Iris Hotel — Hotel in Municipality of Kos

For anyone considering booking The Iris Hotel in Psalidi, Kos then please, for your own sake, book a Superior or Deluxe room. Don't consider a “standard” room as you will regret it…low standards of cleaning and old/tired mattresses are what will await you. |We weren't aware that different rooms were available so, on entering room 207 we found our bathroom was, let's say grubby at best. Every surface from floor to ceiling, including the sink and toilet bowl, needed a good scrubbing with Cif and a good dose of bleach. Three out of four bathroom towels were clean but stained, two of them badly and the shower head was loose making it unusable (until the next day when I borrowed a screwdriver and fixed it myself). The room floor made my wife's bare feet dirty within minutes and my socks felt sticky within the same time frame so we cleaned it as best we could with the stained towels. The bed mattresses were/are worn out, with the springs very noticeable making for an uncomfortable sleeping experience. |Because of a flight delay we didn't arrive until 2am and were met by the night porter who led us up two flights of stairs while offering no help to carry the two suitcases! Luckily, even at 72 years of age I was able to manage. I was back down those stairs within minutes to ask for another room…”no room clean” was the answer. So I paid the €56 for a week's air con (the best thing in the room) and ascended the stairs once more for an unpleasant night.|The morning gave us an opportunity to speak to reception. “Sorry, we are full, no other rooms available”. We did at least have the promise of mattress toppers, which took two days to arrive, so a second night of uncomfortable sleep! Later that day I spoke to the TUI rep (Katrien) who expressed great concern and said she would request a “deep clean” of our room. We said we would buy bleach and a mop to clean it ourselves but she insisted that they would do it.|We also asked her to investigate moving us to another hotel and the next day we learned that the cost, including a £50 TUI fee was considerable…beyond what we thought was reasonable…so we decided to tough it out at The Iris. |Finally, on our fourth day and a second “deep clean” request, the bathroom looked and smelled slightly better. If there had been pictures of the bathroom when we were booking then we would not have chosen this hotel. |The pool area is nice on first viewing but you soon realise that here also there is a low level of maintenance with assorted rubbish, cans etc, strewn around the outer edges and many weeds growing between the paving stones, some of which are loose and uneven. The sunbeds are old and stained so covering with large towels is advised. The shower area is particularly dirty and unkempt. The pool bar staff are friendly and the service is good. We had lunch there on three occasions and each time it was tasty and good value.|The Iris is run by a consortium that is “proud to be Greek family owned”.|The staff are friendly and helpful, apart from our housekeeping lady who was less than friendly and in fact quite surly towards us.|Breakfast is the same every day with little choice of fruit (chunks of melon only), cheese slices, three types of cold meat and hard boiled eggs. A small selection of cereals, yoghurt, tea, coffee, water and pieces of cake completed the menu.|The Iris is outside Kos City which is a 20-30 minute walk (we are slow walkers), but be aware that the majority of this walk is shared with a stream of bicycles, both manual and electric, and very fast and silent electric scooters whizzing by, and most think they have right of way!|Out from the hotel, pass the supermarket and at the bottom of the road is the main road into the city where the majority of traffic think they're on a motorway! Once crossed, there is a bus stop nearby to take you into Kos. There are also three excellent restaurants within a few minutes walk where you can enjoy your evening meal by the sea shore. Not one of them disappointed so it's difficult to recommend any one in particular, however, if you want a mixed grill go in the first one, if fish, go to the third. Also, a nice pit stop if walking into or from town is the Marina cafe, which, as you can guess is on the marina. |Kos city is delightful with its narrow streets full of shops, restaurants and cafes and feels both welcoming and ancient.|We arrived here on the 30th August and we had full sunshine every day with temperatures between 28° and 32°.|Would we come back?...well certainly not to The Iris and probably not to this island as there are so many other...

My absolute honest review about our stay in this hotel :||First let’s say what were the positive sides of our stay : ||Hotel is on a very good location , close to the Beach shops and bus stops .|Lobi is renovated , pool is fine .Prices are reasonable at the pool bar .|All seems alright at first.|The housekeeping staff were absolutely brilliant|, changing towels bed sheets , cleaning every day , absolutely amazing ladies , they deserve tips .|Unfortunately i can’t say the same about the rest of the staff.||We arrived at 2pm afternoon , the owner asked us for our passports, when he found out for how many nights we are staying he looked absolutely shocked 😳 we stayed for 11 nights .|He said check in was at 3pm , but our room is ready so we can get our card and check in at 2pm perfect .|We had a superior room .It was nice and renovated , we thought brilliant we were very impressed.However the downsides weren’t visible yet .We didn’t know we had to pay for an air conditioning, the owner never said “do you need an AC , are you happy to pay extra “,he never offered us the remote for the AC .|The room was on the ground floor, underneath the room was the laundry room of the hotel where thimble dryer was constantly on , can you imagine how hot this room was getting during the day , |It is absolutely not acceptable to ask someone to pay extra for the AC when the dryer is on all the time underneath our room.||The fan in the bathroom wasn’t working, the shower drain was completely blocked .When someone showers it floods for seconds …ok, we did not ask for another room ( as we seen the bad reviews before ) he basically gave us “the best possible room”…||Customers service :|Absolutely shocking.|I am speaking from my own experience, as i have been working in hospitality as a restaurant and hotel manager for over 15 years .||First day i went on the pool bar , there was a young lady , i ordered drinks , she served me , no issues , however later we decided to order food my husband joined me .|Guess what , we waited OVER AN HOUR , there were 3 tables in total , after i asked her kindly is she knows if our food is it’s way , she said “ we are not McDonalds “she was absolutely arrogant and fed up with customers , instead of saying “i will check for you “she was so rude and arrogant , not acceptable behavior.|Ok, me and my husband were happy to spend our money for dinners at the hotel, but this customer service, made us go elsewhere. We spent from €30-50 every night elsewhere . Unfortunately the owner has to rethink how his staff is pushing customers away. We didn’t feel welcome for a second !!! ||I never went on the pool bar again, 2 days before check out, i went to see the rep , at 10:05 am i was trying to order a coffee to the young arrogant and miserable lady, she interrupted me saying “ we are not open yet “, ok i said i will wait for the rep without coffee ( after that the owner brother came and asked me kindly what i wanted , i said “don’t worry honestly”, i felt like i am committing a crime ordering a coffee🤣)||Breakfast:|Absolutely shocking |This is the poorest breakfast i have ever seen in my entire life, we didn’t even bother to go on breakfast.|On checkout NO ONE asked us if we enjoyed our stay, they doesn’t care at all ….The owner was walking past us and never said hello.||I am giving 3stars ONLY because of the housekeeping! Otherwise it was going to be one !||Obviously our stay wasn’t amazing, i understand , is not a VIP hotel , i do not expect huge , i expected the bare minimum,no they are below...

So here goes….. I am a woman of pretty simple tastes, I’m not that person who is prone to complaining or making a fuss unlike others I seem to see and find extremely annoying. I would say my bar is pretty low as opposed to my husband who likes the comforts of life. If you are a type of person like my hubby who likes things perfect and on the fancy side then the room we had is not for you so save your self the stress. If not I imagine you will spend a lot of the holiday complaining about the numerous inadequacies of this accommodation. Just to be clear I am not complaining about this room as our holiday was cheap, £1400 for three adults with a basic continental breaky thrown in and we went for 10 nights. So that’s a bargain all day long. We shred a room so it was tight, not a problem willing to sacrifice for economic reasons we also paid for air con obvs. As u can see from the pictures we he room is so old it’s actually retro and the headboard would possibly have some antique value and deffo get snapped up at some cool and happening retro store. The bathroom was reminiscent of my first hols abroad in the early80’s, again I actually find this kinda cute and nostalgic. However, I’m pretty weird… so my friends say. If you are averse to the basics then the cheap and uncomfortable mattresss could be an issue, the door that doesn’t close without a good foot shove and the pretty weak air com may be a hardship for u. Oh and the shower head needs some bodging to make it stay. Like I say me and the son love a bit drama and are very much not of the diva variety so we thought it mostly amusing. There’s a super cold fridge which identifies as air con so as a crazed menopausal women stand in front if it. It works wonders. It was a quiet hotel when we stayed mid July and seems to be run by a family. We were in the older rooms and I believe they have upgraded some others which you can pay more for. There are two lovely older women who do the breakfast and they are adorable. They make the cake and flapjacks themselves. Breaky is basic though but perfectly good enough if u want a meal at the start of the day. I’ll be honest we eat out every night so save our spends for this. The hotel pool has a bar and food but we rarely sat there except for beer breaks on occasional pool days. They do a steak night, music night and games night. We didn’t really attend but had a drink some nights there after being out. It really lacks atmosphere for me and the staff just seem knackered and not particularly chipper. We hired bikes from ideal who are the psalidi side of kos but town. Great older couple who couldn’t do enough for us. Kos town was incredibly hot and busy at this time of year and we won’t do it again but that’s down to preference. June is far nicer and quieter. Hire bikes to get u around it’s totally fab. Be warned though tourists and locals use scooters and mopeds on the cycling lanes so your wits are needed about you. Lambi beach is nice if you head past the harbour and go first right at the roundabout, google map old river which is a bar and they do free beds if u buy something. It’s busy though. Just before the old river is a lovely icevream and pastry shop where it’s got a traditional offering rather than sitting in a large generic bar. It’s preferable for me. Go to paradise beach it’s great and lovely views we went with a tui excursion but busses...