Wondering why this beautiful hotel is so much cheaper than all the others in Oia? It’s a new, stunning property, with spacious, clean, modern rooms, free bottled water (you can’t drink the tap water in Santorini, nor flush toilet paper). Great amenities, a beautiful pool, outstanding included breakfast, and helpful staff that takes care of airport rides, dinner reservations, and more.
The difference is the location. The expensive hotels are cliffside, overlooking the caldera, with startlingly beautiful views, where there are no roads, so it’s incredibly quiet (though there’s virtually no privacy, as all the tourists love looking down at people in their private pools). Filomare Suites is on the corner of the main road, at the busiest (only!) intersection in the whole town. It’s loud, with constant traffic from tour buses, tourists on ATVS, and beeping locals. Taxis drivers holler at you from across the street, the crosswalk is terribly dangerous, and the adjoining properties are cheap gyro shops, convenience stores, and lower-end restaurants. The view from Filomare isn’t the gorgeous caldera, It faces north, over a bus station for the cruise ships, past an empty expanse of land, and out to the Aegean. It’s not a terrible view, but once you walk the four minutes to the caldera view, you see why this hotel is a third of the cost of the ones facing south.
The windows do shut out most of the noise, but poolside, the noise is inescapable.