Spent_All_My_Miles

+1. The Grand Bretagne has had service and the rooftop bar with views of the Parthenon, Coliseum, etc. was amazing. I don't recall a major city where a hotel is as perfectly located as it.

As an added bonus, with its location overlooks the parliament, you have front row seats to any of the protests or riots going on these days.

leeda2

We stayed at the Santa Marina a couple years ago. The property is nicely situated over a harbor with multi-million dollar yachts and deep blue waters. There is a nice private beach right on the property but it gets a little crowded.

The rooms are not too spectacular. We came here just after staying at the Vedema in Santorini so the Santa Marina seemed a little underwhelming. I definitely agree that this did not seem like a CAT7 property. Mykonos is a lot about the partying, but you certainly have lots of beautiful countryside and remote beaches spread out throughout the island. There's plenty to do outside of the party scene. However, I think you'd be better off spending your lodging dollars elsewhere considering the weak value at the Santa Marina.

ledger

Thanks for all of the recommendations. We're visiting Athens for the first time this September at the end of a cruise. I'd been debating between the centrally located GB, and the Arion & Westin on the beach. It sounds like the GB is really the place to stay.

sc flier

It partially depends on how much you want to spend and also on what you want to see/do. If you want to see the downtown sights, GB is most convenient. If you want (or also want) a place to relax on a beach, Astir Palace hotels are quite nice.

The Astir Palace hotels have free shuttle service from the cruise port and the airport. They failed to pick us up at the cruise port upon arrival, but we never learned why. To be fair, we had limited, email-only discussion with them to make arrangements just a couple days before arrival, and we did not follow up on why there must have been miscommunication about our arrival. And we were very appreciative of our early check-in around 8am -- especially considering that we got such a great suite upgrade. Airport shuttle service was quite nice!

In terms of prices, GB is a Cat6 and the Astir Palace hotels are both Cat5. (Cash prices should generally correspond to Category.)

ledger

Thanks for the information.

Since this is our first time to Athens, we want to be centrally located. We also figure that since we will be getting off a cruise, we will have had a lot of beach/pool time in the days preceding our stay.

Interestingly, although the GB is is a higher SPG categrory than Astir Palace properties, it has the lowest rates for the nights we'll be in Athens. Also, unlike the AP hotels, the GB is offering Cash+Points for those nights.

jatmit

During our stay in Santorini in August 2009, we were at the Vedema. I really loved it. The pool and rooms are beautiful, and the hotel staff are incredibly attentive.

It is a bit out the way, however, and the hotel restaurant isn't impressive and is over priced. However, there are a few restaurants right across a street that are great.

Even though it's in an isolated area, the hotel shuttle is great for getting back and forth to the beach (which is black sand-- a type I don't prefer as much). The best decision we made was to rent a four wheeler- which the hotel helped us do. It was super convenient, and fun, and was a great opportunity to get into the city. We rented it for two days, keeping it in the hotel parking lot overnight. A lot of other people rent them as well.

Another small thing- the rooms have a nice sound system integrated throughout the bedroom, sitting area, and bathroom. If you'd like to use it, make sure you bring an audio connector for your ipod- we used it and loved it!

SanDiego1K

This is now scheduled to open on June 4. Can anyone estimate how long a drive it is from Athens? From the website:

Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (ATH)
Travel Distance: Approximately 208.54 km/129.59 miles

It seems as though it would be easier to drive 130 miles should we go than fly into

Kalamata Airport (KLX)
Travel Distance: Approximately 34.83 km/21.64 miles

Which it recommends as having twice daily service from Athens.

sc flier

That's 2/3 the distance that Google Maps says: 317 km (196 miles) estimated as 4 hours 30 minutes.

Google says 52 km from KLX, and you'd drive right past KLX if you drive from ATH. It looks like a winding road sometimes. Zoom in on this map anywhere within 50 miles of Kalamata, and you'll see vast groves of olive trees!

The distances in the above maps should be pretty close to correct, I think, but don't totally trust Google Maps to give perfect directions around here. I spotted one section where it puts you on some questionable (non-existent?) roads for no obvious reason. I'm not sure that this is a drive that I would want to make if it would mean arriving after dark. More specifically, I think that I'd want to know that I had some time built into my schedule in case I missed a turn.

My AAA map of Greece says 237 km / 3.00 hours to drive from Athens to Kalamata.

Edited to add: In Google Earth, it measures about 229 km as the crow flies from ATH to Romanos. (Assuming that crows fly straight.)

It looks like there is only 1 flight per day (3:05pm) from ATH to KLX on Aegean right now but that a 9:05am flight starts up soon. Cheapest flight prices seem to be around EUR 94 RT including taxes/fees.

Is there any reason you're specifically asking about the Westin rather than The Romanos (Luxury Collection)? The Romanos is scheduled to open May 20, 2010.

banzani

I've asked locals, and they say the drive from ATH is around 4hrs. Kalamata is around 1h, but A3 flies only twice daily from ATH, so it depends on connections what would make more sense.

We would have loved to go, but unfortunately both hotels proved completely inflexible when it comes to accommodating children in the room (rate for 2 adults: 230 EUR, rate for 2+2: 560 EUR...go figure. Of course we could just book two rooms at 230, but it is just way too much of a premium for me for bringing 2 small kids).

sc flier

banzani, how did you get the price for children? Did you speak directly with someone from the hotels? It looks to me as if you're comparing the price of 2 adults in a Deluxe room (1 King or 2 Single beds) with the price of 4 adults in a Junior Suite (which has a sofabed). The details for the Deluxe room say that there is no charge for a rollaway, child rollaway, or crib, but it doesn't specify a maximum occupancy.

This page on the Westin's website suggests, though, that they either suggest or require a max occupancy of 3 in a Deluxe room. However, it offers "A 50% discount on the second room (discount will be applied upon check-in)" when booking interconnecting rooms for a family. This offer is bookable with SET code 355802, and I would take it to mean that 2 rooms would be EUR 230 * 1.5 = EUR 345 for Deluxe Seaview or total EUR 420 for Deluxe Infinity (private pool). And kids under 12 eat free in the main restaurant with this plan.

This makes me wonder if the hotel might offer a special Instant Award for such a room configuration. It might make sense for them to offer the addition of an interconnecting room for 6K points. It couldn't hurt to ask the hotel.

Westin Costa Navarino vs. Blue Palace
The design of this Westin with all of its "private pools" and facilities sounds a lot like the design of Blue Palace. If I were going to Blue Palace in the same trip, I think that I'd want to stay at the Romanos for variety.

The Westin's website has a PDF that mentions daily flights between Kalamata and Heraklion (Crete), but I'm not seeing such direct flights on Aegean's website. FWIW, Aegean also has some flights between Kalamata and Thessaloniki.

stimpy

Call me country, but I think it would take me an awfully long time to get tired of luxury suites with private pools.

sc flier

Until I hear some trip reports about the CN hotels and the area around them, I just don't fully see the point in bothering to change locations to go stay in a nearly identical hotel when there are other options. (During our trip last year, the cost of interisland transportation really added up.) But after just looking back at the hotel websites, I may have made some bad assumptions about the Westin vs. the Romanos and which is more similar to Blue Palace.

I really don't know which I'd prefer if I were visiting Blue Palace in the same trip. My feeling about Blue Palace was that it was big. We had a room at the very top level, and it was a journey to get down to the beach. Both properties at CN have even more rooms than Blue Palace. (See stats below.)

Having just looked back at the Starwood website for the Romanos, though, I find it a little deceiving. On the Photos page and on the Accommodations page, there's not a single photo of an ordinary room. All of the photos there are of suites, yet suites represent only 10% of the total rooms. There's a single photo of an ordinary room in the rotation on the Overview page. I've just posted links to Starwood's other photo of these rooms in the new Master Thread for the Costa Navarino properties.

The StarwoodHotels.com website for the Romanos seems to do it a great disservice, though, too. It fails to mention the fact that there are regular rooms that have infinity pools. Yet I read elsewhere that the plan called for every ground-floor unit to have a private pool.

The Romanos: Total 321 rooms and suites. (289 rooms. 32 suites.) Every ground-floor unit has a private pool!

The Westin Costa Navarino: Total 445 rooms and suites. Approximately 1/3 of the ground-floor units have a private pool. (123 private pools.)

Blue Palace: Total 251 rooms and suites. More than half of the rooms here have a private pool.

For all three hotels, there is a lot more information about rooms and pools on their individually-named websites:

www.romanoscostanavarino.com
www.westincostanavarino.com
www.bluepalace.gr

stimpy

If you had a lower level room would you have felt different? I absolutely loved the Blue Palace and the surrounding area. I agree that it may not make sense to change to another hotel. Why not just live at the BP for a few weeks?

banzani

sc flier, thanks a lot - I should have known earlier (as we now booked something completely different), but very useful for another try in the future. I just have a general problem with hotels charging excessive premiums for bringing children (both LMs in and around BCN are other bad examples), it is just a pain in Europe with some noteable exceptions (Sheraton FRA). US shows how easy this can be, and 'room size', 'security', and 'local laws' are not always convincing excuses in Europe. Just make the sofa a sleeper and there you go.

I dealt directly with the hotel so probably they tried to upsell me...well it did not work.

The info about the flight came from A3 directly, and it was for end of August. You may want to call in order to find out details.

sc flier

Would it not have felt so big? Maybe. But it IS big. I think we would have visited the beach more if it did not take us 15 minutes to get to it. (Actual time depends on whether you just missed the funicular shortly after waiting for the elevator.) At least it was a pleasant view no matter where we walked. And there was a beautiful rose garden near the end of our building. There are plenty of other rooms that are less convenient than ours was; and we accepted the fact that it took time to get around. We definitely loved the place, but it let us down in several ways, too.

I know the general rule that if you really want an upgrade, book it. But we were using FWN awards which couldn't be booked into an upgraded room. We got an upgrade into a junior suite (no pool) which was quite nice, but I had a hard time believing that they couldn't find us even an ordinary room with a pool. Just over half the rooms there have pools. Were they really all booked up in mid-May shoulder season? Maybe so.

Being sent all the way to the top gave us a great view and was certainly quiet and secluded. And it left us with a direct route to our car if we parked in the upper lot.

If I were to return today, I'd be happier regardless of the room just because of the free internet for Platinum guests. When all I wanted was a few minutes on a computer, the computers with free internet were way off on the far left of the resort (upstairs above the entrance to the Asia Blue restaurant). The computers near the front desk in the center of the resort did not have free access.

An unpleasant part of our walk to or through the lobby was that we usually had to pass directly through the lounge/bar where smokers congregated.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, here's a PDF map of Blue Palace. (Not drawn to scale, and not always easy to read.)

Perhaps the most annoying thing to me was our dealing with the concierge and on-site dive shop to arrange for a day of scuba diving. The dive shop at Blue Palace didn't offer two-tank dive trips. It seemed that the concierge would only trust the on-site dive shop's manager who said that nobody in the area offered two-tank dives. I knew for certain that wasn't true, and I ended up booking two-tank dive arrangements on my own at another nearby resort. We dove with the Blue Dolphin dive center at the Elounda Village Resort. (Elounda Village photo)

Despite some annoyances at Blue Palace, I'd still definitely recommend it. It is a fantastic place, and we loved touring that part of Crete. I wish we could've stayed longer. But I can't forget that it also failed to meet our expectations in several ways that I felt it shouldn't have.