Katharos Pool Villas — Hotel in Municipality of Thira

If you are thinking of staying here, think again. Advertising for this villa was misleading. We were disappointed.

A requirement for where we stayed was about the size and quality of the beds. I was clear with our travel agent that a pull out sofa would not work. When we arrived we found one queen bed, a pull out sofa and a couch upstairs that was converted to a bed, none of which were comfortable, and ended up resulting in waking up not well rested, with sore bodies. I explained to Francesco that my primary requirement was to not have a pull out sofa. He offered to add multiple thin mattresses which didn’t improve the situation. When I told him I was surprised there was a pull out sofa that was listed as a Murphy bed his response was that his travel person provided him with the language to use for the descriptions. Alessandro came to us and had a bad attitude saying that the bedding situation was not their problem and that we needed to contact our travel agent. The bed headboard was made of concrete.

The place was a lot lower quality than what we would have expected.

The downstairs bathroom had no shower curtain and water sprayed everywhere when taking a shower that the floor had to be covered in towels to prevent from slipping.

The upstairs shower did not have a shower curtain but had a concrete barrier. It did not have a place to hold soap, shampoo, etc. so you had to reach around to the counter to get those items or use the floor.

The upstairs toilet had a hissing noise.

There were stains on the bedsheets and towels.

The towels were paper thin and low quality. When we checked in there were 2 bath towels for 4 of us and no pool towels.

The Wi-Fi was out intermittently.

The lighting fixtures and decor looked like they were from a yard sale.

The jacuzzi is part of the small pool and you have to request it to be warmer. It takes several hours to heat up. The Jacuzzi jets are on a 4 minute timer and you have to constantly reset. There’s not much private about the pool. The villas are one right after the other and you can hear people talking who are right next to you or even a villa or two down from you.

There were not a lot of food options right nearby. You had to walk at least 15 minutes for food. My son had developed a medical issue shortly before our trip (which made it difficult for him to walk too long and required him to eat somewhat regularly) so that made it challenging.

We asked whether they would be willing to refund us for 2 nights so that we could enjoy our vacation in more suitable and comfortable accommodations. They refused to refund us anything despite the fact that I explained our primary reason for wanting to move is due to waking up in pain because of the uncomfortable beds and it grossed us out having towels and sheets with stains.

The positives: they were helpful prior to our arrival in providing recommendations for a catamaran cruise (which was excellent) along with restaurant recommendations and securing reservations for ATVs. We were provided with bottled water and other drinks and snacks. Francesco was gracious in driving us up the hill to Oia several times (Alessandro drove us once) and Francesco gave us a platter of fresh strawberries and clementines which were delicious.

If you want to visit in Oia, I recommend staying somewhere further up the hill closer to the village and also staying for three days and visiting another village.

I do not know how so many positive reviews were posted. It has to consist mostly of people who are friends or who were paid to do so because the majority of our stay was well below our expectations and extremely disappointing, especially due to all of the money we spent. Traveling internationally is not something we do often. We realize that in European countries, the beds are smaller and may not be as comfortable, however, I feel certain that there were many other options that would have been better suited...

Wonderful stay at Katharos Villas! They go way above and beyond the normal standard of service and hospitality. Alessandro and Francesco were the nicest, kindest, and most helpful people I've ever met. They treated me and my wife like family. Me and my wife were there on our Babymoon trip and first off, they arranged a complimentary ride to pick us up from the airport at 12:30AM and take us to the villas and Alessandro met us at 1AM to welcome us and check us in. We were so impressed with them from the start.

Then on our first day there my wife suffered some trauma to her eye and Alessandro dropped everything and rushed us to a doctor in town and waited with us throughout the appointment and then brought us back. The next morning my wife needed more medical attention and he drove us all the way to the hospital to look for an opthamologist which they didn't have there so he took us to another private clinic and then finally came across an opthamologist at the third clinic we went to that day. They helped us out big time and my wife could have suffered permanent damage to her eye if it wasn't for their help. We are eternally grateful for them for their kindness and help in our time of need, especially since we were in a foreign country and didn't have the means or access to healthcare.

They also arranged other transportation and an ATV rental for us as well. They had it dropped off for us and picked up for us so we didn't lift a finger and they took care of everything. They gave us info on different activities to do in the area if we wanted to book other things. They served us welcome drinks and had the fridge stocked with drinks and other food items for us to use while we were there.

There's also an oven and range to cook on. The villa is spacious and has plenty of room to sleep 4 adults comfortably. There are 2 bathrooms as well. The private pool was awesome and fun to relax in, just a little chilly when we were there, but Alessandro told me they would be getting heaters for the pools in the future. Everything was clean, well taken care of and very comfortable. It was an amazing vacation even with our medical emergency and Katharos Villas will be the only place we stay when we return...

The villa was spotlessly clean, very spacious (2 floors; 2 bathrooms, one on each floor and both with shower; 2 large beds, one on each floor; and outside patio dining area as well as lounge chairs and umbrella next to the pool) and quite comfortable.

My son loved the pool, and it was great to be only a few steps to Ammoundi Bay where we got a great view of the sunset.

The host, Alex, could be seen around the property every day constantly working to keep everything clean and running smoothly. We saw him cleaning and maintaining the pools every day, tidying up the walkways, and always around to answer questions or provide assistance.

The only drawback is that it's a 15+ minute walk into town which is mostly uphill. However, you can also go down to Ammoundi Bay and then climb up the steps into town, which is an alternate route that avoids most of the crowds (and offers a back route directly up to Castle of Oia, which has the best views of the town and the sunset and gets extremely crowded and hard to access before sunset).

You can also arrange taxis to directly pick you up at the villa and drive you to anywhere on the island. This can be done through the hotel or just via WhatsApp with any drivers you meet at the airport or around the island.

Food delivery is also easy. The hotel provides information on several restaurants (at least 3 that I remember) that deliver (they speak English when you call), and all of them are very affordable (25-40+ euro for 2 people, depending on what you order) and arrive within 25-45 minutes, depending on time of day.

There is a full kitchen (several coffeemakers (pods and drip), full sets of cookware, dishware, utensils, etc.) and grocery/convenience markets within less than a 20 minute walk if you want to prepare your own meals. 4 huge bottles of water; a large plate of bananas, apples and oranges; and assortment of jams and honey are in the room...