MonAsty, Thessaloniki, Autograph Collection — Hotel in Municipality of Thessaloniki

We stayed at this hotel for three nights (two rooms) for a family reunion. The staff members were outwardly nice at first. Then everything changed. The A/C in the room wouldn’t go down below 22.5 degrees Celsius so, drenched in sweat in the middle of the night, we called the front desk, and they “lifted” the block over the A/C (which is ridiculous for a supposedly “luxury” hotel in the hot summer of Greece, to begin with). Then the cheap Nespresso machines in our rooms didn’t work properly, and after raising the issue with staff three times, nothing happened. The lighting in the room is silly—an annoying number of switches that one has to waste time on figuring out.

A day before checkout, a staff member reminded me that checkout time is at 11 am, meaning we had to vacate the rooms by then. Later she justified her remark by saying she was trying to see if I needed late checkout as a Gold Elite member, but she didn’t ask me whether I needed late checkout. At checkout, it was took forever to get an actual bill for the two rooms (this hotel doesn’t email guests a folio with the bill like other Marriott properties), and I saw one of the front desk people roll her eyes at the other when I insisted on receiving a bill with itemized charges. At the end, no one offered to help us with our bags—my 87-year-old mother was carrying a bag with great difficulty, yet the initially “nice” staff, including the valet, just stood there. We felt as though we had been kicked out of the hotel that claims to be “luxury” and “nice.”

There were nice things about the hotel, such as the location and the fact it’s new and generally nicely appointed, but our experience with the staff was that they were two-faced and/or in dire need of good guest services training. Right before this hotel, I stayed at the Nagoya Marriott in Japan (cheaper than this hotel), and would recommend the MonAsty take a lesson in guest services by the Nagoya...

The Monasty delivered a superb experience during a recent stay of almost two weeks. I’ll note in particular the service by Fillis, Eva, and the entire front service team. There were other points that stand out however.

-The level of individual service was excellent. Beyond consistently being greeted by name, the entire staff was clearly making an effort to synchronise their awareness of guests. Though the service was never intrusive, it was always proactive.

-Food service within the hotel itself was very good. Breakfast in particular was excellent.

-We are Marriott loyalists. The Autograph Collection was already our favourite brand, but this was as good of a Marriott property as I’ve ever experienced. The Monasty was on par with or even exceeded my experiences with both the St Regis and Luxury Collection brands. Recognition of our Marriott loyalty status was superb. This property warrants consideration and possibly a special trip for other Marriott guests in Greece or the Aegean region.

-Marriott status or not, Thessaloniki is probably under appreciated as a destination, at least to North American travellers. Taxis are easy, the sea is beautiful, and the food is wonderful. Mount Olympus is within sight of the shore on a clear day. English was widely spoken.

-The neighbourhood of the hotel was a wonderful destination in its own right. It was an easy five minute walk to the sea. There was a very good grocery across the street from the main entrance. Several tourist destinations such as the White Tower and the Agia Sophia were within an easy 10-20 minute walk. Outside of the hotel, there was excellent dining nearby. A 5-15 minute walk will offer a wide range of options ranging from fine dining to gyros.

I strongly recommend this hotel. It truly does justify a trip in...

Unfortunately, I cannot leave a rating higher than 1 stars. We chose the hotel with our family because we wanted to be in the city center and it was 5 stars, but we forgot that there are no 5 star hotels in Greece, they correspond to 2 stars! We went for two nights, prepaid in advance, the first night our daughter, who is 15 years old, got a little cold when we were in the evening in the city center and walking, the weather was changeable. He didn't feel well all night and at 8:00 in the morning I saw that he had a temperature, of course this has nothing to do with the hotel. We went to the reception in the morning and said that our daughter is not feeling well and we want to go home to Bulgaria and we were canceled the second night due to a serious and adequate reason.... They completely and categorically refused us because it was prepaid and the amount was non-refundable, this is complete nonsense. I don't want to just cancel an overnight stay and leave the hotel, we have a serious reason to leave the hotel, it's about a child and health!!!! We paid 900 euros per night and had to stay with our sick child in the hotel, what an outrage on their part, this does not protect the customer in any way! And of course, we didn't stay the second night and left back to Bulgaria, we gave them one night of 900 euros for a room where someone was smoking cigarettes below us and the whole smell entered us through the bathroom, it...