After five nights at the Domes of Elounda on Crete (see report in Marriott forum), we flew back to Athens and rented a car and drove to the Westin Costa Navarino. It took about 3.5 hours of driving time on a mostly toll road. Traffic was minimal and the drive very easy, but be prepared with some cash as there were probably about 7 toll stops and tolls totaled nearly 20 Euros. If your rental car company offers an auto toll option (ours didn’t), I’d strongly consider it! Also note that many Greek drivers seem to take the lines on the road as a suggestion or even a challenge.
Arrival
We arrived just after dark. The approach to the resort is unassuming (small country roads through olive groves). There is a guard station gate followed by about 1km of road to the hotel itself. We unloaded luggage with a valet, self parked, checked-in, and were taken to our room by golf cart.
Room
We initially booked a five night stay and applied SNAs for a pool suite. We later tweaked our travel plans and ended up adding a sixth night on a separate reservation. I didn’t have additional SNAs, but booked the one night stay on the front end and we were prepared to move rooms in the event that the SNAs cleared for the second reservation. They ended up upgrading us to the pool suite for the entire stay, which I appreciated. They comped breakfast (as others have mentioned, it’s not tracked and everyone gets it) and we took the local amenity (olive oil). A can of oil was also waiting in our room on arrival as a welcome gift. The room was great...a true suite with two bathrooms and a huge patio and L-shaped pool. A couple of gripes...A/C wasn’t great and the master bath is open to the bedroom with a big tub right in the middle, which probably looks nice on the design table, but mostly just served as an obstacle. Our room looked out at the lawn adjacent to Morias and one of the pools, which turned out to be well located between breakfast and the kid area. It seemed like most pool rooms (ground floor) don’t have much of a view.
The Resort(s)
The complex is absolutely huge...too huge for our tastes. They do a nice job of breaking it up into smaller areas so it’s not too overwhelming. Landscaping is beautiful and you don’t realize the immensity of the place until you start walking. There are several pools and none ever felt crowded. The two hotels are centered around the Agoura, which houses many of the restaurants and shops. It’s cute, but it feels a little bit like a high end Southern California shopping mall. The beach is long, wide and lined with hundreds of lounge chairs. Nothing too spectacular and a bit of a hike to get to depending on where your room is located...we found we spent more at the pools. The Romanos definitely has a more upscale vibe, though it lacks some of the beautiful stone work that’s so abundant on the Westin side. Those traveling without kids may want to consider the Romanos for a mellower, more luxurious experience.
Local Area
I was pleasantly surprised at the number of eateries in neighboring villages within a 15 minute drive. We ate dinner offsite every night (and some lunches too). Gialova is a cute little seaside strip with a handful of restaurants and shops. We had great dinners at Elia and Kochili. We preferred Elia which seemed to break a little from what we started to refer to as the “national menu”, which we appreciated. There’s also a Souvlaki Grill in town that’s a great option for a casual meal. Marathopoli is also close by and felt a bit more local. We enjoyed a lunch for three at a local eatery for under 8 Euros. We also ate dinner at Katerina’s, which is in the middle of an olive grove adjacent to the resort (but not really walkable). She’s been there for 51 years and it felt like we were eating in her house (which we may have been). Of note, Google maps tried to bring us back to the resort through the back employee gate which resulted in a long excursion on dirt roads in the dark.
There is some great sightseeing in the area. Nestor’s Palace is an interesting archaeological site within a 15 minute drive of the resort. Methoni Castle is about a 45 minute drive and an absolute must. Ancient Messini is a little bit further, but definitely worth the trip. Make sure you trek all the way down to the old stadium. Voidakilia Beach is about 10 or 15 minutes from the resort and worth a trip, but we found it disappointing. The classic view is from above and we didn’t make the hike to get that. It was also littered with dead seaweed and a Russian party complete with DJ that kind of took away from the atmosphere. We made a side trip to Kalamata on our return drive to Athens and grabbed lunch at at cute gyro window. The few blocks of town we saw were pretty cute and quaint.
The resort has an app with information on the resort, restaurants (with reservation feature), local area, etc. It was surprisingly useful, though it does incorrectly measure distance to sites as the crow flies.
Food
Breakfast at Morias was massive. They had a lot of offerings in a huge facility that did feel chaotic at times. It was the only time the resort felt crowded to us. This was compounded by screaming kids and ill mannered guests (both kids and adults) displaying some pretty atrocious buffet manners (eating over serving dishes, grabbing food without utensils, etc.) The topper was the unsupervised ~3 year old that grabbed a serving spoon from a tray and put it in his mouth. I didn’t stick around to see how that ended. Staff did a pretty good job serving drinks, clearing plates, etc., but they really need to station some folks in the food areas to crack down on unhygienic guests doing their best to give the rest of us their E. coli. On the plus side, they had a large coffee bar and the baristas pumped out coffee drinks continuously. It was a nice feature and very well utilized. An interesting twist...there was a woman from “Resort Bird Control” who walked the outdoor areas of Morias with a hawk to scare the small birds away. I joked that it probably would have been just as effective to have her clearing plates, but it was more fun to watch a lady with a bird.
We had a couple of lunches at the Souvlakerie onsite and loved it. Gyros, souvlakie, hummus, etc. at reasonable (for resort) prices.
Misc.
We received an e-mail from the kids club with a schedule of events a couple of weeks prior to our stay. Our daughter chose a few activities she wanted to do, but it didn’t really pan out as planned as she was the only kid in her age group so it turned out to be glorified babysitting. She told us it was kind of boring and had us cancel her final session.
One night we did a complimentary star watching on the roof of the golf club. There was a guide with what looked to be a very expensive telescope. We enjoyed it.
Areas for Improvement
There were a few corporate events onsite. One for a Russian food packaging company and an IT retreat, which ended up taking over a pool area for the better part of a day (major party setup) followed by a loud party that night. A heads up from the hotel on that would have been nice. The after party was the real killer as we were awoken by a drunken group at 4am. Screaming and a cannonball contest that sounded like it was in our pool (though it wasn’t) went on for over 20 minutes with no staff intervention. It eventually died down, though I’m not sure if it was due to security intervening or the rainstorm that moved in.
We chose a local amenity of olive oil at check-in. It didn’t come so after a few days, I stopped by the front desk. They said they would re-send it. It didn’t come so we called the morning of check-out. They said they would re-send it. It didn’t come so I asked again at check-out. A few calls by the FD agent and 5 minutes later, I finally had it, but having worked so hard for it, my expectations for that olive oil are now so unreasonable high, it can only be a disappointment.
Overall
We enjoyed our stay though it definitely had more of a Mega Resort feel than we usually go for. I wouldn’t necessarily make a long journey for the beach or resort alone, but the proximity to local sites and villages made for a great base to explore from.