Amus Hotel & Spa in Ixia

A 5* hotel with 3* service.

Addressing in depth below key aspects of our stay. As a summary this hotel is beautiful but there were many small instances that let down the experience leaving us to conclude that we overpaid and the service under-delivered.

Firstly a heads up, check-in is a slow and tedious process. It took us over 45 minutes to check in (there was one couple in front of us as we arrived). As we arrived at 2:30am, we were simply not in the mood for the the level of faffing and felt some of the process could have been completed the next day, or at checkout.

The rooms were clean and modern - well presented, comfortable and had a fruit basket/drink on arrival which was appreciated. The sea view is pretty and chairs comfortable in the balcony. It did take us physically handing over dirty plates and cutlery to get these taken after 4 days of leaving dirty dishes on the table. The cleaners were friendly and quick, I think the cleaning process set by the hotel let them down. Bizarrely, there is only one mug per room.

Breakfast had a huge range of offerings, was delicious and the servers were efficient and friendly. I felt these were the best staff in the hotel and a credit to the hotel.

The pool area is crowded and difficult to get a bed in a "good" location, but the beach usually had good availability and has a gorgeous view. There was 0 enforcement of the no bed reservations before 9:30am which was frustrating. We recommend reserving a bed in the adults only pool area before 9am, as everyone else will.

The bars on floor 11 and by the pool made nice drinks (around €10 for most cocktails). The restaurants all serve nice food - Varkorola had the most delicious food whereas the greek taverna was a wonderful experience and good food. The live music was a nice addition, and all singers were talented, although a little loud at times and did result in one of our meals being wrong. One of our party were gluten free and we would have appreciated more offerings on the menu than risotto (as delicious as this was) at the 3 restaurants. At all 3 service was slow and it felt they were perhaps a little understaffed. The portions were also on the smaller side in Varkorola and Oliveto so we were glad to receive the reduced premium price.

The lobby cafe bar was a complete failure for us and so disappointed at the service and quality of drinks. We ordered an oat milk latte which required two corrections (she tried to ice it first, then use normal milk after confirming we wanted oat). The ice chai latte is frankly disgusting and when we brought back to get a new tea bag to infuse more, was rudely told to Google how to make chai tea and that 2 mins was long enough for the "aroma". For the benefit of that cafe server, chai tea should be steeped for a minimum of 3-5mins in hot water before cooled with ice... Not 2 minutes in cold milk. I recommend future guests watch carefully when their drink is made to ensure anyone with lactose intolerance are not accidentally spiked and to order only simple drinks, or use the pool bar which served better hot drinks.

One of the more frustrating aspects of the entire hotel was the gatekeeping of information - you couldn't see menus of the restaurants anywhere but at the restaurants, bookings had to be done via QR code from key lobby locations, the spa prices had to be gotten from a member of staff. There was so much extra effort for guests to get simple information.

Spa is a nice area, the outdoor pool being the highlight and the steam room the disappointment. We do recommend people take advantage of the welcome offer as the spa staff trawl the beach for clientele, and outside breakfast. The massage was fantastic - Maria was excellent.

Overall, the hotel is kept in good shape and had good facilities but frankly the service was not to standard. When interacting with lobby staff, for the most part it felt as though we were an inconvenience. We won't be returning.

Photos of the beach, adult pool and view from seaview balcony.