We found Hotel Cecil to be a good value for our money. It is indeed on a very busy and not exactly picturesque street, but very conveniently located.

We travelled here with our 12 week old son, and found it quite safe and clean. Our room was large, high ceilings, and a balcony overlooking a side street. I did NOT notice a cigarette odor, and this is VERY important to me. The floors were gleaming hardwood, nothing to hold odors.

The bathroom was small, but clean.

We loved being so close to the market, and having breakfast every morning. It was certainly adequate...cakes, cereal and milk, cheese, meat, rolls, etc.

We would probably stay at the Cecil again, if we were on a tight budget...otherwise, we might like to explore staying in Plaka.

The desk operators were not rude, but not exceptionally friendly, either. They were fine, in my opinion...

We stayed here in early June in a family room for 1 night at 153 Euros.

We found the staff extremely rude and very unhelpful.

Upon checking in we were hurriedly given a keycard to unlock the door on the 2nd floor and told if this does not work let me know and i will come and help you (he was clearly more interested in the soccer world cup). After the key would not work i went back downstairs and after much growling from him about being disturbed from his soccer i was told he had forgotten to activate the card and now try again but if i had further problems he would come and help us.

I tried again but it seems the door had been painted shut so again i returned to the ground floor and explained the situation, again he growled about being taken away from his tv and soccer and this time he handed me a normal door key for the door next to the other one we tried the keycard on (the family room is merely 2 adjoining rooms) and said try this and let me know if it does not work, if it does not work i will come and help you. This time it worked and i explained i would need to retain this key as i had no other entry to our room. He was not overly happy about us retaining the key and he then immediately requested payment of our bill despite us not having spent 1 minute in the room yet.

On returning to our room i realised that the whole second floor was covered in bath towels (when i asked why his English seemed to amazingly fail him). The 1st floor however was covered in nice carpets and did not have the same problem.

We then also enquired about tours of Athens (which they suggested in their room comfirmation email) at which point they told us very clearly and confirmed a 2nd time the tour leaves at 8.45. They took our money (48Euros each) organised the tour over the phone with the company and then said you must be outside at 7am and wait for the bus. I asked why we needed to wait at 7am when you told us the tour starts at 8.45am and he said it was because they could turn up anytime between 7am and 8.45am. I said that is totally unreasonable when the brochure says they leave from a square 10mins walk from the hotel at 8.45am and i would prefer to meet the tour at the square at 8.45am rather than wait for up to 1 hr 45 on the steps of Cecil hotel. He said this was not possible (i am completely convinced he did not want to ring back and miss more of his precious soccer to confirm we would meet at the square and not our hotel). I think our preference was reasonable as it would have allowed us to have some breakfast plus a bit longer to sleep rather than sit on a bus touring various hotels of Athens for 1hr 45 mins.

Sure enough the next day we got on the tour bus at about 7.45am at the hotel (after waiting 45 mins) and sure enough people from many other hotels boarded the bus at the square at 8.45am as we wanted to do. The tour company confirmed we could have done the same and our hotel should have told us that.

As we knew the tour would return to the hotel after 12 noon and we had to checkout by then we enquired the previous night as to where we could leave our luggage while we were on the tour. He clearly explained he would show us the secure luggage room in the morning (obviously wanting to get back to his soccer). The next morning at 11.30 our roommates (who had requested a refund for the tour after hearing the 7am instead of 8.45 commencement time) took the bags to the reception upon checkout only to be told that the luggage room was full and already wide open and our luggage could be left in the hallway on the first floor. He also rudely told our roommates he said the night before he told us to bring our bags down early which he certainly did not (in any case there was no differnce in leaving bags in the hallway or the unlocked room off the hallway which was unattended).

On returning from the tour i found our roommates sitting with our luggage in the 1st floor hallway. It was lucky they were, the luggage room door was wide open and had we been unmoral people we could have helped ourselves to anything we wanted from the many bags left unsecured in the room or the hallway. Even worse anyone from the street can enter the hotel and walk up to the first floor unquestioned and then they can take a bag based on our experience.

Upon leaving i said bye and thanks, the guy just grunted and turned away without saying a word as if we had been rude to him.

The owner of this place is an absolute pig and a disgrace to the people of Greece. You will get no manners or help here and the only thing this hotel has going for it is its location which admittedly is very close to the Acropolis.

I have travelled extensively around Europe over the last 2 years and found this hotels staff the most rude and unhelpful of all (i expected that title to go to some Eastern European hotel) luckily the hotels staff we stayed at in Mykonos were lovely people and renewed our faith in the Greeks.

Stay here if you want but only for the location, but dont say you were not warned about the rudeness of the staff.

I stayed at the Cecil Hotel for the beginning and the end of a 2 1/2 week visit to Greece. The room was basic but clean. The hotel is located = about two blocks from the metro which makes it convenient to get to the airport, to the port in Piraeus, and most sights around the city (although Athens is easy to get around by foot). The neighborhood was safe and you were near the Monistraki section of the city as well as some open air markets. It was easy to book a room via email and I had no problems with my reservations when I arrived either time. The staff was helpful with any questions about the room, neighborhood, etc. When I first arrived, I stayed in a room that overlooked Athinas Street. Since it is a main street, it could be noisy with the windows open. There is a/c in the room so that helps to alleviate that issue. When I returned for one night before flying home, I was given a room on the roof deck which was quieter and let you enjoy the view of the acropolis. Overall, I was pleased with this hotel and would stay here again. It's not fancy but for 70E, it's a safe, clean place to stay in Athens.

Athens was the last stop in a three week tour that included Rome, naples, Pompeii, Amalfi, and Santorini. Hotel Cecil is on a busy street, but is made it easy to find and within walking distance of all the sights. It has a lift which is nice for luggage even if it is tiny. Breakfast was about what we got in all the hotels we stayed at. The room was a bit run down for 99E per nigh so I guess you are paying for the convenient location. And we found Athens to be grubby. They desperatley need an Spca to start spaying and neutering the strays. None of them seemed to be starving, but a lot of them were limping or had open wounds and there is no reason to let that go on. Responsible cities take care of their stray populations. We were also ther over Easter and were surprised stores closed on Saturday at around 3 pm and stayed closed for Sunday ( of course) and Monday too. One or two days in Athens is plenty and I cannot say enough about their need for an SPCA.