Helydorea zen Country Houses & Retreats — Hotel in Municipality of Xylokastro and Evrostina

The hotel looks excellent on the website as well as on their brochure but the truth lies miles apart. We tried to proceed with a booking via their website but did not have the choice of picking the room we liked. So I picked up the phone and talked to a gentleman at the reservation desk. He explained to me that because it was a 3 days holiday (1st May 2014) they needed minimum 2 nights stay. I explained to him that i can book for one night only (Saturday) but we were only giving the choice of junior suite. He was adamant I could not do the booking for one night only. After some minutes of talk when I realised that the conversatiion was leading nowhere I said to myself , what the heck I will proceed with the booking and good night. And this is what I did. They got my credit card etcand I received an automatic message confirming my reservation. .. Saturday comes and we arrive at the hotel around 15:00 hrs. We are welcomed by a young guy at the reception and a woman, apparently working for the hotel, and when we said our name . they look each other and say ... luckily we have room 17 ... So I turned to him and queried him ... Luckily ? Is there a problem? ... he responded everything was ok and we eventually start walking to our "junior suite" . That was a joke ... he goes .. let me bring a table lamp as it's missing fm the room ... the funny part is that there is no bedsite table to put the lamp - He returns with the lamp - (see the photos). There was fireplace, so I asked for wood...oh u see we don't have any, we run out of woods since we burned everything during winter time. I said come on ... 2-3 pieces of wood will suffice, so he promised he will find some. After 30 mins he returns with a one huge piece of wood claiming that he will return with some small staff in order to enable me to light up the fire. He never came back. the next day while departing I was sarcastic telling him that we had a lovely fire in our place. He replied that everything was wet, that's why he did not bring anything. Actually nothing but lame excuses. At least there was some heating. We stayed at room 17 with the tiltle ARISTONAFTES. It could be the worst room of the hotel but we don' t know how the other rooms look like. Maybe it was our punishment that we managed to book only for one night. Next morning - breakfast- well below average. In a a few words both the hotel / the facilities and the service was terrible. The lady at the kitchen was very pleasant and helpful but the gentleman at the reception is surely lucking the knowledge of being a hotelier and how to handle clients. Amateur in capital letters. Think twice before you book. Trust above suffices to make...

We booked our stay to this hotel without further research due to several good recommendations we received from our friends. ||||We arrived late in the afternoon and instead of going straight to the hotel we stopped by a tavern in the beautiful village. The local people told us that “Helydorea Hotel” used to be one of the best hotels in the area but since the hotel management changed, the new owners don’t care at all and they have neglected the place. ||||We tried to remain positive until we arrived and realized that this was not like in the pictures shown on the website. The place was old and cold. ||||We travel on a very regular basis and this hotel was terrible in comparison to others hotels in the same budget. We were a party of 12 people and we had booked 3 double rooms and 3 suites for 2 nights, all equipped with fireplace. ||||To give you a clue as to how poor the place was:|| All rooms were freezing cold (well maybe not an issue if you are staying there during summer time but in December it gets pretty cold)|| No hot water to shower in the afternoon or early in the morning || Wifi (there is no such thing) || One room didn’t have a fireplace (but we did pay for it) || The rest of the rooms that were equipped with a fireplace, guess what… all woods were soaking wet! || The tv set is a joke|| No window in the bathrooms. And the air vents were out of order. || Espresso Coffee during breakfast is at extra change ||||We complained to the receptionist to receive several excuses: They bought the wrong kindling & woods, there was an issue with the central heating, they had no idea why the water was cold etc. Especially for the water complains, they didn’t believe us and the receptionist asked to visit our rooms to check it on her own. ||||We spent €65/night for the double and €85/night for the suites so I truly believe that this place is a proper rip-off for what you get.||||It’s a surprise how Helydorea hotel managed to become a COCO-MAT Hotel member. COCOMAT is a popular Greek company that quickly expanded globally and offers high quality mattresses which are based on pure ingredients and natural fibers. COCO-MAT brand and luxury-quality-lifestyle are strongly linked in customers' minds. I wonder why would anyone like to put their brand name in this hotel.||||Do yourself and family a favor and stay elsewhere, anywhere other than here. They are a disgrace for the Greek hospitality and I have decided to bring this to the attention of the Greek National Tourism Organization so that they won't be able to rest on past...

Hotel advertised itself as coco mat members , meaning that you can expect awesome sleeping experience with coco mat bed and pillows - But in fact, big disappointment because the hotel is not yet equipped in fact. So you are sleeping on standard IKEA mattress and pillows and certainly paying COCO MAT price? So , if COCO MAT is the key point of choosing this hotel, call in advance to ensure that they have equipped their rooms!Breakfast was average , room was cute, nice views, but it could have some improvements like shelves to put your stuff ( room for 4 but no shelves!) oh yes, sorry, there was one shelf in the wardrobe but it was broken, so my husband fixed it- TV with no remote control ( the owner could not retrieve it)-In my opinion, Duvet/comforters on the bed were not thick enough for the winter -Heater broke saturday night( zero degres outside!) so we went to sleep with all our clothes on! no kidding! fortunately it was fixed sometimes during the night .. But not exactly the COCO MAT experience we were expecting! especially when paying high price: 160 euros per night! so way over priced for what we got - Maybe this is because of the long week end, but i would not really recommend...