Comments based on a one-week stay at Iria Mare Hotel (October-November 2009)
1. Hotel does not always honour confirmed reservations (through RCI) and the excuses are feeble (renovations, no hot water, etc). A complaint to RCI fixed the problem. A couple in the next room also had their confirmed reservations (made through RCI) downgraded (the hotel obviously wanted all the guests staying in the same building, not the main one where the best suites are).
2. On November 1, almost everything in the main hotel building shut down (restaurant, bar, lounge, pool). For most of the time there was no one at reception and all the lights were off downstairs at night (very strange, especially for a hotel that claims it is four star quality and open all year long). A sign on the front desk informed us that the hotel was locked at night and if we wanted to get out before 7 we should talk to someone (but no one was there). Since there were no fire escapes or emergency exits this news was troubling (but, in fact, I don’t think the hotel was always locked at night).
3. Rooms had hardly any cooking implements and we had to pester front desk repeatedly to get a coffee maker and some pans.
4. Front desk people (when there) were generally very nice, but a couple of them turned nasty when we requested the room we had paid for and some cooking implements (one deliberately gave me false instructions about how to get to a grocery store, so we had a long, long walk to the next town to the north).
5. If you plan on cooking for yourself and do not have transportation, then stock up in Nafplion before you come. There is a small Mini Mart on the beach promenade about a ten minute walk south of the hotel (run by very nice people), and Iria has a small shopping area (butcher, mini mart, baker). The hotel claims the distance to Iria is about 2 km but it’s considerably longer (a reasonably brisk walk of about 50 minutes each way). There’s a supermarket in Nafplion about two blocks from the bus station.
6. There’s one bus to Nafplion each weekday. It stops outside the hotel (if you wave it down) at approximately 7.10 a.m. and leaves Nafplion on the return trip at 2.30 p.m. from across the intersection from the bus terminal. It functions as the local school bus. The bus does not run on Saturday or Sunday or school holidays (the hotel staff did not seem to know this, and we waited in vain on a Saturday morning). This bus schedule makes it possible to visit Mycenae briefly and get back in time for the return bus, but if you want to linger there, then you won’t be back by 2.30.
7. If you want a taxi to or from Nafplion the rate recommended by the Taxi Association of Greece is 20 Euros, but the fare is negotiable (we were quoted everything from 50 to 19 Euros). There’s row of taxis across the road from the bus station in Nafplion. Ask the driver how much it costs to get to the Iria Mare Hotel (if possible get him to write it down). If you ask the hotel to get a taxi for you, make sure you get them to confirm the price before the taxi starts for the hotel.
8. In spite of the problems we enjoyed most of our stay (once we moved into the rooms we had paid for), especially because of the location,which really helped me to understand the spirit of the landscape. But if you’re not into isolation and long walks on the beach (with occasional trips to Nafplion by bus) then this is probably not the place for you during the white period. And, of course, the hotel is obviously a very different place in season.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
