THE SKIATHOS PALACE HOTEL

The hotel itself is lovely, great views over the bay and the beach itself is fabulous. The outside eating/bar area is charming, traditional and clean. We had a superb room, freshly decorated with great amenities, nicely furnished balcony. The pool area was lovely, plenty of beds and the very pleasant Marielena on hand. We were on a B&B basis and boy were we pleased with that decision! The breakfast service was horrendous and the guy who appeared to be in charge was totally incompetent, no direction given to staff, no perception of what was happening around him he just kept coming out with food we hadn't ordered and then passing it on to other bewildered diners. We witnessed several people just get up and leave out of sheer frustration. We had to change our mindset and just sit back and enjoy the pantomime whilst hoping at least to get a hot cup of coffee. We had one evening meal in the hotel and that was awful, again waiting staff abrupt and rude with the exception of Fanis who was doing his utmost to put things right. Yes, the Covid situation was having some impact but shouldn't affect the staff standards. The nearby restaurants were nice but proved difficult to get to at night time as it was pitch black and to get a taxi it had to come from Skiathos town so charged accordingly, around E16 euros. We found it easier to either get the free hotel bus or local bus (2 Euros) into town where there was a great choice of restaurants. No complaints about reception staff and cleaners as everywhere was absolutely spotless, We had booked this hotel as it advertised a tennis court but it was being used for storage and upon asking were we just told it's not available. Totally unacceptable! Loved Skiathos and we are planning to go again next year but not to this hotel.

The setting of this hotel is excellent with great views over the bays and beaches from the terrace and pool and from some rooms. Choose the later carefully. The pool area is beautiful and pool is perfect temperature. Sun loungers just enough in this era of social distance. Very mean towel policy. ( I shall come back to towels ). Beach is a steep and well signed climb down and there are limited beds so book from hotel about 9.30am. Very nice beach bar, good staff. Main public beach better (2 beds + shade €10). Sea fabulous, also 2 beach bars lovely. Wooden walkway across sand. Hotel bar looks lovely but barmen smoking isn’t great. Mainly staff are great but some really seem a bit fed up. Breakfast is gross; it’s so efficient with its packaged food and formula etc, cold coffee, same each day, horrid. Towels - well! The ones in are room were limited and sooooo old and tiny it was like drying myself with a bite-size Shredded Wheat! Also no water in room and can’t drink from taps - this is cheap. Generally, it’s fine and reception staff (Tasos and Kiki) are great. But cutting corners is a false economy and looks cheap. Definitely revisit Skiathos but not this hotel

My fault entirely .... we chose Skiathos because it is renowned for its hiking routes and as we planned to spend most of our days out of the hotel and just really use it as a base for sleeping, I thought it would suffice. The receptionist told us she had upgraded us to a sea view room as all promo rooms faced the mountain. The room was awful. Dirty skirting boards, two single beds pushed together and extremely uncomfortable and the balcony overlooked the dirt round the edge of the hotel side with a limited view of the bay. The plug didn’t fit in the plug hole so couldn’t have a bath and the bathroom flooded on the first night with water seeping all over it from the drains, but as I say, my fault entirely even though I would expect better for a 5* hotel. The hotel itself is set in the hillside and has tremendous views. The pool area was large and on the roof, again with magnificent views overlooking the bay. There are so many beaches to explore and The Port is definitely worth a visit. We made use of the bus service that stops opposite the hotel (stop 22) and for 2 euros each, takes you all the way back to The Port. Watching the planes come in or take off is a must and there are some exceptionally good restaurants on the road up to the end of the runway. We ate at the hotel just once, poached salmon, mushrooms and tomatoes for a main course was enough to put us off from eating there again and it certainly wasn’t cheap. Breakfast was ok and once we sussed out the best area to sit (in the middle) and look at what others were ordering it was acceptable. I had fresh melon and Greek yoghurt every day but you have to ask for the melon. They don’t offer it to you. They really are just making the best out of the bad situation. The waiting staff were great but I have to agree that the bar staff were ignorant and never smiled. I said good morning to them most days and never got a reply. We just stopped tipping them by the third day. Towels had run out by 10am on 2 days we were there and had to wait half an hour for a restock and we had a particularly bad service at breakfast one morning which I reported to our TUI rep via the app and when we got back later that evening, a bottle of wine and a massive bowl of fruit were brought to the door as a gesture of goodwill. The beaches across the road are amazing and it’s well worth a walk to Eleni beach. Turn right at the bottom of the driveway and head down the little path towards Koukounaries Beach and you come to a road that cuts directly up to the restaurants and saves you walking round the busy dim lit road. Big Bad Wolf was very good. We had an amazing time and will definitely return to Skiathos but not sure we would return here. The highlight of our holiday had to be The Prince of Qatar’s $300m super yacht moored across the road.

My wife and I have just returned from a weeks stay at this hotel. The hotel is situated overlooking Koukounaries beach. First impressions are very good , large reception area with nice comfy seating. Our room was on the top floor looking out to sea which was fantastic. The room was clean and had everything you could need. The pool area is incredibly nice with great panoramic views and the pool itself is very deep. The lifeguard is such a nice lady and we enjoyed chatting with her. We found the reception staff to be incredibly friendly and helpful and we found the Bar staff to be totally the opposite - unfriendly and unwelcoming and rude. We only had drinks at the poolside bar on one evening for this reason and think the bar staff should be re trained to realise we are paying guests and not an inconvenience. We were only on a B&B basis and very thankful of that. The breakfast is disgusting . We ordered the bacon and sausages and what we got was slimy half cooked ham like meat and vile little frankfurter type things. We stuck to the dry croissants and bread thereafter. We found the hotel to be situated very well, turn right at the road and walk for ten minutes and there are some fantastic restaurants and a supermarket. The beach is just across the road . To get to the road you must either walk down 97 very steep steps or walk down the driveway both which we really enjoyed. There is also a courtesy bus. All in all we really enjoyed our stay and would have given 5 stars if not for the awful bar staff and terrible breakfast. Sort this out Palace as these things let down your lovely hotel.

We spent two weeks at the Skiathos Palace Hotel in early to mid-September 2020. Having read some reviews I was a little nervous about certain aspects of our stay. What I discovered though was a hotel doing its best to cope with the demands of COVID-19. The island having only re-opened to holidaymakers from early August everyone was mindful of keeping this virus at bay. As such the Skiathos Palace hotel have signed up to the 5* Austrian COVID shield certification scheme, which they are fully complying with. This means staff at all times were masked, even those operating the hotel's bar at Maratha beach. Cleaning was happening all the time so one felt reassured. Regarding the property itself, it's very well appointed. You'd be hard pressed to beat the location. The views from the hotel are absolutely superb. It is over 50 years old now and gradual refurbishment of the various rooms is taking place. From what I could fathom the more expensive rooms have now all been refurbished. The cheaper ones that had been upgraded that we did see looked good. I am aware that some rooms are still in need of an upgrade. The food was of a good standard. We had fruit, eggs, yogurt, tea and cereals most mornings. In the evenings you could have a buffet meal. This seems to comprise a meal that repeats weekly so don't expect too much, especially during these difficult times. That said the quality of the food was good. I was also pleased that meals and cutlery were always presented shrink wrapped because of COVID! The thing that most impressed us during our stay was the level of service. I saw some negative comments about the waiters in another review, but disagree with them. Everyone we dealt was professional and friendly. If I was giving a recommendation for this hotel then apart from the location my other main plus point would be the level of service. The cleaning ladies were super friendly and so were the chaps who ran the beach bar. They deserve lots of praise because masked and in very hot conditions they always made a point of checking up to see if we wanted more drinks, foods etc. whilst ensuring that sun loungers were correctly spaced to comply with COVID regulations. It's worth pointing out that the manager is a very nice chap too. At the start of our holiday when there was a confusion about the booking (our error) he did his best to explain and sort matters for us. In summary we will return to the Skiathos Palace hotel again. It's been a two week holiday we will remember fondly. We would highly recommend this hotel.