Review: Amanzoe, Villa 31, 1 Bedroom Villa

Amanzoe, Greece
Room type: 1 Bedroom Villa
Duration: 12 > 17th September, 2021

Let’s keep this short, folks.  This is my ninth stay here and I’m quite sure for all the new words we’re creating, they’re not developing quick enough for my reviews to add anything extra.  Oxford’s word of 2020 was “unprecedented”, which a 9th review would be.  Pretty sure I’d get fired if I had an editor.

So they’ll be no massive rant, no detailed analysis and no breakdown of all the other facilities. In fact, to save your precious time, let me just summarise: don’t bother with the one -bedroom villa.  Now before you get your pitchforks, drive to Amanzoe and delicately remodel the one-bedroom villa back into the chicken hut it once was, let me explain.

I know you all like me to go picking out flaws, but there’s now a warm place in my heart that takes sympathy on any hotel that survives the economic impact of covid.  So when they said they’d upgrade the gym and did not, I accept it, and when I see toilets not flushing I forgive, and when I see wild dogs scavanging through the waste and attacking the guests, it’s all fine.  Ok, maybe I made the last one up.  But it’s all good.

Other than the fact that the internal area was uninspiring, dark and not suitable for 2 parents to quietly sneak around whilst their daughter sleeps, or that the layout of the villa looks like M. C. Escher designed it, the one bedroom villa is a decent option.  It just pales in comparison to its big brother, a 4 bedroom villa.  Entitled “OMG this is the worst thing to happen in the world, 2021 edition” by Buzzfeed, Amanzoe stopped renting out 4 bedroom villas as 1 or 2 bedroom villas with discounts.  How dare those vaccines be so efficient and allow people to travel again, thus pushing demand up.  So what’s the problem?  Well, imagine you grew up in a ghetto and one day were given your own room.  You’d love it.  Now imagine you’ve grown up in some Mayfair penthouse and suddenly have to find yourself slumming it in some dormitory at Eton.  The worst.  This anti-fairytale is exactly the same as going from a 4-bedroom villa to the lousy Villa 31.  Totally the same. 100% factual.

The standard Amanzoe pavilion is probably the best entry level room category of any resort in Europe.  The 4-bedroom villas are the best accommodation I’ve ever stayed in.  The one-bedroom is not a four-bedroom with less rooms, it’s a completely unique design and layout.  Unique isn’t always great though, as the first person that discovered herpes found out.  The one bedroom benefits from a dedicated host and chef, along with a swimming pool about 5x bigger than a pavilion, but in terms of comfort it offers less.  It was hard to know whether to be inside, where it’s dark and comfortable, or outside where the only loungers were by the kitchen.  Only a problem when you understand the kitchen is on a lower-level and where the chef and host hang out all day.  For a villa the actual usable internal space is not impressive, and nor is what you find in it.  There’s a lot more outside, but there’s the problem of where to actually be.  I’ll accept I’m a Neanderthal and have no appreciation for art, so the James Turrell installation may as well have been called “man doesn’t finish roof”.  Perhaps for you it’s the reason to go, after all “too expensive” and “waste of money” are indeed different things.

For us, the differences were not significant enough to warrant the upgrade price.  There isn’t a wow factor with Villa 31.  There’s such a gulf between a Pavilion and four-bedroom villa, but unfortunately that’s your choice: either a €2k/n pavilion or €11k/n for a four-bedroom villa.  The one bedroom doesn’t sit in the middle of the two, it sits to the side.

The Good

• You’re still in Amanzoe
• That swimming pool

The Bad

• The Obesity Chef has been replaced.  No, not an obese chef, but the chap in charge of ensuring all the guests were obese with extremely generous portions.  I miss ordering a starter and being able to feed my family for a week.

The Luxurious

• Service, still brilliant
• Food, still brilliant, albeit much smaller

Conclusion

In my hast to be punctual I’ve probably made it sound like some padded cell from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.  Not at all.  It’s just too different and there’s too much of a delta to the larger villas, that it makes it hard to appreciate it.  We will go back, we just wouldn’t book this room category again.

So where should you stay?  One of my readers owns Villa 6, a five-bedroom villa, so with no bias at all, may I suggest you all book that instead?

Another baldie trying to get into space