Porto Demo Boutique Hotel

The staff at reception, the bar, and the restaurant were lovely and very helpful. There’s also a gorgeous sea view from the pool bar. The hotel is a short walk from the beach and restaurants, with a cocktail bar, coffee shop, and bus stop for Corfu old town nearby. Food was fine, and as a vegetarian I always had several choices, especially salads as well as hot dishes. The soft drinks were nice. The alcoholic drinks were weak, but unlimited, so it wasn’t a huge issue. Some dishes weren’t labelled, though. I took rice that looked vegetarian and later found meat in it, so I wasted a plateful. The beds weren’t especially comfortable, and some areas felt grubby and dated. The outdoor spaces smelled unpleasant, which I think may be an issue around the area rather than just at the hotel, and they weren’t cleaned often. The stairs to our room were dirty too. For the price, it felt fair. I’d stay again if they sorted out the smell, but probably not otherwise.

We ended up eating outside the resort because the food options were so limited at every meal. That’s the last thing you want when you’ve paid for all-inclusive, but it felt like the better choice. The soft drinks tasted like melted, spoiled ice lollies, and the hot drinks weren’t much better. We bought drinks from a local shop instead. I know unbranded drinks are common unless you pay extra, but these were well below standard. The rooms smell strongly of sewage. At first I thought it might be the ground floor and the wind direction, but several other guests in different parts of the hotel said it was normal. Keeping the bathroom door shut made it more bearable. I think there’s a plumbing problem. The bathroom itself was in poor shape, with cracked wall tiles, limescale everywhere, and shower doors that felt close to falling off. The shower had good pressure and got hot quickly, but I still didn’t feel clean in there. There are no channels on the bedroom TVs, and they aren’t smart TVs, so you can’t connect your own devices. The WiFi barely reaches the rooms and kept dropping out. Download anything you’ll want before arriving, or you may be very bored. For trip information, the sister hotel next door has an A4 sheet listing local excursions. That was the only useful help we found, as this hotel would only offer to book taxis.

The views from our room, the main pool, and the restaurant were stunning, especially at sunset. There’s also a lovely quiet beach just a two minute walk away. The staff were kind, and the food was pretty good with plenty to choose from. The hotel has lots of stairs because it’s on a mountainside, but it should be clearer that it isn’t very disability friendly. My mum has a disability and struggled without a lift. What made this a one star stay for me was the room cleanliness, which felt inadequate for a supposed four star hotel. The bathroom wasn’t clean, with marks around the shower and taps and a stained toilet seat. They say rooms are cleaned six days a week, with fresh towels and bedding every three days. In practice, most days they only emptied the bins and made the bed. On day four they mopped and brought fresh towels, but the bedding didn’t seem to have been changed. Our air conditioning also didn’t work properly. My mum stayed in a lower block and came home with awful bites from bed bugs. We didn’t have bites ourselves, but after waking with bites on our last day, they checked the mattress and found them. There was also a strong sewage smell on the lower floors, including in the room. The all inclusive drinks were poor, there wasn’t much entertainment, and the gym was filthy, with very little equipment and what was there rusty or broken. The area is lovely, but I wouldn’t return. I’m almost gobsmacked that this was sold as a four star hotel.

The staff were really friendly, no complaints there. We also had some very noisy guests nearby, and the balcony door did little to block the sound. Some nights we struggled to sleep, and during the day we had to listen to music playing through their speaker. The location was a short walk from the beach and a minute from a small shop. From our room, the restaurant, and the pool area, we got incredible views of the beach and mountains, especially at sunset. The buffet was decent, mostly well cooked and tasty, though dinner was much the same most nights with only small changes now and then. Food was only served at set mealtimes. I’d have liked something available through the day, such as hotdogs by the pool or simple options like pizza or burgers at lunch. Our room was clean when we arrived, though the cleaners seemed to miss a few days. The bottom sheet was too small and came off within minutes. We visited in October, and the thin little blanket left us shivering in the early morning. The shower head wouldn’t stay in its holder and shot up from the water pressure, so you had to hold it. The safe was free to use, which was great.