vacation around a day/time that the “handyman" can come over to fix problems that never should be there in the first place. The high rating seems to derive from the "golden era" of this property, which seems to be sloppily managed nowadays, unfortunately. However, the location is very good and the neighbourhood has a lot of restaurants and stores, very close to the metro station as well. Ps: as they have a play room for kids, I believe it attracts a lot of families with children so if you are easily disturbed by children's screams and crying, this might not be the right...