david55

What a lousy way to travel and see the world.

ffgap

No need to get all judgemental about this in my opinion. There are reasons for and reasons against being loyal to a particular chain.

I think most people would agree though that the GH Athens is one of the weaker GH's in terms of hardware and such. The location is not ideal for most tourist itineraries, I would say.

There are still some arguments for this hotel: Relatively low prices; when I stayed there (at that time, still as a Globalist), elite recognition wasn't terrible. Of course, I am making a bit of a judgement call myself, but I suspect most people here would consider the GH Athens to be below-average relative to the GH brand.

smilee

Interesting all the strong negative views. Sure the location is not the best but I recall it only being a 30 minute walk to the Parthenon and a 10 minute walk to the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Considering the Grand Bretagne was 4x the price and the benefits of a nice breakfast and a larger room because of my Hyatt Globalist status made this a good choice. I guess things have changed with Uber, as we found Uber to be both convenient and cheap but my last visit was in 2019. I thought it was a solid hotel and reasonable value for Athens.

TGLoyalty

Having been to Athens a couple times in 2024 and one trip for a few weeks I have to say Uber works great no issues and its a normal taxi without anyone trying to rip you off

While the Hyatt and IC locations aren't great they're in no way terrible, as one certain regular in here keeps saying, with plenty of the sights a short Uber (6/7EUR max if I recall if you pick the right spot) + a leisurely short walk away

I was given a Junior Suite upgrade at Hyatt in May and its was a well appointed room but the breakfast was taking place in a conference room as frankly wasn't great. The IC is more on the tired side but I wouldn't say in bad order the standard room I was given was bigger than the Hyatt Junior Suite and had a decent sized sofa in it, the breakfast was also much better. I actually stayed at the IC for another couple nights as I found it the better of the two on another trip as well as a few AirBNBs

david55

That would be me.

River in Sight

Yes, the Club has breakfast - the spread on the 8th/9th floors is quite large so the club doesn’t compare but has a few hot dishes like eggs, fruits, breads, etc. I haven’t actually eaten breakfast in here but have had coffee here in the morning and there is definitely a spread. There is also a dinner spread with 1-2 hot dishes and desserts. The dinner spread is kept out until closing at 10PM.

I’m just wrapping up a four-night stay here. I was a bit hesitant to stay here given some of the commentary on the thread, but I found it fine. Yes, the location is not ideal but I also paid around $130 per night vs. $400 per night at the Grande Bretagne and had a fine experience.

Check-in
The hotel hadn’t had any upgraded rooms available for a couple of weeks before checkin so I did not expect an upgrade and didn’t receive one. I arrived with my family around 1130AM and the front desk advised if we went and waited in the club lounge, they would only need a few minutes to get a room ready for us. Sure enough around 10 minutes later the check-in agent came up with a key, I appreciated the early check-in. No upgrades were discussed but again I knew none appeared available.

Room
The room had a king bed and a twin setup for our son.. the twin looked semi-permanent and was much more robust than your typical rollaway. There was plenty of space for the three of us. We didn’t hear any noise at all from inside the hotel. Occasionally we heard car noise from outside the hotel. Our room faced toward the southwest with no particular view.

A small welcome amenity was delivered shortly after we arrived. I believe it was a dessert, my family ate it so not sure. There was also a small bottle of alcohol which we haven’t tried.

I was surprised that the wood floors in our room were already quite scuffed up considering everything else appeared relatively new. Beyond that we didn’t have any functionality issues and slept well.

Club
This trip was a mix of leisure and work so I was trying to stay on Eastern time, thus was often hanging out on the club level in the evenings working. I didn’t have much of the food but I found the Greek desserts really tasty. Beer, wine, and hard alcohol are available until ten along with some snacks and 2 hot dishes (I didn’t really try any of the food but it looked fine). During the day, coffee, tea, and light snacks like nuts are available. I thought it was a pleasant place to hang out until 10PM. It’s small but I was always able to find a seat. After 10PM, I typically migrated to the desks outside of the club lounge to finish up my work (there are two and it was very quiet there at night). There are typically 1-2 attendants in the club keeping things tidy.

Breakfast
Breakfast is on the 8th and 9th floors (you can go to either - 9th has some outdoor seating) and can get crowded. It’s all self-serve buffet except the waitstaff will bring you coffee. I thought the buffet had a nice spread, lots of good fruits and veggies along with some Greek dishes (e.g. cheese pie) and eggs. I didn’t have any complaints about breakfast.

Location
I knew the location was debated quite a bit on this thread. Although it’s not pleasant, I personally did not find the location a huge drawback (with that said - I walk or take transit everywhere I go at home so may have a higher threshold for this sort of thing). My family typically walked to the tram stop at Kasomouli Park and rode the tram into the city (around a ten minute ride and the tram was often less crowded than the bus.. you basically walk right past and then behind the intercontinental to get to the tram stop).

The street in front of the hotel definitely is not nice, it’s an 8-lane semi-expressway and it does have some strip clubs. However, I certainly didn’t feel unsafe, it’s just not pleasant.

For me it was not a huge deal to spend 20 minutes getting into the historic core of the city to save $250/nt over Grande Bretagne. If this is going to ruin your day, then I would stay closer to the core. If you go out the back of the hotel (to the southeast), you will find many neighborhood spots to eat as well as a couple of grocery stores. There is a square (Pl. Agiou Sosti on Google maps) with many restaurants abutting it and lots of families and kids running around in the evening.

Other Notes
There is an Avis/Budget around a mile down the road where we rented a car from yesterday to go to Delphi. Very nice people.. don’t forget to bring your passport to pickup. I street parked the car in the neighborhood behind the hotel last night with no trouble.

Our favorite meal during our four nights here was at Tzitzikas and Mermigas, we liked it so much we went back the next day. Excellent food.

The rooftop pools and spa are both open 10AM to 7PM. We have been busy sightseeing so haven’t visited either. The spa requires a reservation.

In conclusion, at around $130/nt I thought I got a solid value here and didn’t find the trip into the historic core to be a big deal. I would be glad to answer any questions.


King room with additional twin for my son


Bathroom


Bathroom


View from our room to the expressway


Breakfast selections on the 8th floor


Rooftop pool with the Acropolis in the background

MarkP24

Great review! Thanks!