Hilas suites

We ended up leaving after the first night and asked for a refund for the remaining three, but the owner ignored our messages. Since we had transferred the money directly, there was no way to reverse the charge on our Visa. The pool photos at the end show it after cleaning, and it still didn’t look good. The pickup from the port was €40 and had been confirmed with the owner the night before. Even so, the driver said he’d been told there was no pickup. We waited over 30 minutes and had to call before they told him to come back for us. Our room was nice, apart from dead flies, and we tried to make the best of the view. My husband had understood “sea view” to mean the caldera, but it faced the other side of the island, which wasn’t very impressive. That part was our misunderstanding. The bigger issue was the private pool: it was stagnant, very dirty, full of dead bugs, and visible to people passing on a busy street. We told the owner, who insisted on sending someone to clean it, but we were leaving for dinner, so our first day in the sun was wasted. The next morning a man climbed over the wall from the neighboring room to clean it without telling us. I saw feet outside the window while I was changing, and was relieved the blinds were partly down. Getting into town at night was also not an easy walk. The narrow, busy road was dark and felt dangerous. And the online photos of the view seemed enhanced compared with what we actually saw. We booked directly with the owner so we could spend one night in one room, then move to a nicer one for the remaining three, but the whole stay fell short.