The Stanley Hotel — Hotel in Athens

2025 Update: Third Time’s the Charm: Love The Stanley

My family and I really enjoyed our stay at The Stanley 14-17 September. It was our third time at this pretty hotel and I’ll come back whenever I visit Athens.

For family-size rooms I recommend Room 816 with two Queen beds sleeping a total of four guests. Most of the 8th Floor rooms with balconies have a view of the Parthenon and Karaiskaki Square below. The Metro is almost at the front door; we reached the Acropolis Metro station "Akropoli" in 15 minutes.

We love the staff, always helpful, positive, and dedicated to customer happiness. Konstantina, the Front Desk Supervisor, gave us special help and understood our situation very well.

Kleopátra (Kleio) at the Cloud Nine restaurant is so friendly and charming; she remembers us from stay to stay! Kleio even worked with the chef to have wild greens from Crete, “Horta Vrasta (Χόρτα βραστά),” made just for us (not on the menus). If you’ve been missing deep green veggies, ask her to request it a day or two in advance.

The restaurants are excellent. Cloud 9 is the Rooftop lunch and dinner restaurant, with beautiful outdoor and indoor areas and great food. Many tables have Parthenon view. Sweet Basil has a breakfast buffet fit for royalty. The wide variety and high quality of breakfast foods is at the Five Star level. It also has an outdoor patio with Parthenon view.

The pool and outside deck are brand new, very pretty and relaxing on a sunny day, great service too. Wisely, the hotel does not allow day passes; only hotel guests may use the pool. Otherwise half of Athens would be there.

Cleanliness is very good all around the hotel. The laundry service, which I’ve used on all three of our stays, is careful, prompt, and inexpensive.

The Stanley is an oasis in an older neighborhood - otherwise it would be twice as expensive. After dark we ate at The Stanley's restaurants, or stayed downtown in the "Center" and took a cab back. No problem as long as we stayed aware, just like New York.

2023: Fabulous Staff, Excellent Value for Money, Right on Metro Excellent value for money. Metro is almost at the front door; you're at the Acropolis Metro station "Akropoli" in 15 minutes. We enjoyed 9 nights in March 2023. We loved the staff! Kostas and Vicky at Reception were so helpful with every detail. Heleni the Housekeeping manager was warm and wonderful, got us an extra chair and other requests for our room. Complimentary wine and bottled water appeared at check-in and more was easily arranged with Reception. Restaurants are great, waitress Ms. Elena and Captain Ms. Vasiliki (see photo) were so kind. If it grew cold at sunset while viewing the Acropolis from the outside deck of Cloud 9 Rooftop Restaurant, they moved us to a fine indoor table. The pool and outside deck are brand new, very pretty and relaxing on a sunny day, great service too. Breakfast was delicious with wide variety (see photo). Cleanliness everywhere very good. Laundry service was careful, prompt, and inexpensive. The Stanley is still under renovation; it's an oasis in an older neighborhood. Our "Superior Renovated Room with Acropolis View" didn't have all its furniture yet. Nightstands needed drawers; the room had no drawers for clothes. Bathroom needed shelves and more hooks. Ask for extra chairs and luggage racks, they will provide. Neighborhood is run down, but there's a fabulous bakery & restaurant Bread Factory next door. After dark we ate at The Stanley's rooftop restaurants, or lingered downtown in the "Center," or got Bread Factory take out and retreated to the hotel's lovely pool deck or...

The hotel offered some truly lovely amenities with a mix of classic and modern inspirations. The rooms were pretty good, the restaurant “Sweet Basil” was absolutely exceptional (it must be said, what a delight!), and the rooftop pool was a charming highlight. The staff was generally kind and professional special thanks to the housekeeping team for their constant attentiveness. However, I have never felt so scrutinized in a hotel before. While most people were welcoming and friendly, it started with the valet (a member of the hotel staff), who stared and sized me up repeatedly as if he’d never seen a man wear anything other than a t-shirt at the entrance of his hotel. This happened every single time I saw him. That kind of insistent, invasive gaze is unpleasant and frankly, quite rude. Yes, I may have an original sense of style, but there's a difference between a curious glance and that level of insistence. It made me genuinely uncomfortable. He was lucky I’m a kind person others may not have been as tolerant.

Then there were a few waiters (mostly men) who at times watched me with “noticeable curiosity”. Come on we’re in a hotel setting with a lot of different people from other countries and style. Please, contain your curiosities for a minute !! That being said, I maintain that everyone was overall super kind… Really !!

BUT let’s talk about the rooftop pool crowd now. Aside from the older guests (who were all lovely), it seems the pool attracts a rather unruly crowd: “young”, vulgar individuals who shout, blast music, take endless selfies, and even throw drinks into the pool before leaving (Yes... not a dream). In a 4-star hotel, not filtering out this type of behavior is simply unacceptable. I was even verbally harassed by a mother who decided to occupy four sunbeds for herself and her family, despite the fact that sunbeds cannot be reserved. Thankfully, a kind tourist stood up for me. While this episode of incivility wasn’t the hotel’s fault, it’s clear there needs to be better screening or monitoring of guests with aggressive or disruptive behavior even if I understand how difficult that can be. One last REALLY unpleasant note: I was almost charged €25 to have a pair of jeans washed. When I refused and pointed out the actual laundry fee was €5, I was told the extra cost was due to a tax, the one that I had already paid upon check-in. Hotel staff have access to the laundry pricing chart, so it was unsettling that a front desk agent tried so brazenly to charge me five times the actual cost. Insisting on making me pay a tax a second time, when it was already registered in their system, was inappropriate. I won’t go so far as to call it a scam, but it certainly felt off, especially when I saw how disappointed she looked when I paid €5 instead of the €25 she was pushing for.

And finally the location… oh dear. The hotel unfortunately sits right across from a burned-out building. Some might find that adds character, but if you’re walking from the hotel to Psyrí, for example, brace yourself for a tense experience especially at night, if you're a woman or someone dressed in colorful or "elegant" attire rather than a...

Probably the worst hotel experience I’ve had to date. First, they managed to fit two beds into a dirty room that was the size of a walk-in closet. To get past my companion, you literally had to flatten yourself to the wall to squeeze past. The room had a damp-musty smell and the “view” was of crumbled building which had given up all hope. We went to the Cloud Nine lounge for dinner due to the VERY sketchy nature of the surrounding area; we didn’t feel safe leaving the building. The waitress was nice but clearly overworked (they were probably trying to save money by having fewer people manage more tables). It took almost an hour and a half to get the salmon I ordered. I had to ask 3 people, including what looked to be two managers to check on my food. Only one of the 3 people ever came back to give me an update. My companion was served and finished her dinner (which was underwhelming despite being presented well) long before I got my overcooked, dry salmon the size of a large hard boiled egg. My companion had to sit and watch me eat. This thing was a choking hazard. When I informed the manager of my disappointment in the service, wait, and the quality of the food she informed me she would tell the chef and walked away. I attempted to use mayonnaise to finish my food without having a medical event. After a long while, the manager came back to inform me that she would remove the salmon from my bill and hovered over us while we completed payment on the portable system. When we went to add tip, since none of the issue was the fault of the waitress, the manager attempted to get us to not pay tip as a way of “saving us money.” Disgusting that she’d attempt to deprive her overworked employee of pay when it wasn’t her fault. It was quite late at this point and I just wanted to go to bed, but the manager kept trying to get us to get dessert when I repeatedly informed her that I cannot eat anything on the dessert menu due to an allergy. She then insisted to get us tea with honey delivered to the room. After some time we got the tea, but no honey. We wanted to tip the man who came to our door but only had large bills available. We asked if he could get some change so we could tip him and he said he’d be right back. We waited up another 30 minutes so we wouldn’t be woken up when he came back, but he never showed. During dinner we asked where we could get breakfast in the morning. After confirming our room, the manager informed us we could eat at either restaurant. We decided to return to Cloud Nine for breakfast since it was closest to our room. We were informed no less than 8-10 times that with our “standard room” (might as well called it a poor room), that we could not eat upstairs. After a few calls and what appeared to be a heated conversation on the phone, we were informed that we could remain upstairs, but pay twice the price of the food downstairs again because of our “standard” room. Annoyed, we went downstairs to eat a bland breakfast worthy of an American Waffle House. Very classy. They couldn’t pay me...