NOŪS Santorini — Hotel in Municipality of Thira

Nice enough place but service and fine details don’t warrant the high price.

To give some context we are a family of 3 (2 adults and a three year old). I work in financial services but 90% of my clients are in the hotel & hospitality sector and I speak with CEO’s & GM’s daily. My wife works in fashion and spends considerable time at events in Londons finest hotels and restaurants. Holiday wise we prefer contemporary boutique spots rather than chains or resorts. Nous ticked those boxes on the face of it hence we picked it.

We are currently 5 days into a 8 night stay and whilst the hotel is aesthetically pleasing it is not yet upto 5 star standards.

Pros

the grounds, buildings & decorations are all beautiful Location is well situated away from the chaos but close to a bus stops that runs regular services to fira, kamari. The food and service in the newly opened elio steakhouse was fantastic as was the knowledge of the sommelier. The choice at breakfast is amongst the best I have seen across similar hotels. The gym facilities are good apart from the bike machine which is not working. For all the staff working throughout the hotel I would expect this to be manned.

Cons

the service at breakfast is very poor. On one occasion I waited an hour and a half for a coffee which I requested 4 times. In the end I gave up. As I type I have waited 45 minutes for one today and ordered twice. The tables aren’t numbered and staff don’t seem to be allocated areas so there is alot of confusion. You are constantly offered other people’s food and drink and to some degree you are best just taking what you are offered which I am sure is what guests are doing. Having raised the above to the manager on the first occasion we were offered complimentary drinks by the pool for that day - great we thought. Ordered a few and again nothing turned up. Eventually had to go to the bar and get them. Thereafter again no one came round asking if we wanted more drinks. So whilst the gesture was nice, 2 aperol spritz do not make up for 2 hours without my family waiting for a simple cappuccino. The drinks service is a constant issue, they would be better off doing self service or giving complimentary coffees from the vitamin bar in the morning. The make up service is sloppy, little things like sheets not tucked in, plates/cutlery not replaced which you wouldn’t expect from a 5 star hotel. Last night our air con made repeated clicking sounds, we called to reception but were just advised it should stop…which it did after 30 mins. Not ideal at 11pm whilst trying to get a child to bed. The pricing is a bit all over the price. A beer at the pool is 9 euros but 6 euros in the steakhouse. Doesn’t really make sense. Given the proximity to the airport and the current occupancy rate the hotel is utilised by budget airlines in the event of cancelled flights. We have had 2 days where the hotel was packed full of passengers put up due to cancelled flights. Many of these passengers can’t believe they have been put up in such a hotel so take full advantage. Breakfast became chaos with guest hammering the complimentary fizz and piling their plates with pastries!! Obviously all of this hampers the service and brings down the ambience of the place. The hotel is still young and therefore is establishing its reputation. They have a number of social media influencers staying (I can only assume free of charge) at any one time so expect photoshoots and them to get priority treatment. Fully aware that both the previous points are fairly standard for newer hotels but when some of these guests are getting better service than fee paying guests it rubs you up the wrong way!

I would just add that the staff appear to be doing their best, no one is standing around. The guy at the pool for example is forever dashing around. It just all seems a bit disorganised which may just be teething problems.

Like I say nice enough hotel just not upto the standards of say SLH or Relais &...

There's a lot to love about this hotel. I would likely stay here again for a night or two if I'm back in Santorini and most likely I will return to Santorini since I only got one day in Santorini. |First the hotel is very modern and if you love modern design, you will love it. My husband totally loved it, but I thought it was too modern. Rooms beautiful and the pool area is well appointed with a table and chairs as well as two very comfortable loungers. It was late Sept so it was chilly to use the pool. The hotel is quite large and there's a lot of ground to cover if the suite is far from the main area. |The main pool is large and gorgeous. There's not that much of a view and that's regretful. My hotel suite was the corner suite with a view of a parking lot to the right. Thankfully, it wasn't a busy parking lot. If I were to have stayed there for a few days, I would definitely have asked for a different room. |The bed was very comfortable and I think it was California king size. We slept very well. |The highlights of the hotel were the breakfast buffet, ample pool area and the hotel restaurant. The breakfast buffet was quite expansive and if you are a breakfast person, you would love it. However, there's no made to order station. The food at the restaurant was very good and innovative. We would have ordered more but the waiter said the portions were big but obviously he has not seen portion sizes in the US. Definitely take advantage of the restaurant if you can. |The miss was the spa. I had high expectations based on the look of the hotel, but it's not like a typical high end luxury resort spa. A tiny locker room, no hair dryer nor amenities, one shower, no robe, no jacuzzi, and the saunas are co-ed. I didn't book a massage because I just didn't have the time, but based on the facility, I'm glad that I didn't get one. It would be a great resort to spend a full day in if it wasn't for the mediocre spa experience. I have to say though the hot and steam saunas are pretty hot and very clean. I chose this hotel because it is so close to the airport, but the trip far was still 40 euros despite the fact that the trip was little over than 5 mins. |You can pay exorbitant cab fare to go everywhere, but there's a bus stop to Fira which is not far from the hotel. The only negative is that the road is very busy and there's not much of a sidewalk. We did take a bus to Fira and back and we managed it just fine. Just note that the bus sign to Fira is a paper that's stapled onto a tree trunk right front of the laundromat next to Carrefour. The bus fare is 2 euros/pp so even though we could afford the cab, 80 euros on RT cab ride seemed too much considering Fira was less than 10 minutes away. The bus also seemed to be filled with tourists too. I liked that there were local supermarkets right by the hotel and restaurants and shops for locals. So if you want to be away from busy tourist areas, looking for great service and comfortable stay, this hotel would be a...

My husband, our 1 year old son and I stayed at the NOUS for 5 nights in April 2023, soon after the hotel reopened for the season. We had such an incredible time here, we loved every moment.

The staff at the hotel are very friendly and helpful, literally everyone (receptionists, breakfast staff, security, house keeping… everyone!) They made us feel so welcome and they never gave us a no for an answer. You can communicate with them via WhatsApp, so handy! We loved and really appreciated their “yes, we can do it” attitude. We were quite demanding to accommodate our sons needs and they were more than happy to help. Thank you for treating us so well, consistently.

The room was outstanding. Beautiful decoration, very new and well maintained furniture, different pillow options, spotless clean. They provided a cot, a bottle heater and a little bath for our baby but they offered an endless list of equipment for him (i.e. playmat, and lots of other things). We really enjoyed chilling in our room garden that overlooks the pool area and the beautiful Pyrgos village.

Breakfast was 10 out of 10. Really, it couldn’t be any better. Again, they can do anything you want and we ate so much every day… it was so delicious! The food they prepared for our baby (porridge, fruit puree etc.) was perfect and very healthy. Thanks for feeding us so well.

The hotel is situated outside a not so touristy village called Mesaria, I’d say you need to have a car if you want to explore the island. We hired a car at the airport and visited pretty much every village - everywhere is easy to get to (max. 20 min drive). Also, we loved the restaurants around the hotel, quite local and serving the most delicious traditional food. We had pizza one night from a place nearby too and it was great.

Because the weather was nice but not too hot, we didn’t get to enjoy the pool. This was a bit of a shame because the pool area looked so good, beautifully designed and overlooking the sea and mountain. We’ll need to come back in summer next time. We did use the SPA and it’s prefect too, like everything else. So relaxing and with great facilities (sauna, plunge pool etc.) There’s an indoor-outdoor pool that we wanted to use but the water was a little cold, especially for our son- it would have been great if this pool had heated water - I guess that’s the only thing I’d improve.

The airport is located about 5 minutes from the hotel (though we were not bothered by flight noise at all). We were offered airport transfers from the hotel for €40 each way but we had a rental car so we didn’t need this. If we had paid that much and then discovered it was a 5 minute drive I don’t think we would have felt that was good value for money.

We highly recommend the NOUS hotel if you come to Santorini. We cannot wait to be back, thank you for making our...