As Amanzoe is already very well known on this forum and has been reviewed a few times, I'll keep this fairly brief! Our stay was back in September and it was a surprise trip from myself to my husband for his 40th birthday. We combined the stay here is a stay at Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens. 

Check In

I'd recommend a few nights in Athens before heading to Amanzoe as it's about a two and a half hour drive to to the property. We were picked up from our Athens hotel and transferred to in the Amanzoe car. I believe a helicopter is an option too. We were greeted by the GM and a few other members of staff with no formal check in (as I remember but correct me if I'm wrong). I had been in contact with the conicerge quite alot before the stay and arranged several surprises for my husband's birthday. The team had been briefed not to mention any of these and nothing was given away to him. 

The architecture at Amanzoe is based on classical Greek style and it is absolutely breathtaking. As soon as you arrive, you'll be blown away by the magnificent columns, decorative pool and the view across the hills. 

Other public rooms such as the library are also beautiful. 

Room

Each Pavilion at Amanzoe is a self contained villa with private pool. We had one of the regular pavilions with 210 square metres of space both indoor and outdoor. The design of the room is gorgeous and I personally think for the size of the room, it's good value for money. 

I'll let the pictures do the talking as it really was simply exquisite. 

Service

The service was close to perfect. I was very impressed with how the hotel organised all the surprises for my husband and not one member of staff gave the game away! 

This is only my third Aman and I've heard a lot about the service on here so I was surprised about few very minor niggles. For example we ordered the same wine for lunch every day and I was surprised it wasn't automatically suggested to us. I also had to keep asking for our favourite wine to be put in our fridge. Same goes for coffee at breakfast. Tiny things but I guess I expected the staff to be able to read my mind ;) 

The concierge also organised a birthday photo shoot for us, which my husband wasn't sure about at first but turned out to be a real highlight of our stay. Excuse the cheesy pictures! 

Dining

In someways I felt that the food offering was where the property fell a little short. There are three restaurants at the property so I'll go through them one by one. 

The main restaurant is found in the hotels main forum and it is the location for breakfast. I'd avoid eating outside though owing to the bees! 

Breakfast was lovely with some typical Greek dishes but the menu was the same everyday. This restaurant isn't open for lunch but serves Mediterranean food in the evening. We had two really enjoyable dinners here. 

The second restaurant is by the pool which is up some stairs adjacent to the main forum. 

We had lunch here twice, it's also Mediterranean and serves fairly simple salads, sandwiches, fish and meat dishes. We enjoyed the quality but found there to be a lack of choice. 

In the evening the pool restaurant becomes Nama, Aman's Japanese restaurant brand. We also ate here for dinner twice. As with the Nama at Aman Le Melezin, I was a little disappointed with the food as it just doesn't live up to the quality of some the London Japanese restaurants. The rice on the sushi is too thick for example. It's still enjoyable but could be better. 

The third restaurant is on the beach and it based on a typical Greek taverna. This was our favourite restaurant and we loved the seafood dishes, the fresh pastas and the meat. 

However twice we had to send food back because it was so salty it was inedible. Still this was our favourite restaurant and we had lunch here three times. 

As I mentioned earlier I also organised surprises for my husband. One was a private in room barbecue for dinner with a private chef. This was beautifully executed with exquisite food.

I also organised a special dinner in the hotel's private amphitheatre. 

Location

Some maybe unsure of the two and a half drive from Athens but it really wasn't a problem. The hotel is in a gorgeous location with beautiful views. It's easy to take day trips to Hydra and Spetses. 

Pool

There are two pools at the hotel one in the main part of the hotel and one on the beach. We found the main pool to be pretty much always empty. We only ever saw one other guest there. 

The pool on the beach (around a ten minute drive away). This one was a little busier. 

Beach

The location of the beach club is one criticism I've heard of Amanzoe as it's around a ten minute car journey to the beach. However, I personally didn't think this was a problem as there was always a car waiting to take us there and pick us up. It also means you get the best of both worlds as the main hotel has the views from the hill. 

There are large cabanas on the beach which guests can hire. I'm not sure how this works though as they're also rooms in themselves. 

Amenities

My husband loves boats so as one of his surprises I charter Aquazoe, the hotel's yacht for the day. The team at the hotel organised snacks for the boat and we had a day of swimming, lunch on the gorgeous island of Hydra and a visit to Spetses. I'd highly recommend doing this and I thought the day trip was good value. 

Overall

Very very minor niggles aside. We loved our stay at Amanzoe and it was perfect for my husband's 40th.