Nous Santorini

I’m writing this review because I think this hotel has potential and I think the management cares to improve it.

The great things: they gave us a lovely bottle of Prosecco and chocolates for our anniversary! If you ask the bar for water, they have cold bottles available for free. The pool chairs were fairly easy to find even after breakfast. The new property is a modern design. There are nice sunsets here.

We booked this hotel specifically because it had a newer upgrade and I thought it would be good for my environmental allergies to mold, dust, chemicals, and fragrances. I sent in a list of requests in an email in advance to make sure our room would be set up appropriately. I was advised to book a Euphoria Suite which was one of the more expensive rooms. My email with my requests for an hypoallergenic room was deleted by mistake so our room was not set up properly (the manager discovered this when I said I emailed ahead of time). Not a big deal. We went for dinner while they set up a new room for us. Unfortunately, after looking at two brand new Euphoria suites, both already had signs of wear and had zero ventilation so mold had already started to grow. They smelled musty and you could see the damage in the bathroom and on the baseboards. Then the manager upgraded us to another suite which was a bungalow. The bathroom had zero ventilation again and water damage on the door. So after trying to sleep for a few hours we ended up having to move rooms at 4am. The lovely front desk person actually found us a smaller suite which was on a top floor and it was perfect for us. The bathroom had ventilation and the air conditioning worked perfectly. We were happy here for the rest of our stay. The management team refunded us 60% of the first night. This first night was rough, we didn’t get our final room until 9pm, had to move again at 4am, and missed a breakfast and hike with friends the next day. They also changed the rate to the rate of the new room instead of the Euphoria Suite which we thought was very nice of them.

Things I think would improve this hotel:

1. Breakfast: there is one self serve coffee maker for the whole property. The line is long. This is poor for any property. Offer coffee service at tables, add coffee carafes, add more coffee options. No one wants to wait in line for a coffee in the morning. Also, it was utter chaos. The tables were dirty with dishes that took forever to be cleared. The options were not appealing. Things were generally a mess, long lines for coffee, no service or à la carte, the food quality was poor and maybe that’s because it was such a mess with kids everywhere grabbing things that none of it seemed appetizing. Our friends stayed at a boutique hotel and had such an amazing fresh Greek breakfast everyday. Make breakfast something guests remember not something they avoid and eat a protein bar instead.

2. Maintenance: this is a new property that is already showing signs of wear. The construction itself has issues in the rooms as they do not have ventilation. Add ventilation. Make sure the outlets work. Make sure the air conditioners work. Make sure there aren’t any bug nests growing in the rooms (we had two in our bathroom. I asked housekeeping to remove them but they didn’t so we did it ourselves).

3. Offer a shuttle service to Fira, Oia, and the Airport. This hotel is on a busy road. It’s very expensive to shuttle back and forth ($50 EU to Fira and $80 EU to Oia). Our friends stayed at a hotel which offered this and it was such a lovely perk that made their stay so much more enjoyable and easy.

4. Offer service by the pool. We stayed at two other Marriott properties in Greece and both offered complimentary beverages, fruit, and ice cream by the pool/ocean. This was something small but made us feel welcome and relaxed. There were times we were at the pool and there were 6 employees standing at the bar nearby leaning and not doing anything even though the towels were empty, chairs and tables were dirty, and they weren’t offering anything to guests lounging by the pool. Frankly I see this as a missed opportunity. If someone had asked me if I wanted to order a drink or food I probably would have.

5. The gym: Clean the gym. There were no cleaning supplies for guests and it was noticeably dirty. Clean at least once a day to disinfect. Also, allow guests to use the Pilates and yoga equipment between classes. I used a yoga mat outside (because the Pilates room was so hot and stuffy!) and the lady from the spa came and asked me what I was doing and said I was not allowed to do that. Not sure why, there was no one around and I was not disrupting anything. This is a normal practice at other hotels.

6. The restaurant: improve the ambiance. Make it desirable and a destination for people to come, stay, and enjoy. Offer live music, complimentary abuse bouche, special events, wine tastings etc. It seemed baron and we were there in peak season. Opportunity here to improve and highly amazing Greek cuisine.

7. Marriott Bonvoy: This property self declares that it is only loosely affiliated with Marriott Bonvoy. This means they don’t recognize your status and instead use Bonvoy for marketing purposes. We had a 10pm flight and were not able to secure our 4pm late check out which normally isn’t a big deal with Titanium status. It would be great if they could treat loyal Bonvoy members with extra care to keep them coming back.

8. Make the spa area adults only. It’s not relaxing with kids screaming and splashing in the pool.

The thing is, this place is expensive and it’s not in the picturesque Santorini areas. Therefore, for its prices, it should offer amazing service to draw guests in. I think the management team does care but I think they need to invest more in service to keep guests coming back. Compared to the boutique hotel our friends booked, we left Santorini feeling like tourists and without that warm fuzzy feeling of wanting to go back. If we do go back, we would probably choose a smaller hotel that offers more service and care to guests.

So close to being a 9/10 but it's those little things that should be right when you're at a resort like this. The place is great rooms were fantastic (although we did have an issue with ours which meant we eventually had to move). The issues with the hotel are so minor that they should be easy to fix - there's only one coffee/hot water machine in the restaurant - so you have to queue every morning, sounds minor, but when you've spent an hour of your holiday queuing for coffee it gets a little grating; there are nowhere near enough staff - service suffers, which shouldn't happen when you're paying this much.