Prima Vista Boutique Hotel — Hotel in Igoumenitsa Municipality

PART 2

AVOID: The only Five Stars are the ones in the sky.

DAY 4, I got hit too and pretty bad. I spent the whole night throwing up, non-stop, couldn’t even stand the next morning. With the little energy I had, my dad drove me in the morning to a local doctor, suggested by the hotel, who examined me for 2 minutes (pressed my stomach twice, listened for a minute), and concluded a viral infection, and then charged me a WHOOPING €130 for the simple visit and the glorious medical insight 🤣…

Later, some locals told us that the doctors charge €30 for locals, and €50–€60 for tourists, so called for the “uninsured”. Mind you I have full EU insurance, but the moment he heard that, he didn’t blink twice before charging more than double the usual price. SHADY ENOUGH? And get this, amongst other things he also prescribed me antibiotics… for a virus… 🤣 (For anyone wondering: antibiotics don’t treat viral infections). Laughable, if I weren’t so exhausted, I was too sick to argue.

Also the doctor casually mentioned he’d already seen multiple guests from this same hotel with identical symptoms in the days before. The hotel clearly was aware something was circulating, yet gave no warnings, no precautions, didn’t communicate this to guests or offer any extra care or food alternatives for sick guests. Just business as usual.

We were in need of something warm and light to eat, and different from their normal fried foods menu, and so we kindly asked the hotel for a chicken soup. They simply said they can’t do it, and if we want we can have fish soup. This wasn’t in their menu, so we didn’t know the price. We had no choice but to agree, since we were desperate for some feel-good meal/soup. Get this now : They charged us €18 for the most disgusting bowl of soup we’ve ever smelled, couldn’t even bring ourselves to try it. It smelled like feet. No one, and I mean NO ONE, not even the healthy members of our group could stand it.

Then, on DAY 5, my mom got sick too. At that point, nearly our entire family had caught the same thing going around in the hotel. We missed days of beach time, couldn’t eat, couldn’t enjoy anything. Everything we had been looking forward at this point was long gone.

We asked again for something simple to eat, like a plain risotto. Just the cooked rice, nothing added. Not oily, not salty, just plain and simple for the stomach to recover. They couldn’t do it again, and said it has to be with meat or something. We asked why? They gave no reason. No effort. No flexibility. Just simply told us no.

Cleanliness? Mediocre. Tables in the dining area were “wiped” with cloths that left visible smudges and the glasses are put face-down on top of that mess, such that they were smelling wierd too. Same with the cutlery. Napkins and utensils were often missing altogether and sometimes we had to take them from other tables. And the bedsheets? NOT changed once in a six-night stay for our room. And for my parents room, they changed them once, but only after my mom had asked for them to be changed.

The towels seem also old, worn-out, and have no hotel branding. Just sad-looking that scream “discount motel”. What kind of five-star hotel doesn’t even have its own branded towels? It’s all in the details, and here it seems like every single detail was missing. But at this point we had long forgotten about the details, there were way more serious things going on.

My parents’ balcony was NOT cleaned either, it was covered in pigeon poop, including the outside table, so we couldn’t even put our phones on top of it. Only, when my mom informed the cleaning lady, she finally cleaned it, just like the bed sheets.

Our only given 1 star for this hotel goes for the following staff: the buggy guys and the main cleaning lady, at least in the human aspect. They had the decency to be kind to us, and help when we were sick to get up and down the endless tiring slopes of this hotel, bringing us to our rooms, car and beach. They definitely deserve credit for that. Too bad the other aspects of the hotel didn’t follow.

PART 3...

PART 1

AVOID: The only Five Stars are the ones in the sky

If you’re thinking about staying at Primavista in Sivota because it claims to be a five-star hotel, I would do myself a favor and look for something else. We’ve stayed in many five-star hotels and resorts around the world, throughout the years, and this place, did definitely not feel like it. We booked a 6-nights holiday and what we got was an overpriced, underwhelming, health hazard of a vacation.

Let’s start from the very beginning. We were genuinely very excited for this vacation and had been looking forward to it for some time. But the moment we arrived, it was clear something was off. Unlike other five-star stays, there were no welcome drinks, no fruit or refreshments in the room, and absolutely no personal touch. It all felt cold and indifferent. As for the “lobby”, if that space was even meant to be one, it felt more like a corner than a proper welcome area. The only place to hang out was the poolside restaurant, which we felt had no atmosphere, no entertainment, just felt soulless. We thought this was far from the beginning of any other five-star experience we’ve had before, but anyways gave it the benefit of the doubt. It was just the beginning.

As we had no welcoming snack, fruit, drink or anything of that sort, the first thing we did , after a long day of traveling, was head down to the restaurant to finally eat something. But the menu was the first major red flag. Nearly everything was fried, heavy, or greasy. My mom has stomach issues and couldn’t eat a single thing from it. There were no light, healthy, or dietary-friendly options, nothing suitable for someone with food sensitivities. To make matters worse, the 1 or 2 restaurants in the nearby area around the hotel had the same copy-paste menus. So our only option would be to drive out to other villages like Perdika, Sivota, or Parga (30 minutes away) just to find something a bit more decent to eat.

But this was still just our first glance. Now let me walk you through the increasing nightmare, day by day.

On DAY 1, the toilet in my parents’ room was broken and wouldn’t flush. They immediately informed the staff, and someone eventually came to take a look, only to offer a quick “five-minute fix” that, unsurprisingly, didn’t work. For the rest of the night, my parents had to walk up two terraces to come to our room to use our bathroom. The hotel did not offer to change their room, provide a proper repair, or even acknowledge that this was a serious inconvenience, which, in a so-called five-star hotel, is completely unacceptable.

On DAY 2, things escalated. My parents entire bathroom completely flooded, and I mean, the toilet, the floor, the entire bathroom had 2-3 cm of water in the entire space. At that point the hotel finally seemed to realise their simple fix weren’t going to cut it, so they began digging up sewage pipes right outside their balcony. The stench and unpleasant smell that followed, and I am telling you, was absolutely unbearable, and so strong that it reached all the way to our balcony, two terraces above, and lingered until the very last day. It got worse at night, and honestly, it was disgusting. I can’t even begin to imagine how it smelled right next to my parents’ room. Unfortunately, we had to keep our balcony door open at night for some airflow because the A/C in our room was placed to blow directly onto our bed, making it impossible to use without getting sick. Genius setup, but at this point, we weren’t surprised anymore.

DAY 3, my husband got sick, with nausea, fever, and couldn’t leave the bed for 24 hours. I wouldn’t be surprised at this point if it was by the terrible food, the sickening sewage work outside or a virus infection clearly circulating in the hotel (we heard that more people in the hotel were sick).

CONTINUING...

UPDATE: Reply to Hotel’s arrogant and deflective response

Thank you for confirming how little respect you have for your guests’ honest experience and feedback. Rather than acknowledging even a single shortcoming, and taking accountability, you chose to respond with denial, FALSE claims, and threats, over our unfiltered experience. That’s very telling.

Everything shared came from firsthand experience, supported by dates, context, and details. That’s not slander, that’s a PAYING guest reporting what actually happened during their stay. We don’t know you personally, nor do we have any reason or interest in defaming you. If our experience comes across as unflattering, it’s simply because it was, and that responsibility lies with your management.

A few points in your reply need to be addressed:

You claimed you provided us with meals “free of charge.” This is an absolute FALSEHOOD and simply not true, we understand you are trying to desperately defend yourself, but please don’t insult our intelligence with the “freebie” excuse. We paid for everything we consumed at the hotel, including your awful €18 fish soup, and full-priced risottos. I repeat NOTHING was free for us like you claimed. Perhaps you’re confusing us with other families, quite possible, since it seemed a lot more guests were sick in your hotel.

Your statement that you are “not a hospital” and don’t provide “hospital-level meals” is not only arrogant, but it completely misses the point. We weren’t asking for medical food treatment, we kindly were asking for basic, light food options. That’s it. If even that is considered excessive, don’t you think it raises questions about your hospitality and so-called five-star standards? And to be clear, none of the so-called “special meals” were even what we had initially asked for, they were simply what you decided to prepare to your convenience.

You claim the bed sheets were changed daily? Again, ours were not changed. And like I mentioned my parents’ were changed once, only after they asked. This is not in line with your claim of daily changes.

You also stated the toilet was repaired “within minutes.” Yet another deflection. It didn’t get fixed the first day, and it started flooded the next as well, and required days of sewage work, that made the smell so unbearable and unpleasant. If the fix wasn’t easy, and if you were not capable of it, it’s more honest to say that than claim it got fixed immediately. This wasn’t a quick fix, it was an ongoing issue that affected our stay significantly and that’s simply the truth.

Regarding the €180 checkout charge: we had already paid the resilience tax at check-in. The amount at checkout was labeled as a room charge.

Let’s also be clear: if our intention was to damage your reputation, we wouldn’t have acknowledged the aspects we did find positive, like the sea area, the helpful buggy staff, or the main cleaning lady, at least on the human aspect. But perhaps what really needs attention here is your management, which is apparently more focused on profit than guest experience.

Finally, I invite you, to scroll once more through all the other critisim in your reviews. Almost none of our concerns are new or unique. A quick look at your reviews will show other guests mentioning the same recurring issues we have touched upon: poor food, unchanged linens, sewage smells, sunbed policies, management and more. This is not the first time you’re hearing it. Are all of them also being dishonest and out to get you?

If criticism is met with defensiveness and threats, perhaps it’s not the guests who need to reflect.

Instead I suggest you try and fix the real issues. That will always speak louder than your Cocomat towels and...