Pension Erofili in Hydra

Be very wary of the reviews as they're misleading. I'll start with the positives first:

WiFi
Comfortable bed
Good location

That's it.

I paid a little extra for a room that was described as having a garden view and a shared patio - I was there for 5 nights, I wanted to be comfortable.

On arrival I was shown to a room with a street view and no shared patio. It was overlooked by the patio next door and when I said I'd wanted privacy, I was told to 'close the curtains'. In person the room looked tired and dated compared to the pictures - I also realised there had been no pictures of the bathroom in the listing for good reason. Sound from the other rooms carried and I could hear people coughing and talking throughout the day & night.

After being woken up from a nap by banging on the room door the following day, I was asked if I wanted my room cleaned. I said no. I came back from a walk, now that I was no longer sleeping, to find they had been in the room & a number of my things were not where I left them. There are no do not disturb signs.

I was refused a refund (non refundable booking), despite the fact the service requested and provided was not the one described and paid for on the website at the time of booking.

I was offered the option to view their alternative accomodation a few minutes away once there was a vacancy the following day - this is above some restaurants which was the reason I didn't book it in the first place. It had a shared patio, but no garden. I chose a room towards the back because I wanted some quiet & having now been here a couple of days I knew the restaurants/bars could get loud.

Here, the room was a bit better & the bathroom definitely an improvement, but the internet didn't work for the duration of my time there.

My options were limited due to it being the beginning of the season, but the whole experience genuinely had a negative impact on my trip as I just couldn't relax.

There's more, but honestly I'd just avoid it - it's not worth the hassle.

I hate to write negative reviews but I felt horriby misled about Pension Erofili and wanted to warn others what to expect.

First, the positives: it's in a great location, handy for the port and no steps to climb (but then again, so are lots of other places - Hydra isn't very big). The staff were friendly and pleasant, the courtyard is rather charming, there is Aircon in the room and the towels were clean and fluffy.

BUT...the room I stayed in was just awful: there's no other way of describing it. I wanted to cry when I first saw it. Thankfully I spent less than 12 hours there and just needed a bed for the night as I was catching an early ferry. If it had been any longer I probably would have left and tried to find somewhere else. I'm sorry to say but everything about the place is cheap and nasty: the laminate flooring, the thin and cheap doors, the MDF furniture, the 1980s bathroom tiles, the rusting taps, the mould, the awful shower curtain, the horrible plastic soap dispensers....you get the picture. The room was dark and stuffy and it took some effort to open the shutters; when I did I discovered that the room overlooked a small, dark, derelict courtyard. At one point when I was mopping up a huge puddle of water on the bathroom floor (caused by the ineffectual shower curtain), I saw a worm squirming out of the crack between the shower and floor. It felt like a youth hostel.

I booked this place because it had such a high rating on booking.com and can't understand all the positive reviews - I can only assume many are fake. If you are looking for a budget guesthouse in Hydra there are much better options out there - check out Piteoussa, where I happily spent the rest of my trip and which I would highly recommend.