“Boutique Hotel Prices Without The Boutique Hotel Experience. But There Are Some Plusses.”
What a shame that TA does not let you rate a property as 'Below Average', because that is how I would like to rate it in comparison to gay hotels in general!
The reception area is what you would expect to find in a boutique hotel and makes a wonderful first impression , but then, my room at any rate, completely let the place down. The room is a good size but the furniture is very basic (Mykonian Rustic style!) and not at all stylish, and I would expect a lot better furnishings and decorations at this price and in a gay boutique hotel. A decent comfortable chair would be nice and a coffee table to sit at to go with it, there is plenty of room for it.
There is a fridge but no kettle so you cannot even make a cup of tea in the morning!
I was booked into a ‘standard single’, which appeared to have a double bed but which was actually two singles pushed together (not unusual in Greece!). But what is this? The mattress is as hard as rock, which for me, meant that I got the BEST NIGHT'S sleep (for three nights in a row) that I have had in any hotel in years!
The American breakfast is what you would expect, fresh fruits, yogurt, cereals, cakes and sweet pastries, as well as bacon, scrambled eggs, and little Frankfurter sausages (all of these last three could and should have been kept hotter than they were), plus a selection of cold meats and cheeses.
What a shame then that the fruit juices were not fresh.
The coffee is passable, but as a plus the bread is some of the freshest and crustiest that I have ever had in Greece and you had to cut it yourself. It would have been a crime to toast it!
Only trouble is I have had just as good breakfasts in tourist hotels in Peru and Athens that cost a third of the price!
The location is great for the view and the Elysium appears to be not far from Mykonos Town except that is at the top of a steep hill (the climb up to the School of Fine Arts is not too bad), and if you have dodgy knees then you will have a problem (at a guess I would say that the main age groups that can afford the prices here will also be those that are beginning to show such signs of age!), just like I did. As others have pointed out taxis are as common as hen’s teeth in Mykonos, although when you do get one they are not expensive, but look forward to a wait of over an hour to get a taxi at 1am.
The pool and bar area are nicely laid out, but do allow for the fact, as is usual with Greek web sites, that some of the photos have been ‘Photoshop’d’ to death.
The bar prices are even more expensive than down in Mykonos Town, which bearing in mind the price of the rooms is a bit unfair, a 330ml bottle of beer is 7 euros, a campari and soda is 10 euros. The pool area is crowded at 'Sunset Hour', but most of them are not guests at the hotel.
Up until now I though the worst drag show I had ever seen was in Santiago de Chile, I can now say that the worst drag show ever is at the Elysium. On the first night the main drag artist used the same line twice, and it wasn't funny the first time, and was an old joke when I was young, On the second night she made a very tasteless comment about Kylie Minogue and breast cancer. The main drag artist is apparently in great demand, presumably from people who have never seen a decent drag show in their lives, and is hoping to start getting dates in the UK. I think she shouldn’t get her hopes too high. (Yes Mr. Moderator I spotted the bit you did not like in the first review!).
The Go-go dancers should do just that.....
Avoid rooms on the road side of the hotel, when the sun gets up you will be too, and on a Sunday morning the road is a busy thoroughfare for people on quad bikes and scooters at 6am, although rooms 116 and 117 do have ‘Juliet’ balconies where you act as concierge and watch everyone arriving for the ‘sunset hour’.
Staff are generally young and friendly, reception staff are helpful and informative, I like the idea of staff uniforms but at these prices I would expect them to be wearing proper shorts not sloppy creased up ‘cut off’ track suit bottoms.
A final tip, if you arrive by ferry there is no taxi rank and you will need to call a cab to get one to come for you, the taxi office number is 22890 23700. The hotels Nazos and Zannis are across the road from the Elysium, if you happen to see their courtesy buses at the port, ask them nicely and they might give you a lift! On departure the reception staff could not even get through to the taxi office to call me a cab so they got one of the staff to take me down to the port. At 210 euro a night i would have expected them to offer to pick me up on arrival too!
Room Tip: Ask for a seaview and on the first floor, that way you do not get the sun waking you up, and you don...
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This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC.
