Grecotel Meli Palace — Hotel in Municipality of Agios Nikolaos

Read all, it’s really bad.

The points are in no particular order.

PUBLIC AREAS:

Restaurant too small, always waiting 20 min

Outdoor area is reduced/closed from 18:00, pavilion from 17:00. you are only allowed to sit on the wicker chairs in front of the bar. No longer on the loungers at the pool, beach or lawn to read a book. You are very rudely shooed away that the area is closed and the sunbeds are then pulled away by the staff.

Very little entertainment. Only Pilates and in the evening small "show"/live music in the "amphitheater" or the fireplace.

Spa/sports area costs extra! 4€ for the equipment, 4€ the sauna, 4€ the whirpool (price for whole day). Day ticket for the whole area 10€ instead of single 12€ but only on demand.

At A la carte double music, there is always music playing from speakers, location of the pavilion next to the amphitheater, you can hear the show there. Very unpleasant during a cozy dinner

No WLAN in the room, only lobby, very very poor, often no connection. Quasi not usable.

Cocktails very loveless, nothing shaken. Many cocktails from the menu can not be ordered because ingredients are not available.

The toilets at the pool disgusting, stink extremely of old urine, everything rusted, are probably never cleaned, early in the morning sand everywhere from the bathers from the previous day, so not even wiped floor.

No toilets near the restaurant, you have to walk to the toilets at the spa/sports area.

There is a single plastic bottle of water in the room for the whole vacation, you have to refill it in the restaurant or bar at the water dispenser.

ROOM:

Room atrocious, poor condition, walls damp, paint peeling, even on the furniture. Table is a TV bench on a couch table. Balcony tiny, shared with neighbors.

Beds are mattresses on 4 legs, no headboard, no footboard. 90cm wide. Feather light the bed frames, once placed in the middle they slide apart and you fall into the gap. We actually wanted a room with a double bed, there is probably not.

View from the balcony to the bed, curtain too small, no darkening possible.

Air conditioning is only "on" in 1-3 stages of the fan or off. No temperature control possible.

Toilet is visually very unattractive and toilet seat does not fit the toilet, as soon as you sit down you slide to the right or left along with the toilet seat sideways from the bowl.

Shower water is not warm (on 2 whole evenings!!)

Freshly washed towels smell strongly of cigarette smoke.

Incredible amount of dust in the bed and room. Girlfriend combs her hair in the morning, unbelievable amount of dust combed out of the hair, you can see in the brush.

What you could guess before:

Hotel is located in nowhere. Walk to Sisi 1h through the rocky coast, over the road much longer.

Beach is 50m long and gravel. So no beach walks.

Good:

buffet food good, A-la carte very good, 1x included from a stay of 7 days.

TUI excursions from hotel

Most staff...

We are expecting our first child so a quick 5 night get away through on the beach. We hired a car from HER airport and arrived around 9pm. First impression was great we drove and greeted by a guard to park the car and head to the front desk. By the time i had parked there was someone waiting to take our bags. This is pretty much where things started to go wrong. ||When we walked through the door you have a beautiful marble filled reception we had been told to take a seat and we had cold water offered to us. ||Then a lady came over asking us to fill out our details and asked for our passports etc. she couldn’t have been less interested if we tried. But I said to myself it was 9pm and she must have been tired. ||A few minutes later we had a key in hand and were heading to our room. We were in room 129 a sea view room. A nice size but BE AWARE! the beds are awful! And I really do mean awful! The double bed we thought we would have was 2 singles pushed together and a gap in the middle that wouldn’t go together flush. So forced to sleep apart for that week then. We have quite a firm mattress at home, but this was shockingly bad. You can feel every spring! We asked for another pillow and a duvet. Only the pillow made it. |At no point were we asked how our first night was.||The next morning we followed the crowd to the buffet/restaurant area. There is a half decent selection of fresh fruit, yoghurt but be aware of the cooked food. Either under cooked or over cooked. Fried eggs that are cold. To be honest a lot of the food is not hot but warm at best. Again not once were we asked how the food was in the entire week. Breakfast lunch or dinner. ||We spent the majority of the week we spent pool side. This is the reason that we have given a 2 star and not 1. The pool area is great, nice and relaxed plenty of beds although you will see the typical bed hogging. We went down at 9am after breakfast and there were towels on half the beds and nobody there. ||The “all inclusive “ is more like a “if you must have a drink” expect paper cups for beer, wine or cocktail as it seems they either run out of plastic glasses around the pool area or run out of glasses in the main bar. But that’s only if the bar is open in the first place. Clearly not enough staff. |When by the pool god forbid that you want a fresh towel, the life guard/ towel guard is brutal. ||Evening entertainment is lacking the entertainment part unless you speak French or German. But then a lot of the guests were German while we were there. Not an issue but would have been nice to be able to try and sing along. As our room was so close to the amphitheatre we heard every beat, but it does stop around 10pm every night. ||My final gripe is the you can hear every noise in the night the walls...

I travel often and have stayed in many hotels across the whole world and Europe, including dozens of 4- and 5-star properties. This is the first time I’ve felt compelled to warn others so strongly.

We booked two rooms for four people at this hotel based on the photos and description online. What we received was far below the promised standard. One of our rooms was on the absolute lowest floor, down multiple flights of stairs into a dark, humid, almost basement-like area. There is almost no natural light, the balcony door doesn’t lead to a balcony but directly outside where anyone can enter, and the air feels damp and suffocating.

The room itself is in terrible condition: walls cracked, scratched, and stained yellow; doors that don’t close or lock properly; visible dirt and questionable spots that could be mold; furniture that is worn down far beyond what you would expect from a 4-star hotel. It simply does not match the pictures or description — not even close.

The most serious issue: the air conditioning in both of our rooms has been broken for three days. Despite multiple complaints, “technician visits,” and promises from management, nothing has been fixed. One of our rooms is unbearably hot, making it impossible to rest, and the second room is only slightly cooler because it’s higher up and gets some airflow — but the AC there is also not working. This is not a small “temporary” issue — air conditioning in Greece in summer is a basic necessity, especially in a property claiming 4 stars.

Management’s response has been shockingly unprofessional. We have been told the hotel is “fully booked” so there are no other rooms, yet they have made no attempt to relocate us to a partner property (which, by Greek law, they are obligated to do). When we ask to speak to higher management, we are refused and told they will not give contact details. On top of that, the front desk staff have laughed in our faces when we’ve raised concerns, making it clear they have no intention of resolving them.

To be clear: the hotel grounds and food are fine, but the rooms — at least the ones we were given — are nowhere near 4-star standard. This experience has wasted days of our vacation, caused unnecessary stress, and shown a complete disregard for guest comfort and legal obligations.

If you care about getting the standard you pay for, having basic amenities like functioning air conditioning, or being treated with professionalism, I cannot recommend this hotel. There are far better options where management actually values...