So this was a very difficult review for me to write. Kay was a friendly person and although the listing mentions Dan, I never heard from him so I am unsure if he owns the place or not. Therefore, Kay who assisted me in my questions and helpful is the person that I interacted with for my visit.
PROS:
KAY! She scheduled taxi service to and from the airport which was about a 45 mins drive one way; she left detailed info to maintain the apartment and how to check out. It would have been difficult reserving taxi service if it had not been for her support due to not speaking Greek. For that and the recommendations that she provided (ie, restaurant recommendations, etc) I am grateful.
CONS:
The entire neighborhood! I lived in NYC, specifically Harlem in the mid to late 90s and let me tell you, this neighborhood was about 1000 times worse. As soon as my family and I walked 5 mins, no matter the direction, away from the apartment, there were people getting high, smoking crack, and literally appeared to be either mentally incapacitated and/or high out of their skull. If my kids weren’t with me, I don’t think that I would have been so bothered, because before Harlem was gentrified, this was a typical scene. However, when your kids see people smoking crack right in front of them and about a good 20-30 people at a time doing it, it was not only scary but it felt extremely unsafe. People were yelling at one another and were coming down from their “highs”, and to have to deal with that on a daily basis while on vacay and never to have been warned by the host, was disingenuous and quite frankly dishonest.
To say that this is a safe area, and there are nice restaurant establishments all around the neighborhood, that is and was false. I am a minority and my family is an interracial family, so we didn’t feel that we were different or felt out of place because we weren’t Greek or spoke the language. We felt period, point, blank, UNSAFE because of that neighborhood and the majority of neighborhoods that surrounded it. Also, the advertisement states that it takes 12 mins to get to the Acropolis! False advertising right off the bat! Even if there isn’t any traffic, it still wouldn’t take you 12 mins to get to the Acropolis! It takes 42 mins walking and about 18-22 mins, depending on traffic to drive to the Acropolis! If you walk, like we chose to do based on not wanting to have to pay for a rental and being able to get around since the apartment was supposed to be in walking distance to a lot of things, you will have to go through many seedy areas, and no way around it, you will have to deal with crack heads and people who are mentally unstable and possibly schizophrenic; this really was upsetting because no matter the street that we turned on, we had to deal with this.
The apartment itself could have been maintained a lot cleaner and it appeared that no one had been in that apartment for some time. The niceties were missing such as coffee, and tea. There may have been sugar but nothing else was really provided which made me feel very unwelcome. I mean, coffee and tea are inexpensive to provide. There was not even a scoop of nespresso to make a proper cup of coffee, but there was a small sliver left in the tin?? Just showed me that there was no “extra”provided for our stay. The apartment was not as clean as other apartments that we have stayed at while on vacay. The floors were sticky and grimy, the bathroom ceiling has mold and can use a good scraping and repairing, and several of the lighting fixtures did not work. There were no extra towels or washcloths and we had 5 people.
I refused to wash clothes, and there were no washing pods if I wanted to do so. Everything was just to that minimum and I could go on and list my complaints but what I really want to convey is that, this was the worst place that I stayed in all of my years of using Airbnb. I do a great deal of traveling and blog about my experiences. Also, we have an Airbnb and if I ever had a place in an area like this and had the apartment situated as this place, my place would be defunct. I wish nothing bad on anyone but I would highly recommend that you consider NOT staying at this location ever! I can guarantee that you will start to feel unsafe as soon as you pull up to the
apartment. Literally I couldn’t believe that this was the apartment as soon as we arrived. This place has a lot of opportunity, HOWEVER, it’s not only the apartment that makes this a non desirable place. It’s the location and if you are looking for a safe place, where you have walkability to all of the sites, stay in Plaka or a reputable hotel. I will never take any of these advertisements on faith again. Although I did research, I didn’t find crack heads and lunatics only 3-5 mins walk away! I feel that if I can save you the frustration and disappointment, I will do it. Therefore, I was going to provide you with the most honest assessment review about this location and I highly recommend that you look elsewhere. This is NOT a safe location and I felt like I was either going to be raped, beat up, robbed or chased at anytime. There is no price on safety and although I liked Kay and appreciate her help with reserving the cab, and being helpful with recommendations, I don’t have anything further to add my review that would seem this place as desirable. I only recommend