It usually takes a lot for me to write a bad review, but this was a pretty bad experience. Tl;dr - if you’re looking for a place that’s easily accessible to Oia, has space to lounge, or especially if you have issues with going up and down stairs then this place is NOT for you.
The detailed summary: my girlfriend and I scoured several places to stay in Oia before our trip and planned on splurging a bit so the price seemed fine. We finally settled on this location because the pictures looked great and on the map it seemed centrally located to all the shops and restaurants.
Fast forward to our check in: turns out this place is in an area called Ammoudi Bay. It sits well below Oia, has a few restaurants (but not much else), and is where several of the catamaran cruises board. We met Ion at the ramp who helped us with our luggage as we began our way towards the room. I started to get a little weirded out because we had to walk this narrow path along the water that could fit only one person at a time after having to walk through two restaurants to get to a set of stairs. 280 stairs to be exact. We took a “shortcut” that basically had us walking on other people’s rooftops and had to balance on a cinder block (really dangerous) as the final step before getting on our patio.
Then the room. Let’s just say they took REALLY good pictures. My girlfriend and I are both over 6 foot and could barely have each of us stand anywhere at the same time. The bed sits in a loft area over the table and seems basically like a full sized air mattress. The only great thing about this place seemed to be the bathroom. I was a little shocked and hadn’t said anything yet because I hadn’t gotten a chance to set my things down and relax between Ion’s 10 min info blurb (which was fine) but was also trying to get us to cancel our sunset cruise and sign up for a different one.
So by the time we’re finally alone we’re irritated, sweaty, and starving. All the restaurants in Ammoudi are booked up so now we have to scale the remaining 240 steps to Oia in order to find more options. I’m a veteran of the US Army and have two injured knees from my service, so the experience went from annoying to excruciatingly painful. I knew I’d have to go up and down some stairs here and there in Santorini but now I was basically going to have to do that climb every day we were there. By the time we got to the top and found food, I was ready for different accommodations.
That brings us to now (depending on when you read this review). I cancelled the reservation after finding a really great place (Fanari Villas they were FANTASTIC) and offered to pay for the first night at our listing as an act of good faith. I let them know about my knees and that it just wasn’t going to work for us. They have since declined my request and told me I could “take a cab to Oia if I wanted.” 20€ round trip every day on top of this wildly expensive, incredibly small, and now horrifically inconvenient listing. They have are keeping all of my money after Airbnb tried to reason with them and couldn’t even be contacted to give them back their key. Completely unacceptable.
If you skipped to the bottom: book anywhere else. I recommend Fanari Villas because it was PRECISELY the experience we were hoping for and the exact opposite of what I’ve described here.