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Submitted in August 2006 by: Pete Dee

Operator and Date: Thomas Cook, July 06

SKIATHOS PINCESS

This is a 5 star hotel - allegedly. Well there's 5 stars shining away outside it at night. I personally would call it a 3 star with pretensions. The pool area is possibly between 4 + 5 stars - the new owners (Santikos Hotels) have bought some really nice sunbeds which apparently cost 1000 euros each. An earlier reviewer said that the decking was new this year too - if that's the case it hasn't aged too well !!

We only ate in the hotel one night despite being on half board as the food was fairly ordinary bordering on below average. The breakfast was OK though - lots of options here.

One moan is why don't they provide a menu at the entrance to the dining area - we missed a couple of meals that we would have gone to because we didn't know what was actually on offer.
Another moan - why no bureau de change ? I've been to far worse hotels that had a bureau de change and let's face it it has to be a moneyspinner for them. It occurs, whilst writing, that maybe the lack of a b d c is because most visitors are expected to come from what Thomas Cook quaintly calls ";Eurozone"; and will already have euros. B d cs in Skiathos Town seemed to do a roaring trade though so perhaps it's just what the hotel has decided to do.

Another moan - no courtesy bus service into Skiathos Town - I saw the Skiathos Palace bus several times and that hotel is in Koukanaries. With the buses being very full every evening we tried to get into Town we'd have used the courtesy bus many a time.
Also the beach bar - Pr Ammos - seemed to charge an arm, a leg and half a mortgage payment for what seemed to be mainly seafood. One day the music from this restaurant was blaring out at such a volume that friends of ours had to ask them to turn it down and we were about 50 yards away from it - God above knows what it must have been like to have eaten in there. The explanation given was that there were ";celebrities"; there - whether or not they had earplugs was not explained.

Anyway those moans apart we had a good holiday there. We'd been to Skiathos before - 5 years ago - and it hasn't really changed too much. Just as well that we had been before really as the rep was absolutely useless. She turned up for the welcome meeting 20 minutes late with no apology and didn't seem at all interested. We had no welcome meeting as there were 3 groups of us Thomas Cook clients scattered round the hotel and she didn't appear bothered enough to find them and bring them all together to do the welcome meeting. Pity really as we'd have done a couple of trips but didn't get the opportunity, as all we were handed was a sheet of paper with the names of the trips on with two highlighted. It wasn't explained to us if the two that were highlighted were the only two that they did or the only two that they didn't do. Anyway that apart Thomas Cook did roughly what they were supposed to do which was take us from Gatwick and deposit us at our hotel in Aghia Paraskevi. Luckily we had no complaints or worries so we didn't find out how good or bad they were at solving them.

THE RESORT

Well it's a bit grand really to call Aghia Paraskevi a resort as such. It's just bus stop 16 on an island with 25 bus stops along one main road. There's a fair number of villas, rooms, hotels,supermarkets and restaurants at or around bus stop 16 though and there's a great beach with the usual array of watersports all of which appeared to be priced at 20 euros. Just across the road there's a supermarket called ";Iguana"; which, as is the custom, seemed to sell damn near everything including handy 6 packs of water and cigarettes at 20 euros a throw for 200. He doesn't take credit cards though so I did my cigarette purchasing at ";Zannas"; just down the road. There's a couple of decent restaurants here too - well there may be more than a couple but we only tried these two. One is called ";Platanias"; - seems to be attached to the ";Magic Hotel"; (either that or they've nicked their plates) and serves very good food. The other is the ";Shell"; restaurant just down the road from the Princess - we never ate there at night but they do a very good meal at lunchtimes. 6.5 euros for a chicken souvlaki being indicative of the sort of prices they charge. I'm not going to do the ";ask for Christos and tell him Pete sent you"; sort of bull cos 1) he doesn't know my name and 2) I feel that sort of thing is a bit pathetic and I don't do that but . . . his name's Christos !!

SKIATHOS TOWN

OK so you've fought your way on to the bus and paid your 1.10 to get to Skiathos Town - what do you find when you get there ?
Well there's loads of things to do if you just want to have a relaxing time and these are mainly if not exclusively to do with eating and drinking and why not as you're on holiday? Wander along until you find a bar that you like the look of, pull up a seat, order your drink and watch the world go by. The ferry port is a good place just to sit and watch the evening promenade and there's a lovely little bar up on the Bourtzi where you can sit and watch the sea go by and it's not terribly pricey - drinking in the same view in England would cost somewhere north of an arm and a leg.
The restaurants in Skiathos Town are the same as everywhere really - some good and some not so good. I have to recommend two though and these are ";The Calypso"; and ";The Jailhouse";. To call Calypso ";just a pizza place"; is to do it an injustice. The food's great and it was our first point of call after a five year absence - we were not disappointed.

The Jailhouse is tucked away in the corner of the harbour. Go round the to the right from the main ferry port and as far around as you can do and you'll see a bar called ";The Ice Bar"; - just to the right of that is a cobbled street and the Jailhouse is up there. Good food although it's a bit pricey - a welcome change from the normal Greek dishes as it's a steak/Tex Mex type place.
About as far away from that as you can get and still be in Skiathos Town is the ";strip"; where you can very likely boogie the night away and drink over priced drinks if you want to do so - we didn't. A taxi back to your base will cost you 8 euros but don't be at all surprised if the cab driver waits, after you're safely ensconced in his nice Mercedes, to try to cram a couple more people in to the cab. Accept it as it is the way it works over there !! A tip about the cabs - if you're unlucky enough to find the bus full on your way into or out of town you can be pretty sure that there's a cab or 3 following on behind - they're rather like Eric Cantona's seagulls following the trawler in that respect.

Unlike the reviewer in 2003 I didn't find a MacDonalds and one has to be grateful for that - it just would not fit in here at all. I'm sure that it was obviously closed down as being totally out of character. If you want fast food there's plenty of gyros places and these are nice - nothing like what passes as a kebab in the UK.
In conclusion we had a good time - met some nice people and chilled out well.

Would I go back again ? Not probably to this hotel or this resort. I do like Skiathos a hell of a lot though as like most of the Greek islands I've been to it has a lot of charm. The beaches are great - it's still (reasonably) cheap to eat and drink though the introduction of the euro has put paid to it being really really cheap. The people are friendly and the weather's good too.

The bits I personally miss now that I'm back home in England are the lazy bits like just sitting in a bar on the waterfront watching the world go by - that to me is the REAL Skaithos. You can lie on a sunbed anywhere and I do enjoy that very much too but for me Skiathos' charm is around the harbour being part of the hustle and bustle of this magical little island. I could mention loads more like the man who sits towards the end of the harbour and makes those peculiar acrylic pictures of sun moon and stars whilst listening to his thumping Goa trance from his music machine, the huge expensive yachts that litter the harbour, the buzz that seems to be around the place but I'd better not as it's making me feel that I want to get on the first plane back there and I've got to work to afford to pay for the next holiday !!!