Mathraki Resort | Book Direct for Best Rates — Hotel in Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY HERE !!! This is the feeling that Mathraki Resort left in my mouth after a 10+ days stay. So, let's start from the beginning. It is not our first trip to Greece. Me and my family come to Grece every year for at least 10-14 days. Always by car since we come from Romania. Everywhere else, when we arrived ,we where greeted by the host, helped unloading the trunk and offered complimentary drinks and fruits/ sweets for the kids. To be clear, we never choose cheap locations and always stay for more then 10 days...so we are great customers. Now, our arrival at Mathraki: we got there and found out that the parking was not on premises but downhill ,about 50 meters. So I parked my car in front of the entrance so that I could unload our luggage. I was immediately warn not to parc there and I got a bit angry...2 adults and 2 kids for a long stay means allot of luggage...that I should have carried uphill so that I wouldn't bother the owner. Next step...please follow me in the reception...your room is ready, this is the key ( showed me the key but didn't hand it over) this is your bill ...you owe me x amount. I was left speechless...first time this has happened to me in Greece. I asked...can I pay you in 30 minutes...after I take my bags to the room?.... He just looked at me and didn't answer...awkward silence...so I put down my bags, searched for the wallet....and payed. I felt like a thief. It was like if I didn't pay him then, I will not pay him anymore 🤮 After payment was processed, he sent me the invoice on spot by email and then took us to our room. When I got to the room it became a bit clear why he insisted on the payment. I booked an apartment with a queen bed and 2 single beds. I was given an apartment with 4 single beds...and when I asked...the reply was : fine print on the reservation page : SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY Now, usually I don't really mind...but in this case,the 2 single beds in the bedroom that where put together, had a gap between mattresses of about 20 cm!!! Great if I would sleep with my brother, awfull when sleeping with my wife. The twin beds in the living room where metal frame beds. As you can imagine, when you slept and move...they would move also and make noise. The furniture in the bedroom was wood but the beds didn't match the mattresses or the other way around...the mattresses where smaller then the beds The furniture in the room didn't really match all together, some very old, some newer. He saw that I was annoyed about the beds so he offered to switch me to a different apartment the next day. I declined. For us to unpack partially for a day...then repack so that we could move and then unpack fully, it would have ment an entire day lost....the roomg should have been reserved as payed for. Moving on...the cleaning. There was a folder in the apartment which stated the cleaning was every 2 days and changing of the sheets weekly. The cleaning was superficial and the sheets where never changed. We stayed for 11 nights. They changed the pillows covers and the towels. Towels where very old and scratchy...even when wet they would still be scratchy. Bathroom is very small and old equipped. The toilet makes a huge noise after flushing. If you go to the toilet by night I think the entire resort knows it...very loud. I loaded a picture of how one of the trollers looked after taken from underneath the bed....dusty and dirty In the end,the noise. As I mentioned we had a pool side room. Even though the pool was closed untill 9 a.m, în the early morning there where other turists using it...so you couldn't leave any terrace door opened durring the night for fresh air. Right across the street there is a mattress factory...that would load trucks every morning 7-8 am durring the week...manouvres, shouting...you could hear them clearly with all windows closed. Let's just say I kind of had early mornings my entire stay. To top all this off, when we went for the check-out, the only thing the owner said was : DID YOU PAY ALL YOUR BILLS ? I do not recommend...

To be honest, I am disappointed. It is not so bad, but sorry, for the money we paid we expected more...

The room has only one small closet for 4 people. Actually, the second room was designed to be the living room, they just added two beds there for more sleeping space, but added zero storage space.

There is no sitting area (chairs and tables) inside, only on the balcony. I suppose you can carry those inside and back again several times a day every day if you want.

The kitchen equipment is very basic - for example we had only 3 forks and 3 butter knives...(ok, we DID have 4 spoons...). Good luck trying to cook for four people with what you have... The electric kettle and stove are old, but they function. There is only one wall socket next to them, so you can't use both at the same time. Overall there are 4 unoccupied sockets in the whole apartment.

You do get clean towels every second day and clean bedsheets once a week, but the room cleaning is perfunctory. The cleaning lady is nice enough, but clearly overburdened.

The pool is not as clean as you might think by looking at the pictures. There are pool rules but almost nobody follows them and the owners do nothing to enforce them. I guess they worry about losing customers. The women do not tie their hair and there are long hairs sticking to your fingers in the pool; people run around wearing no shoes and then jump right into the pool. There is a shower next to the pool, closed space for more privacy even, but nobody uses it. The water in the pool is milky most of the time. They throw considerable amounts of something (chlorine?) in the pool by hand to make it look better; it lasts about 2 days... Children and adults alike jump into the pool, spraying everywhere. A girl jumped right on my son's back.🙁 There are people in the pool at 8 o'clock in the evening, although it officially closes at 6. It is nice that there are sand toys and pool mattresses, but the guests do not take care of them, and several things got broken during our stay. People smoke near the pool, oblivious to the small children who are everywhere. What is sadder: it's the parents of some of the children who do that.

The location is ok, but you are exactly on the route of planes taking off, so the noise is sometimes deafening. Luckily, there are not so many planes; unluckily, some take off late at night or early in the morning...

The owners are nice enough, but I also got the impression that certain people are treated preferentially, just like other reviews have mentioned. Truth is, if you ask for something, they will get it for you - within the limits of the reasonable, of course. People can get really loud late in the evening (24 hours and way past), and the owners themselves do nothing. 😕

So, to sum up: there are rules, but only for show. You might get lucky and encounter nice people, but then again, you might not.

The hotel (and the whole island for that matter) seems to be very popular with Dutch families, who pretty much act like they own the place.

(unrelated to the hotel!) Corfu as an island is dirty and dilapidated. Stray dogs and mostly stray cats roam the streets.

Garbage is everywhere. It is not being sorted, but rather thrown haphazardly in overflowing garbage bins and more often than that on the streets.

There are a lot of abandoned buildings and businesses which closed down, and it looks like they just locked the door and went away, leaving everything behind to rust and rot.

The roads are mostly bad, and locals and tourists alike drive recklessly.

And I have never seen so many abandoned cars in my life! They are everywhere, outside of towns but also taking up space in the (already overflowing) parking lots in Corfu town.

The beaches are mostly overcrowded, but the facilities (toilets and such) are, with some exceptions, a (bad) joke.

The overall feeling is: "Why should we invest in the infrastructure? Tourists are coming anyway".

If you still want to visit after what I have written...well,...

Mathraki Resort is a really nice small hotel where you can certainly benefit from a great pool area set in lovely gardens. It's in Gouvia (in a quiet spot over what is a very busy main road from the main quite small resort - which has seen better days but has bars, restaurants and takeaways by a small stony beach). The hotel has a couple of blocks of rooms and we stayed in a two-bedroom apartment, one of the two yet to be upgraded (we assumed as the bathroom was the same as it was in a photo dated 2013 on Tripadvisor). It was a good layout for 4 people, lacking only the space for a comfortable sitting area, but you can sit out front or on the balcony at the back. There was lots of wardrobe space in both rooms.

Both rooms had air conditioning with one unit much more modern and quieter than the other. The older one leaked on to the table at the back. The owners were quick to fix the main leak when we told them but the fix required a container that filled daily with water and had to be emptied by us before it over flowed across the floor. The kitchen has a good hob, that's seemingly quite new with an oven and utensils but it was disappointing to see a lot of mismatched old Heineken glasses and no wine glasses - they seem to all be in the new cellar apartment downstairs - and when we asked for some at the bar we were asked to bring them back as soon as possible as if we weren't allowed them, which was just a bit odd.

The main double bed was certainly old, with a broken frame. There was one small pillow for each person and when we asked for some more we were given sofa cushions in pillow slips that were not what was required. They still had the cushion covers on underneath and were tough to sleep on. This is all odd because the hotel is directly opposite a bed shop! Bedding was very disappointing. It's old and faded. The pillow slips looked many years old. Towels were also old, scratchy and a variety of faded odd colours. Pink?? Bathroom was a good size but I really don't see how the shower head could not be attached to the wall. It's just annoying, as there's a space where a holder could easily be attached to the wall.

One thing everything was, was clean. Staff work really hard to keep everything and everywhere spotless. They never seemed to stop!

The pool area is the jewel in this resort. It's pretty much perfect if you want the feel of a small hotel that could be more like a shared villa. There's a poolside toilet and shower room which looks handy for anyone with a later flight. Plenty of families were there and lots had returned from previous years so the owners are doing something right here. They really are not far off it being worthy of a five star review with the small details just lacking. Nikos the owner is always available by whatsapp and he is able to arrange taxis, trips, rental cars or other advice.

It's on the bus route so 25 mins into Corfu Town, 10-15mins to Dassia/Ipsos.

The owners have worked really hard to get this to this standard and I hope the new work going on will see it continue to be a success. I know this is quite a lot of detail for a 4 star review! But it was more frustrating that there were very easily-fixed details that took the shine off the stay.

We did enjoy the stay, honest!

(as you can see from the Google page they want you to book direct for the best rates and there's lots - LOTS - of reminders about this around the place, which makes no sense as I'd already booked via another provider - clearly, we were THERE! - but I can't help but think if I had booked direct I'd have got one of the newly-decorated rooms. That's just a feeling though, but why make your guests...