Nido Mar Bella Collection

We booked Nido because it is marketed as a Small Luxury Hotels (SLH) property and as an adults-only, boutique luxury retreat. Unfortunately, the reality fell significantly short of what we expected.

Our biggest disappointment was discovering how closely integrated Nido is with the neighbouring MarBella resort. Many facilities, activities and excursions are shared across the MarBella Collection hotels, and MarBella itself has a very different, large-scale all-inclusive resort atmosphere. If you are specifically choosing Nido because you want to avoid that type of holiday and are expecting an intimate, independent SLH experience, this is important to know. It fundamentally changed the atmosphere for us and was not what we believed we had booked.

The beach was also a major disappointment. Despite the way the hotel is presented online, it is not a secluded beachfront setting. You have to cross a busy main road to reach the beach that also features a bus stop, and the designated area itself is small and tired. There are also very prominent overhead power lines and roadside infrastructure directly in front of the property, which significantly detract from the setting portrayed in the promotional photography and obstruct views. It did not feel like the beautiful, tranquil beachfront experience we had anticipated.

The rooms themselves are one of the stronger aspects of Nido. Ours was spacious and clean, with a lovely sea view. Many of the terraces also feature jacuzzis or private pools, which is a nice feature. However, privacy is surprisingly limited. A number of balconies and terraces are easily visible from neighbouring rooms, walkways and other areas of the hotel. For an adults-only property that presumably attracts honeymooners and couples celebrating special occasions, we would have expected better screening and a greater sense of seclusion. If privacy is important to you, I would enquire carefully about the exact location of your room before booking.

Unfortunately, we also had repeated problems with the air conditioning. It stopped working during three separate nights of our stay, leaving the room extremely hot and uncomfortable overnight. In the middle of a Greek summer, reliable air conditioning should be a basic necessity at a hotel of this category and price. Having the same problem repeatedly significantly affected our sleep and was simply not acceptable.

Service was very inconsistent. The pool staff in particular were rude and dismissive on multiple occasions and made guests feel as though they were inconveniencing them. The pool also does not officially open until 10am, which we found extraordinary during the Greek summer. On one morning, the lifeguard had still not arrived after 10am and guests were nevertheless prevented from swimming. The gym also does not open until 8am. It all felt unnecessarily rigid and at odds with the relaxed luxury atmosphere the hotel is trying to create.

The food was another disappointment. Breakfast was underwhelming, as were our other dining experiences at the property including Appagio, their “fine dining” restaurant, and overall we did not feel the quality reflected the room rate or luxury positioning. The pillows in the room were also uncomfortable and synthetic, which unfortunately resulted in significant back pain.

The additional services offered are also worth understanding before booking. What was marketed as a romantic sunset cruise was not a private experience, but a shared (and very crowded) excursion involving guests from the neighbouring all-inclusive properties. Once this became clear, we cancelled both the half-day cruise and sunset cruise we had previously arranged.

We enquired about departing early on the second day of our stay because of our disappointment. As our booking was on a non-refundable rate, we were advised that we would not receive a full reimbursement for the unused nights. Our concern was that this was not a simple change of plans, but that the holiday we had arrived to experience did not match what we felt had been presented to us when booking. Ultimately, the financial loss involved in leaving remained significant, so we decided to stay and make the best of the remainder of our holiday.

I do appreciate that, after we raised our concerns, the hotel offered a complimentary spa treatment. I did not use the wider spa facilities, but my massage therapist was good and the treatment helped alleviate some of the back discomfort I had developed from the bedding.

Unfortunately, the issues continued through to check-out. When reviewing our final bill, we found charges for services that we had already paid for directly, including tennis at the neighbouring MarBella property, where we had transferred payment directly to the instructor. Had we not noticed this, we would effectively have paid for the same service twice.

More concerningly, an additional invoice belonging to another room had also been added to our account. We thankfully checked the bill carefully and challenged the incorrect charges before paying, but this was a very disappointing way to end the stay and further undermined our confidence in the overall standard of administration and service. I would strongly recommend that guests scrutinise their final invoice carefully at check-out.

There were certainly positives. The hotel itself is attractive, the rooms are clean, and the elevated position provides beautiful sea views. However, those positives were outweighed for us by the overall experience.

We would actually recommend dining at the local tavernas across the road and further down the street for better-quality Greek food and much friendlier service. We particularly enjoyed Akrogiali Tavern and Mar-Bella Tavern, neither of which is associated directly with the hotel.

For the price point per night, we expected a genuinely polished luxury boutique hotel. Instead, we experienced underwhelming food (that feels much more like an all-inclusive offering), rude and dismissive pool service, a disappointing beach setting across a busy road, prominent power lines, limited terrace privacy, repeated air-conditioning failures and significant billing errors at check-out, all alongside an atmosphere that felt far more connected to a large all-inclusive resort than we had expected from an SLH property.

Nido is not a terrible hotel, and there will be guests who enjoy it. But in our opinion, the reality does not justify either the price point or the expectations created by the SLH branding and the way the property is marketed. Had we understood the beach setting, the integration with the neighbouring all-inclusive resort, the limited privacy and the overall standard of the experience before booking, we would have chosen somewhere else.

My mum and I stayed at this beautiful hotel for a week in June of this year and it was lovely. Our room was beautiful and had a whirlpool which was lovely to relax during the day.

We had the bed and breakfast board and the breakfast was lovely with a selection of hot and cold food and drinks. We had dinner in the main buffet restaurant a couple of times and this was good value for money.

The gym was also well equipped and the pool was nice and relaxing.

The hotel were very accommodating after we had a nightmare travel home which resulted in a cancelled flight but Nido and the general manager welcomed us back and sorted us out a room with breakfast for the following morning - they even put some food and drinks in our room for us when we arrived as they weren’t sure if we had eaten at the moment. I couldn’t fault the service at this hotel and wouldn’t hesitate to come back