Hotel Review: Athens Atrium Hotel

If you're looking for a hotel that’s central to Athens, has super friendly staff and plenty of space, Athens Atrium Hotel is a great choice.

Price: £197 euros for 2 nights [August 2023]

Initial Impressions:

We arrived in the early hours of the morning after our flight was delayed for over five hours on the runway. Luckily we had asked the hotel to arrange a taxi, so we arrived as quickly as possible. We didn’t take much notice of the hotel at first - we were desperate for food and sleep. Besides, the hotel restaurant (which we were desperate for) was closed and nothing around it was open.

Yet, what could have been a terrible start to our trip was saved by the Receptionist. He had been told by the taxi driver that our flight had been delayed and was expecting us, making the check-in really smooth. He also helped us download Athen’s answer to Deliveroo - Wolt so that we could order food.

The reception team:

The reception team were amazing throughout the trip, sourcing fridges for medication, fixing our AirCon and generally being super helpful. We even had late-night conversations about the local cats that liked to peer their head in looking for food. There was nothing that was too much for them and we felt really safe and looked after throughout our stay.

The room:

The room itself was a surprise. It had its own living room (complete with mini-fridge and small bottles of water), a bedroom complete with twin beds and a full-sized bathroom that frankly is bigger than the one I have at home. Personally, I would have considered it to be a suite, although they insisted it was just their biggest double. Seeing this, I would have loved to have seen inside what they consider to be their ‘suite’ type rooms!

Cleanliness:

The room was spotless and you could tell that they continually kept the main spaces clean. I would say though, if you want to have a lay-in, make sure you use the room sign given to signal for the cleaners to come back later or you will indeed be disturbed!

Breakfast:

Breakfast was included in our stay as standard. We slept through it the first day (not a surprise considering we only got into bed around 4 a.m.), but we did end up trying it before we left. It was pretty much your standard European breakfast with cereal, pastry, meat and cheese. There was plenty to choose from and you could see the staff diligently replacing things and cleaning as they went. You couldn’t really fault it.

Location:

For us, this location was perfect. It was a two-minute walk to the nearest tram, a 20-minute Uber to the centre of Athens (with the Acropolis etc.) and a 7-minute Uber from the Marina where we were meeting the rest of the Medsailors gang. We ended up walking back from a restaurant in central on one of the days and even that only took us around 45 minutes, so no matter what type of transport you prefer this hotel is a great choice.

Anything else?

The only thing that we were confused about was the additional charge that was added a few days before our trip. We didn’t really understand what it was, although we assumed it was a holding fee to make sure that we would come. Of course, because our flight was delayed and we technically didn’t get there until the morning, they kept hold of this money and we had to go through Booking.com to get this refunded.

We notified the hotel about the delay whilst we were on the runway and the Reception knew when we arrived, so it was all a bit bizarre. If you’re going to book, I would recommend going through somewhere like Booking.com (linked here) which can follow this up for you if needed as I can imagine it would be quite difficult to get this money back if you booked on your own.