Pontikonisi — Hotel in Municipality of Central Corfu and Diapontia Islands

I stayed at this hotel for three nights with my sister (25 September-28 September 2024) and I have both positive and negative points to mention in my review; I will try to be as detailed as possible, so that people that are coming to this section to get information on the place will be able to have a general idea of it. Starting from the negative points, the facility has some very old rooms, like the one that has been assigned to us, and some very new ones, which means that if you are unlucky you will end up in a room whit old furnishments and stained walls like it happened to us, plus we were Booking.com guests so I do not understand according to which logic they assigned us the worst room since they knew I would review them; secondly, I understand that inconveniences may happen, but during our 3 nights stay one day there was no electricity for six hours and the following day no water for circa three hours, which shows a lack of general organization from the management, since we later discovered that the streets in the arounds were covered with notices that the area would be left without electrical power and water for maintenance jobs, which means that the hotel manager was aware of the situation from one or two days before at least and he did not provide electrical generators nor water supplies on time to avoid any incovenience to his guests, leaving us in a big big inconvenience; if I pay for a room, the first thing I expect to find with it besides a bed is power and running water to wash myself with. Thirdly, the staff is split in very nice people but also less nice ones; in the morning in which there was no eletrical power, I personally asked to the breakfast manager if I could get some juice as the distributor machine was not working, imagining that he would go to the kitchen and bring a bottle of juice for me to be able to drink it and pour it in my glass, while he replied that we could go to the rooftop bar in a while to get it, as after the end of the breakfast time he would be there personally to provide it: once I arrived there under his invitation, he made me pay 4 euros for it!!!!! Guests are not money machines from which you might take advantage of in every useful situation! If I paid for a breakfast and I cannot get a glass of juice from the machine because there is no power in the facility, once I complain for that and you invite me to go to the rooftop upstairs in a while, I expect to get it for free because it was your suggestion after I complained, hence I am coming under your invitation! Fourthly, before arriving I had to struggle to call them because they were not replying to my mails in which I was asking for a private transfer from the airport to the hotel since we would arrive in the night time, and after I obtained that after running after them by calls, they asked me 36 euros for 6 kilometers; not even in expansive cities like Milano they have such high rates for taxis! Tourists are considered people to be spilled out of their money on every corner in this place. All of this is completed by the fact that inside the rooms they do not leave not even one bottle of water to welcome the guests, which is very indecent especially after according to my Booking.com reservation I would have gotten a minibar service for the kind of room I have selected. Going to the positive points, the hotel is super quiet and it has a small private beach and a pool as well, which is very useful and enjoyable; plus, just 200 meters way there is a bus stop from where you can go both to Corfu town or to the airport (for this you need to go to the Lidl stop and then walk 1,2 km). I highly reccomend the management of this venue to review their policy on how treating the guests that bring money and richness to the island and to renew the old rooms and make them equal to the new ones, so that all the people can find a decent accomodation on their arrival. Best...

Gym access - Scammers

First to be fair I need to mention that I cannot rate them about the hotel as I did not book a stay with them.

I only wanted to use the gym across the street that is managed by them as it was on the road to the beach.

The gym was overpriced for what it had to offer. 10 euros for a day (I would only pass by this day) and the place was really small with what seemed to be some old machines.

Anyways I agreed to the price and when the time comes to pay, the reception lady asked for me to pay only in cash and no card would be accepted.

She specifically mentioned that for this type of transaction only cash was accepted.

Being Greek and knowing how things work over here this is a typical scam thing to do. Since the payment cannot be justified for whatever reason they want you to give them money in cash that do not get registered anywhere (no system that registers them and the money goes to someone’s pocket directly with no taxation).

Even if a receipt would be provided it is quite often that it is an invalid one that eventually does not register anything.

Anyways being Greek I know a lot of Greek people and businesses proudly representing our hospitality and supporting our tourism with fair treatment and practices. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case for this place.

Judging by how they handle the gym access I would not be surprised if they have similar practices for other services they offer.

I hope at some point they wake up and understand that “apateonies” and greediness never benefited anyone. Let’s wake up and try to help each other out to make Greece great...

Pontikonisi hotel is good regarding price/quality relationship. Very cheap hotel for the fabulous view you have. The staff is always very kind and friendly. It was a wonderful reception by them. They serve breakfast in two turns as a safety measure due to COVID, and the breakfast itself is complete to fill up your belly before travelling through the island. Also, they have a "private beach" with an amazing view, good to relax and enjoy the amazing Corfu sun.

However, there are a few things to keep an eye on: Terrible parking lot. There is absolutely no space to park in front of the hotel. Even with a parking valet, everything was disorganized, blocking the entrance of all cars. We had to leave our car in the parking lot of the front building or alongside the street (just be careful when doing that at night, since the street does not have any lights). It is preferable to park the car far from the hotel rather than block any car entrance or being called by hotel staff to move your car out of the way of other guests (it has generated some arguing between the guests). Careful with room cleaning as we saw a cockroach there. We asked to clean it out, and they seemed unsurprised. Do not except total sound isolation in the rooms; It is not very acessible for people in wheelchairs.

In a sum, the hotel is ok regarding quality/price relationship: don't expect too much for the price you're paying, but it is still a lovely stay with staff service and amazing view. Might come back only if they fix the parking...