We chose to proceed with Tolis’ apartment due to last minute change of plans and mainly due to its proximity to a neighborhood we are already familiar with.
The apartment is situated on the 2nd floor of a vintage 1950’s Athenian building. The house is newly renovated with basic amenities which could be useful for solo travelers or couples but definitely not equipped for families. It’s a 1 min walk to the Tram and 8 min walk to Neos Kosmos’ Metro station.
Self check-in was easy and Tolis had messaged us all the needed info. However, later, we bumped into some unpleasant surprises which made us disappointed.
First, although the towels were clean, but they had a cigarette smell in them (or they were stored in a room full of cigarette smoke). Hence we had to rewash them in order to be able to use them properly.
Moreover, when an airbnb apartment is rented for a family of 3 or more (including a child), you expect to have access to full basic amenities which would cater the needs of a family (this includes a normal size drying rack for an entire family and not some tiny ones size:40x60 cm for solo travelers). When I communicated this to Tolis, he wasn’t able to replace nor provide a bigger size one on the same day, but he only offered an additional small size one the next day (when I had already managed to bring the right size one from our relatives).
Toilet’s water tank needs to be fixed since it gets stuck from time to time, and the bed needs to be fine tuned due to its squeaky noises while sleeping. In addition to the mattress which needs to be changed eventually since its surface isn't equally flat. I believe some weekly inspections should be made in order to notice these problems instead of relying on the cleaning lady’s feedback.
Finally, I understand that this is an airbnb and not a chain hotel, however this is not my 1st airbnb experience and I have met some wonderful hosts who were always happy to grant us 1 or 2 extra check out hours (even some asked us to stay till afternoon in order to properly manage our flight departure time). However, Tolis denied this request, which I totally understand if the apartment was already booked and had to be cleaned for new visitors (however he could have suggested that we leave our luggage for few hrs in any adjacent empty apartment).
Overall, we were truly disappointed since this wasn’t a top Airbnb experience and you can definitely find better places with the better services and same price around Athens.