I have mixed feelings about our stay at Aoritis villas. I made the booking for Villa Manousaki and had it confirmed 5 months before we travelled, along with conversations with Olga through Airbnb about having a cot available and car rental. However, when we arrived, there was no one around and we then found out from a nice cleaner who happened to be around, that the villa was double booked.

Georgios came after about 15 minutes of waiting and we were told that we had arrived too early, even though the booking clearly stated that the check-in time was flexible. Given I was with my 4 year old and 1 year old this was really not a good start and made us feel quite unwelcome. After a few phone calls he told us to view another villa down the mountain (so not our ideal location or what we had booked) which we could have. It was rather awkward as we had to view it with people still staying in the house. Although we were given money back to compensate for the lesser view and less rooms, it was particularly stressful with 2 young children in tow. We also had 2 other guests come to the house on our first day, saying they were booked to stay in the new villa we were in, so there obviously was some issue with the booking systems that the owners use.

Although the hospitality after this was fine - the breakfast given was lovely, we were never really given an apology even though it was through no fault of our own. Although the villa we stayed in (Villa Rogadila) was nice, the kitchen was small and not particularly well equipped and there was only air conditioning in one room. The beds were also incredibly hard. The pool, even though we had sole use of it, did not seem clean enough for my children to swim in. As we had moved houses, the cot was also not made up but we were expected to do this ourselves which involved a half hour struggle to get the bed set up.

Although we did end up staying the 5 days we 'booked', the experience to start with was not enjoyable and disappointing and for this reason I have to mark the place and service down.