Maria Studios & Apartments — Hotel in Zakynthos Municipality

We booked Maria studios as a last min holiday. Only a 5 day stay and the reviews were good and pictures seemed nice enough so we chose this over another we were also looking at. The hotel is small and you don’t get greeted by reception staff as it’s ran by a family who are Chris, Bobby, Ellie and Theo. Maria the mom is there during the morning to mid afternoon. She’s friendly but her English wasn’t as good as the rest of the family. On arrival they greet you from the bar area and help take your bags to your room. If your a late arrival a sign is on the door with your door number so you have to search this yourself. The hotel as you walk in is reception, bar/restaurant area all in one. Opens out the outdoor area and straight to the pool down the steps so this shows how small it is. Entertainment is also done in this area, no big entertainment it’s a quiz, karaoke and football. However guests were happy with this though most don’t start till 10pm so if you’ve kids it can get loud even in your rooms as music can go on till 1-2am. |The hotel itself is small but seemed very clean and staff were very nice and friendly. Ellie works non stop and chats to guests constantly and is a lovely young lady. The food was nice when we ate there and drinks costs reasonable. Being a self catering hotel, the only downside to the hotel is they don’t allow you to bring in outside snacks and drinks which I’ve never heard of before! |The hotel is away from anything and is 80 metres walk to local shop which is roughly a 15 min walk. Walk another 10-15 mins to find few more shops and your restaurants. Alykes isn’t a big area at all so we walked another 10-15 mins to Alykanas which is bigger and more available. It is easy enough to walk as the paths are flat, wide is areas and plants of drop curbs. Some areas no paths so just keep to the side and you’ll be fine. Roads aren’t busy from what we say till you reach Alykanas. Quads can be seen more than anything but we had no issues ourselves with these. Lots of horse and carriages around also to get about. The hotel has no local bus service or taxi rank you have to ask hotel or a local trip place to book a taxi. To go into Zante town it was €50 each way so we left it and stayed more local as we were only there 5 days. Staff advised it is better to hire a car yourself and way enough to get about. |Some lovely restaurants around but be aware there’s wasps everywhere. Also in the hotel there was a lot of wasps and seeing many getting stung sadly. Hotel had nothing up to help get rid or keep them away and restaurant staff when out for dinner, just stand watching while your flapping few wasps away from you while trying to eat!|We left one restaurant as we had enough and they gave us 10% off our meal. We’d hardly touched it but we were being swarmed with wasps and had enough. |If you like lots of shops and bars then Alykes/Alykanas is not for you. There’s very minimal here but enough for a family for few days break away. ||Hotel Pool area is very small and not many beds so get there for 6am to grab a bed. Some beds were left for over 4 hours not used on 2 days we noticed which really staff need to keep an eye on and remove towels as we saw people wanting beds and having to sit or lie on towels or a pool float at the side. Don’t bother us we went to the beach which is about a 15 min walk to pebble beach which is small. Walk further up and it’s a lovely sandy beach. A small port area here you’ll get your booked boat trips from also. |We did the ship wreck and blue caves 3hour trip booked through ‘Get your guide’. Inc was 3 swim stops. |Hire Sun beds at €15 for 2 beds and a chair or was €20 for us as we wanted 3 sunbeds. And enjoy the beautiful beach, very shallow and warm clear water ans a lovely much welcomed breeze. A beach bar with lovely foods and drinks available daily. ||In the hotel the rooms are the most basic I’ve ever seen and very very dated. They are in serious need of repair and decoration. The beds are like sleeping on a brick! Bedding old and thin. Pillows are useless and the air con is so old we have to empty an old water bottle once it fills up or it leaks over balcony!|Views are gorgeous front and back. Lots of animals around especially cockerels who wake you at 4.30am all go off day! Local cockerels, Chickens, goats walking around and you can hear all the insects in the trees also which can be very loud but it’s no problems it’s a fairly peaceful area. |You get 1 toilet roll on arrival then have to buy your own. No welcome pack which were used to even in basic hotels previously we’ve always had a small welcome pack. You get a 2 hob cooler in the cuboard to use however there’s no work too around to put anything on so seems absolutely pointless. Bathroom has no storage and the toilet takes ages to fill again and is loud before anyone else can use and be able to flush it again.|The back door doesn’t lock and we pushed it one day and it popped open!. |When you leave your bags are to be left in open reception area which surprised us as no safe room to store all day as we had evening flight. We were told a room was avail em to change in and freshen later. Once we were shown this we were surprised it was literally just a small room with a mop and a very old dirty chair. No lock or shelves or a shower! You wash in poolside area in the outside shower and then a fast change so no one walks in on you! It connects to 2 rooms so it’s very strange. My husband changes in the toilet instead as it just didn’t feel right at all. |We wouldn’t go back to this hotel and I guess as a 2star you get what you pay for and though we enjoyed our stay in Zante that was mainly due to the local area and beach and though staff are lovely and friendly it doesn’t make up for a very dates and uncomfortable stay sadly. |They could do a lot with this hotel and hopefully they will start making renovations to the whole place and improve few things to...

We truly did have a great stay at Maria's and there were many good points however the bad points let this down for us hence the 3 stars.

To start with the good the staff are kind and always there to help. The food is very good highly recommend the gyros can't beat the price and taste. the pool table we used a lot and at 1.50 a play was a good way to get out of the sun for an hour. We spent the karaoke night which was the only time we stayed downstairs for some of the entertainment and it was fun. We stayed in mid-September so we had no issues with sun beds at all but I see how it could be annoying during peak season. The walk to the beach and shops isn't far at all 15-20 mins to the beach, 10 to the nearest shop. The cleaners came every 2 or 3 days and did a basic clean making the bed and mopping which was fine and the sheets were always clean, sometimes towels would have a stain but we didn't mind.

For the bad, unfortunately, what let this place down the most for us was the room, I wouldn't have minded the basic accommodation and dated decor if it wasn't for the ants. Ants would find their way into our food cupboard, around the sink etc and they were nearly impossible to get rid of, we stayed with other people who stayed in a separate room in a separate building and they had the same issue and found them coming from behind the wardrobe, the only way it was "fixed" was the cleaning people giving them bugspray. This truly ruined the place for us and they need to have a deep clean of the rooms and fix the issue. I wish we had upgraded to the nicer rooms. The bed was very uncomfortable and with air con at €60 a week, we found it ridiculous. The wallpaper was peeling off the wall which isn't a deal breaker it's only the wallpaper but the rooms need some serious TLC, new decor, furniture pots pans etc.

If this place updated all the rooms or deep cleaned them and sealed off things then I could see myself giving 4 stars but I would never go again simply because...

I’ve just come home from spending a fantastic week away at Maria Apartments with my friends , this is a lovely family run hotel where everyone makes you feel like part of the family! The rooms were really clean and tidy and the cleaners do a fantastic job of keeping it clean throughout your stay bringing fresh towels and making the beds and daily floor cleaning and even emptying the ashtrays ( I don’t smoke but my friends do ) the bar has everything you need good food , snacks and a great selection of alcohol the bar staff Theo , Billy and Chris were fantastic people and kept us laughing all week it the type of bar you want to go to every night of your holiday! ( we did however go to a few other places too as I was with a large ish group who wanted to explore other places but honestly I could have stayed in that bar night after night having a good laugh with the boys ) the rest of the guests were friendly too and the whole bar was having a drink and a laugh most nights! There’s lots to do round by the hotel we often had a wander places we walked around locally and went further a field a few times do by foot ( I would recommend not wearing flip flops like I did as I was constantly getting stones under my feet lol 😂 take some comfortable shoes and walk it’s a nice walk to most places especially in the glorious weather) one thing that is a must while your here is go to Laganas and do a boat trip to see the turtles and the caves you get some stunning views and to swim in some lovely blue water ❤️ i could go on and on about how great this holiday and hotel was but I think you get the jist and just as a last price of advice the pool does get cleaned every night just about 11pm so if your not around to see it don’t think it doesn’t get done! 😂 no ear infections in our group lol 😂 thanks Maria and your boys for having us il be booking again sometime soon I hope! From Donna :) ( lotties...