Disappointing first day in Greece. Granted The studio apartment has a great view but that’s the only good thing it had going for it unfortunately on this trip for us. We arrived in Athens around 11am and had the driver service that Alex offered pick us up at the airport. He brought us straight to the flat around 12:30pm to drop our bags off. The place wasn’t cleaned at all yet and that was fine since check-in was officially at 3:00pm so we figured the cleaners just hadn’t come there yet. As much as I really just wanted to freshen up and wash the 15 hours plane journey off of me, We left to go grab a bite assuming that when we got back the place would be good to go. Alas that wasn’t the case. We returned around 4:30pm to find it exactly as we left it. I was sooo upset at this point because this is definitely not how I imagined my first day on my first trip to Athens/Greece would turn out. We couldn’t even find a manual with any info to contact the host. I had to turn my data roaming on to get on the app and call Alex. He sounded horrified at the situation and offered to “buy us a drink” while he waited longer to get this sorted. I didn’t think that was fair compensation so passed at the offer and politely asked that we be duly compensated. But got nothing, instead he flipped the situation on us and said they were already compensating us by letting us leave our bags there early. Alex did contact the cleaners immediately and we left the apartment. He contacted us around 7pm saying the flat was cleaned and when we got back around 7:45 it was finally ready for us to enjoy. I understand that sometimes things happen that are out of our control but we didn’t get any adjustments or empathy from the hosts for this huge mishap. In the end I didn’t have the energy to keep stewing on this and didn’t want this to ruin the rest of the great things that Athens offered. We had a wonderful time around the city. Thankfully Alex was quick to respond when we contacted him and at the least we also got a “late checkout” as we left our bags at the studio until 1:30pm on our last day.
I hope they’re more attentive to the guests and cleaners schedule going forward as the place has a lot of potential and I wish I was writing about the many other things we did enjoy (like waking up to the chanting and church bells everyday) than the horrible check in experience we had.