Phidias Hotel by Oniro — Hotel in Athens

This is literally the worst hotel experience I have ever had in my life.

I'm not talking the facilities, which are bad but not the worst (more on it later), but rather the fact that the management has an organized scam to steal money from their clients, that is, you.

It works like this: we arrive late in the evening in Athens, the room has been booked and prepaid several weeks earlier; we're only going to stay there that one night.

Immediately they tell us that there is "a problem with the system" and that they don't have a bedroom for us.

When we point out that they had had several weeks to inform us of the problem, they simply shrug and smile.

The offer us two options: one is a "bedroom with no window", which we immediately refuse because of course there is no such a thing as a bedroom with no windows, it's called a storage room.

The second one is be accommodated in a different hotel. So we think, okay, maybe if the hotel is at least as good as this one and it's in walking distance we can talk about it. But of course no, that's not at all it.

They wanted to send us to a hotel more than a mile away from where we were, outside of the city boundaries "for no extra charge" (how kind of them!).

That was of course also unacceptable.

Seeing we were not buying, they tried a series of stock phrases that they had ready for the occasion, mostly variations of "it's only one night" that, while it may sway some, was exactly the reason we weren't going to spend it in a taxi.

After a bit of back-and-forth, and specifically when we threatened to call the police, an unoccupied bedroom magically appeared.

The room had two single beds rather than a double one, but they could have pushed the two beds together just like we did.

So obviously what we have been told (that there was no bedroom, and the only two options were the storage room or the other hotel out of town) had been a lie all along.

Additionally, the room was smallish for two people and quite dirty, with visible stains on the covers.

We've been reading around reviews for this place and it turns out this wasn't the first time they did this to their customers (in some cases it appears to have worked, and the poor people found themselves shipped in the out-of-town hotel).

My guess is that it wouldn't be the last either, it's a vulgar fraud that they have designed, that works for them, and that they're keeping pulling off as long as certain conditions are met (for instance, I think they only try this with people staying just one night and that have prepaid the room, as they're less likely to just walk out the door and find another hotel).

Whatever you do, do not book in this hotel under any circumstances. You would be giving money (in advance) to a bunch of thugs perfectly happy to ruin your holidays for...

We stayed one night in room 203 to be very disappointed. We saw that the shower had no doors and was broken. We informed the front desk, but they had no other rooms. I asked for towels to soak up the water that I anticipated being on the bathroom floor. The towels were not delivered. The front desk attendant Marella said it had been broken for three days. This room should never have been assigned to a guest. It was not safe. We went out for dinner and when we returned, there were still no towels. We asked again and there was still no towels delivered. My friend tried to be careful as she stepped out of the shower, but a large vinyl strip came off of the frame and she tripped on it and slid on the floor and fell hitting her hip on the edge of the shower. This posed serious problem for people stepping onto the slippery floor. The next morning when I spoke with the front desk, Maria said oh don’t worry Madame the technician will come and fix the shower. Well that’s too late for us. She was not at all sympathetic to the condition of the room. She asked me twice when my friend fell indicating that she had not listened to anything that I said. This bothered me greatly and I had another reservation checking in later that week. Because of the attitude and the lack of interest in the problem, I asked if we could cancel and she said no. She continued to assure me that the problem would be fixed, but it’s too late for us. We already experienced the inconvenience and my friend fell. Maria’s lack of understanding and customer service made me hesitant to trust the Hotel to make good decisions. In addition to the air air-conditioning shut off three times during the night and was very hot. I reported this to booking.com and they were very sympathetic. They apologized for the problem and contacted the property. They said the property would get back to me within 48 hours, but that did not happen. Then they said it would be five days. And that did not happen. It has been two weeks and I’ve never heard from the property. In addition, I asked for an invoice on checkout. Moriah was not able to produce it after 20 minutes. The breakfast was not good and was actually the worst. I’ve had in Athens and I am there at least four times a year. There are so many good properties in Athens. I would not recommend this hotel and I did not want to return. They need a staff that is more sensitive to the needs of...

The thing about this hotel is its in one of the best spots in Athens within walking distance to everything, the sad thing about this hotel is the lack of experience the staff have which is no fault of their own but do to poor management. We had booked months in advance so you'd expect that when turning up well within the check in times they'd have a clue who we where considering we had also emailed them to confirm two separate beds, and if possible a balcony room. On arrival we were told there was no room available and after a while of playing with their computer they found a cellar room with no windows and a double bed for the night that was it nothing more available, with little choice we took the room as it was just for one night and we where planning to get home late anyhow so that wasn't such a fuss, they had promised the next day we,d have the correct room, anyway next morning we left that room after having to re pack our belongings and put them in the hotel storage for the next day, bare in mind were were staying for 9 nights, come around 4:30 that day we go back to the hotel and eagerly awaiting to hear our room was ready yet again nothing had been done they said give us twenty minutes and we'll have your room ready we sat outside waiting hot and bothered twenty minutes go buy nothing had even got started just chatting and laughing after confronting them I got told it would be done and if we wanted yet another free beer to which we declined the offer, once we finally got our key to find we,d been given a rear facing room rather than the promised front facing with balcony and yet again a double bed, I mean come on how hard can it be for two mates to get a decent room which we paid for and looked forward too, finally they gave us the poorest fold up bed which was about one inch thick mattress such a poor excuse I discussed this with them only to be giggled at and not understood, to be honest I felt sorry for the girl in the end as she seemed to not understand the significance in our anger, I feel this is always happens at this hotel as we witnessed it happen time and time again during our stay and the sad thing is its one of the best locations it could be soo...