Advertisement

Grand Resort Lagonissi Review: Holiday With Leo For 1% Of The A-Lister Price Tag

Who said holidaying with Hollywood's finest was out of your league?

From Kim Kardashian’s £20K-per-night holiday selfies in the likes of Mexico and Thailand to Harry Styles’ Necker Island hot tub selfies, we’re forever catching glimpses of the heights of luxury that the majority of us can probably never afford.


Kim Kardashian's recent Meixcan holiday selfies cost her a cool £20K per night. Copyright: [Instagram]
Kim Kardashian's recent Meixcan holiday selfies cost her a cool £20K per night. Copyright: [Instagram]

From private beaches to private islands, personal butlers, personal towel holders, private chefs, 24 hour on-call babysitters, your very own waiting room for visitors to your hotel suite and pianists on call – if it wasn’t for constant Instagram updates, we’d probably never even know these places exist.

But after a visit to Grand Resort Lagonissi in Athens, Greece, we can safely assure you that that sort of ‘no is not a word in our vocab’ place does, in fact, exist – and you probably can afford it.

Grand Resort Lagonissi: The Beach along the East side of the resort offers white sand and crystal clear water.
Grand Resort Lagonissi: The Beach along the East side of the resort offers white sand and crystal clear water.


At a cool £23,500 per night for their Royal Villa (often booked out for month-long stays by the stars), the resort has been providing a secret getaway for Hollywood’s most notorious, including Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Minogue, Mel Gibson, Piers Brosnan, Madonna, Cristino Ronaldo and Irina Shayk, Bon Jovi and our beloved Leonardo DiCaprio.

And while that price may mean it’s only the rich and famous that can afford the extreme luxury of the Royal Villa with its indoor pool, hair washing stations, servant quarters and waiting rooms, the rest of the resort offers guests a more affordable option to experience the Hollywood treatment.

Grand Resort Lagonissi: The Royal Villa features its own hilltop private pool.
Grand Resort Lagonissi: The Royal Villa features its own hilltop private pool.
Grand Resort Lagonissi: The specialist sports villas even boast their own gyms.
Grand Resort Lagonissi: The specialist sports villas even boast their own gyms.


 
Starting at £220 per room per night, guests can opt for a Luxury Room, located in the main building with bay views, offering them the exact same access to the resort as everyone else, even Leo.

For added luxury and a slightly higher price tag, you get your own beachfront suite, complete with direct beach access and your own garden or infinity pool.

In fact, Grand Resort Lagonissi boasts an incredible 26 different room types with 279 in total across the grounds, so finding something to fit your budget is totally doable.

Stretched across 72 acres within a luscious green peninsula along the stunning Apollo coast, the resort is its own self-contained utopia with everything you could genuinely ever ask for – and if they don’t have what you’re asking for, they’ll make darn sure you have it within the hour.

Grand Resort Lagonissi: A Luxury Room with Bay View starts at just 1% of the price of the £20K per night Royal Villa, with the same resort access.
Grand Resort Lagonissi: A Luxury Room with Bay View starts at just 1% of the price of the £20K per night Royal Villa, with the same resort access.

Boasting a staggering 16 private beaches and 12 award-winning restaurants and bars, there is almost too much choice to allow you to sample all that the resort has to offer during the average holiday – hence the month-long stays.

Our suite on the West side of the Peninsula came with its own Jacuzzi bath, private gym, steam room and sunset balcony, leading directly down on to a totally deserted fine pebble beach (the East side is sand, which we’re told is favoured by most, making the West side super private).

Despite all that's on offer, it was a real struggle to convince ourselves to leave the confines of our room, with its breathtaking views and sweeping patio doors looking out across the ocean.



It’s entirely possible to spend your days in a total state of relaxation, spoilt rotten by the private Jacuzzi, which must - obviously - be followed by a leisurely private steam before soaking up the sunshine.

But what makes the resort a real winner, setting it aside from its global rivals (think 5* in the Maldives and Seychelles), is its location – 20 minutes from Athens airport - making it an entirely achievable weekend stay, an ideal paradise hidden amid the hustle and bustle of a major metropolis.

If you’re not the ‘lie on the beach all day’ type, ancient Greece and the Acropolis lie less than an hour away, while your king size Egyptian cotton bed and turndown chocolate awaits post city adventure.

Head in the opposite direction from Athens and you can visit the temple of Poseidon, the sea god, which sits on a hilltop like a mini-acropolis, pulling in sunset-watchers from across the globe.

Don’t want to leave your paradise? There’s no limit to the activities on offer inside the perimeter, with full sized tennis courts, volleyball, basketball courts and even a mini-golf course and helipad - and that’s without opting for water-skiing, scuba diving and daily boat trips in the crystal-clear water around the peninsula.




Grand Resort Lagonissi don’t offer an ‘all inclusive’ option, so while your [very extensive] breakfast is included, evening and lunchtime meals are an added expense.

But with each of their eight restaurants boasting a five-star menu, most opt for dining inside the resort, rather than heading into Greece.

Each restaurant has its own distinctive setting and style – even the breakfast buffet boasts stunning terrace views across the bay and surrounding.

The Captain’s House – which serves contemporary Italian cuisine, with vegetables grown within the resort – is the pick of the bunch, overlooking the bridge by the underwater-lit lagoon, it would be almost impossible not to feel totally romanced by the place.



Despite its lavish setting and beautiful villas for the extremely rich and famous, what makes it a top choice for the likes of Leo is the kind of Hollywood service you might hear whispers about but never fully witness until you get within the grounds.

From requests to install special taps, to decking out suites in all-white flowers, counting steps and taking pictures of the grains of sand on each different beach (this actually happens frequently, we’re told), there’s nothing management won’t do for their guests.

So while you’re busy perfecting that Kim K above-head beach body selfie, make sure you take a second to soak up the service that gets her from one perfected picture to the next.

Grand Resort Lagonissi: The Kohylia restaurant offers the most private and decadent of dinner settings.
Grand Resort Lagonissi: The Kohylia restaurant offers the most private and decadent of dinner settings.

For more infomation on Grand Resort Lagonissi visit their website, http://www.grandresort.gr/.
Starting rates for 2015: £220 per room per night (Luxury Room with Bay View).
Grand Resort Lagonissi:
40th km Athens-Sounion Ave. 190 10 Lagonissi-Attica-Greece