Golden Apartments

We have just got back from Golden apartments, having booked on the back of the many positive reviews on trip advisor. Whilst I don't normally leave reviews, I felt compelled to do so in this case to provide a totally honest summary of the good and bad points about this hotel. Firstly, the holiday started by us getting dropped off by the transfer bus next to a hardware shop in town at 1.30am (as the bus apparently can’t get to the hotel). A random guy (George - who actually was a nice guy) then turned up in a battered old tiny car and took us to the hotel in 2 runs. He drove off with the kids and wife first whilst I had to sit and wait on my own with the cases in the middle of nowhere until he returned to collect me. Honestly it was like a bad comedy show. The hotel - the main positive is the pool area which is quite large and there was no fighting for Sunbeds which was great. The pool however was quite dirty with green algae around the edges (exactly as the photo on the other recent review). Also, during our stay the pool was pretty much constantly used by locals not staying at the hotel mainly for kids swimming lessons. This didn’t spoil our use of the pool but I agree with the other review that it’s a bit odd. Also the pool is very close to a main road/motorway and you do hear constant traffic noise although this wasn’t an issue really as you get used to it. The rooms were large with plenty of storage, however they are old fashioned/dated and are quite dirty (despite the cleaners best efforts who was lovely) - also lots of ants. The shower was a complete joke with the hose hanging off the wall and a make shift curtain - you had to hold the shower head but water went everywhere. The main drawback is that the hotel is a long way out of town, obviously we knew this before we booked but we don’t mind walking, however it did become tiresome as the holiday went on as the walk is a good 30 mins into the town centre/beach and 15 mins to the nearest supermarket (AB) which in the heat was a killer. Don't believe the other reviews which say it’s a 15 min picturesque walk to the centre as this simply isn’t true. The walk is through a desolate run down area along narrow roads (some with no footpaths) and you have to go through an underpass under the main road/motorway which at night with kids we felt was dangerous. You can get taxis from the hotel into town (€9) but on the way back we often found these were not available without a long wait so most of the time we were forced to walk back in the dark. The real kick in the teeth however came at check out when we were told the charge for the air conditioning was €160 for 10 nights (I.e €16 per night!!!!). I was absolutely taken a back by this as I had already had it confined by email that it was €8 per night so I assumed there must be a mistake and queried it. HOWEVER this is when Yannis the owner insisted that because we had a 2 bed apartment and it had 2 air con units it was double the charge as the €8 was per unit!!! Oh come on really. I queried why he didn’t mention this at check in or in the email as it felt a bit underhand and unreasonable to hit us with such a large hidden charge at check out, however he didn’t care one bit and insisted that was the cost. We ended up paying up but it really left a sour taste and spoilt the end of our holiday. We were really surprised by all this as a lot of the reviews had said Yannis was really friendly but during our holiday he never spoke to us once. We had heard that the hotel has now been sold though and new owners start next year so maybe this is the reason that things are not what they once were. In conclusion, Agios Nikolaos was lovely, however if we did return, unfortunately we wouldn’t stay at Golden Apartments as for us the many positive reviews did not reflect reality.

Very good and friendly environment close to the city

Location was a short walk to centre , beautiful scenery, the Manager George And John were a delight to deal with very helpful and kind its a perfect place for a quiet family holiday, the apartment was cleaned daily and it was quiet at night to sleep perfect holiday and I would recommend highly