Korakia Pensione — Hotel in Palm Springs

To be brutally honest, I was on the fence about booking at Korakia. I am a Four Seasons kind of girl and like things to be luxurious, clean, fresh, and I love good service. This was a bit bohemian and 'out of the box' for me, but my spouse wanted a unique experience for his 50th birthday so I booked the Orchard House at Korakia.||When we arrived there were a couple of snafus and I actually called the Ritz in Rancho to make a last-minute reservation, but the staff at Korakia went above and beyond without us even asking. They could see it was a special occasion and they immediately jumped into action and placed us in the beautiful Auric House. They had it specially cleaned and turned over quickly for us, as guests had just left.||The house was incredible - the bedding was soft and luxurious and the bed itself was just as comfortable as ours at home (something I never find at hotels). The house was well-appointed and had the most well equipped kitchen I've seen in a rental property - complete with high quality pots and pans and everything you'd need to prepare any kind of meal you'd like. As a competitive athlete this was an absolute gamechanger for me - I loved making my own meals and eating them outside next to our private pool.||The property was lovely - well done and thoughtful. The furniture was divine and comfortable, in fact I want to purchase the couch they had in the living room for my own home. I loved the decor, it was cozy and beautiful - we were so very comfortable staying there.||The staff were so kind and nice to us. No pretense, but excellent service. Every day they delivered fresh, hot coffee to our doorstep. They also offered to hand-deliver our breakfast every morning or we could eat it in the lovely courtyard on the main property. We opted to do both while we were there. Each day breakfast is different and also has a vegan option - and every day it was absolutely delicious. Truly.||If there were any negatives I would have to be very picky to find them. The only negative things I could comment on would be the stone flooring in the home (very beautiful but the small pebbles in the layout can really hurt your feet if you land on them wrong), and the pool filter was very loud. But, really, these are tiny and nitpicky and did not at all detract from the stay.||This property also has an outdoor shower which was divine - it was plumbed for both hot and cold water and had the most amazing water pressure. It was dreamy!||I loved waking every morning to the gorgeous views of the San Jacinto Mountains and the pool from the primary suite. ||The property offered bikes and was a very quick walk into the village - where we shopped, ate, and enjoyed the Thursday night market. The property was quiet and felt incredibly safe, which I appreciated.||Overall it was a lovely experience with lovely staff who genuinely seemed to care. My spouse hasn't had the best year and he really needed this time away - I'm happy to say he was thrilled with our stay and deemed it his best birthday yet. I'm appreciative to Korakia and the staff who made it so for him - so, thank you from the bottom...

After reading great reviews I was tremendously disappointed with the reality of the place. Other than double billing me $498 which I may not have noticed on my way out , the place had the following disappointments. I have pictures and attachments to back up my complaints:

Gross and Faulty over-billing: Despite having a paid hotels tonight the reservation price for $337 per night (screenshot attached) , the hotel billed me an ADDITIONAL $498 for the night (picture attached) on my card which is only supposed to cover incidentals. Questions for management : A. Either I have a reservation or I don't. How do you charge my "incidentals card" for a booking already paid for by hotels tonight ? What needs to go wrong for you to do this ? B. On top of this you charge $160 more than my regular booking price for this double booking.

Check-in Issues: Room barely ready on check-in time. We were hoping to have the room perhaps a half hour early, a courtesy typically given ANYWHERE. Instead we were checked in 15 minutes past our guaranteed time.

Indifferent service : for a medeterranean "Luxe Category" of property (charging $500 / night), the management are seemingly young college girls/high school girls, with scant little understanding of the local history, ambience or recommendations of what to do. The check-in and welcome was polite, but far less welcoming, organized or informative than one of the many resort hotels all over palm springs. You except a certain gravitas of knowledge and experience from atleast one adult. Were these girls sweet and polite, sure, but so is the check-in person at la Quinta inn.

The Tiniest Room $500 will buy you : Yes we get this isn't a Hilton business suite. You are trying to have a rustic Mediterranean charm.. but the there wasn't enough space for to plug in and charge your phone on the right side of the bed, no side table to put your things on. The bathroom and tub , were basic ordinary fixtures. The sink was so tiny, one could barely put toiletries next to it.

The room could have had a standard water bottle instead of a Brita. Regardless, there was no space to even put a glass of water on the side of the bed.

We had expected our room to atleast face one of the two pools in the hotel, instead it just faced the main road. You couldn't see the hillside without leaving the room /cottage area.

No Alcohol/No restaurant/No bar: in all fairness hotels tonight does mention that there isn't a bar, what it doesn't mention that there isn't even room service for a beer or a glass of wine. Yes we get it alcohol isn't the vibe of this place, but atleast have some optionality for $500 per night.

The inclusive breakfast is so standard , two toasts a fried egg and three slices of fruit, that it leaves you underwhelmed..be creative , add some charm to it.. for the price.

Positives :

The property is pretty. The views are charming at the right places. It is quiet and serene. The bed is...

It was a very unpleasant stay. My friends and I chose to stay there for 3nights to celebrate my bestie’s baby moon. It’s a group of 9 and we booked 4 rooms. The experience was utterly unbelievably bad. To clarify, I don’t even have an Instagram account, and none of my friends are the so called “internet influencer”. However just because I brought a Canon 5D III camera, it made my stay by far the worst experience.

The first morning, 2 friends and I went to have breakfast, I brought my camera attached with a tripod. However the waitress came to me and said “we don’t allow professional photographer unless you pay for a package.” I said I’m not a professional at all, yet she seemed to be convinced the other way. And then she said usually guests here only use their phones to take photos. Please note that I hadn’t even take a single photo at that point of time. Although I think it’s a little obnoxious , I still agreed and later on I used my phone to take a few photos of my friends. The waitress came back again and said, please no excessive photos.

Note that after breakfast we went out to palm spring for some activities, i.e., we didn’t even spend any time in the resort.

Second day in the morning , another friend came to visit us, and we want to take a group photo, and before I even had a chance to take a look at the photo, another waitress came to us and said no photos.

Then after breakfast some of us went to Joshua tree national park and the others went to shopping. Again we spent no time in the resort.

Third day in the morning, we went to the lobby area at 7:55 am, 5 mins before the breakfast started to serve at 8 o’clock. There was no guest, and I just want to take a few photos to save the memory. When it’s approaching 8, we actually went to the staircase behind the lobby, just so that we wouldn’t disturb the waitress to start serving breakfast. At 8:03 AM, another waitress found us in the back and same thing. At that point of time, I already lost any interests in this hotel. So I just left and went back to my room.

Because all 9 of us were super pissed at the hotel, we all went to Ritz to find our friend who was visiting the other day, and we had a blast.

The 4th morning, I had to run to catch a flight. However my friends told me they were stopped by a waitress again when they were only using their phone to take photos. And the waitress said there was complaints from “guests”, which is obviously bs. We didn’t spend any time in the resort. My friends apparently had a long argument with them and then they admitted that they thought we were the “internet influencer”.

Anyways, if you happens to own a semi-decent camera or want to take photos for your memories, don’t stay...