Atrium Hotel Skiathos
Atrium Hotel Skiathos is a small, family-run four-star hotel built down a pine-covered hillside above Agia Paraskevi beach, on the south coast of Skiathos in Greece. Families come for the sea views from nearly every room, the stone-and-wood design and a quiet, personal feel on one of the island's sheltered south-coast beaches.
On this page
Is it worth it?
The quick read before the detail: who Atrium suits, what it doesn't do and the facts to skim first.
Atrium is a small, independent hotel run by the family who built it, with a quiet, design-led feel that stands apart from the bigger resorts on the same beach. The trade for that is the hillside. It's built down a slope in terraces, so there are steps between your room, the pools and the restaurants, and the beach is a steep, stepped walk below rather than a few flat metres away. Sea views come as standard, childcare doesn't, so it suits a family that wants a calm, characterful base and is happy to manage a pram on a slope, more than one that wants a kids' club and level ground.
Best for
You want a small, family-run hotel with sea views and stone-and-wood design, on a sheltered beach that's calmest in September, and you're happy managing a pram on a hillside.
Maybe not for
You want a supervised kids' club, flat step-free ground or a beachfront room. There's no club here, and the beach is down a steep, stepped path.
Best ages
Babies and young children, if you'll supervise closely on the steps and around the room pools. The Maisonette's loft isn't for under-sixes.
What stands out
Built and still run by the architect family who designed it, in a plain, monastic stone-and-wood style unusual for the island.
What to check
Which level your room is on and whether it has internal steps. The Junior Suite with Sea View is the hotel's family room.
Where is it?
Above Agia Paraskevi beach, over Platanias village on the south coast of Skiathos, Greece. The airport is about 7 miles (11 km) away.
Quick facts for families
What the resort is like
Where Atrium sits, how it's laid out over the terraces and what that means for getting around with a pram.
Atrium is a four-star hotel above Agia Paraskevi beach on the south coast of Skiathos, in the Northern Sporades off mainland Greece. It's independent and family-run. Heidi and Nikos Chatzimichalis, both architects, built it in 1989, and their children Elektra and Nikitas now run it, so the family involvement is real rather than a brochure line. Some booking sites list it as Atrium Hotel Platanias, after the village just below, which is worth knowing so you don't take it for a different property. It's also worth being clear about what it isn't. Despite the shared name, it has no connection to Atrium Hotels & Resorts, a separate hotel group whose properties are all on Rhodes, and it's a different booking from Atrium Villas, a six-villa complex the same family built next door in 2014 with its own listing. It shows in the building: local stone and wood, arched openings and a plain, monastic style, which means bare stone and simple lines rather than anything ornate, with antique pieces set against modern ones.
The one fact that shapes a stay here with a baby or toddler is the hillside. The hotel steps down the slope in terraces rather than sitting on flat ground, with rooms spread from the first level to the sixth. Lifts serve part of the site, but they don't take away every set of stairs between your room, the pools, the restaurants and the path to the beach, so steps are part of daily life here. A UK tour operator, Olympic Holidays, puts it more strongly and says the hotel isn't suitable for guests with walking difficulties, worth knowing if you're travelling with a less mobile grandparent as well as a pushchair.
At seventy-five rooms it's small, quieter and more personal than the larger resorts nearby: the 131-room Skiathos Princess along the same beach, and the bigger Elivi Skiathos over at Koukounaries. The grounds are garden terraces linking the accommodation blocks, with stone-paved walkways and planting between them. The family is partway through a second renovation, and the Deluxe Double Sea View rooms have been refreshed most recently. For the island as a whole, its other beaches, its ferries and flights, the climate and jellyfish, see our Skiathos guide.
The location in figures
The hotel's own location page lists the distances from its door: Skiathos airport 11 km, the port 10 km, Skiathos Town 9 km and the island health centre 9 km, with the nearest mini-markets and restaurants 250 m away and the beach 50 to 400 m below depending on the route you take down. So the daily things are close, shops and food within a few hundred metres and the sand just downhill, while the town, port and airport are each a short drive around the south coast.
Every restaurant and bar
The two dining rooms, the two bars, how booking works and how a family with a young child fits around each.
Eating here is bed and breakfast by default, with half-board an add-on and no all-inclusive option. There's one buffet restaurant, an à la carte taverna for lunch, a pool bar and an indoor bar. Food and drink come up in reviews as pricey compared with eating out elsewhere on the island, which is worth weighing if you'd otherwise wander into Platanias for dinner.
The Restaurant is the main buffet, served by the pool indoors or out. Breakfast runs 07:30 to 10:30 and covers egg dishes and omelettes, bacon and sausages, cold meats and cheeses, fresh and dried fruit, yoghurts and cereals, breads and pastries, homemade savoury pies, Greek honey and homemade jams. Dinner is a buffet from 19:30 to 22:00, Greek cooking with Mediterranean touches from the hotel's own kitchen. This is the easiest room with a young child, because a buffet means you can build a plate to suit a toddler and there's no waiting on a kitchen. Highchairs are confirmed here.
The Taverna serves à la carte lunch from 12:30 to 15:30 on a sea-view patio, Greek, Mediterranean and international dishes cooked with olive oil from Mani in southern Greece, with a barbecue night once a week. There are highchairs in the main restaurant; ask at the Taverna if you'll want one at lunch. There's no children's menu at either venue, but the buffet format at breakfast and dinner covers a young or fussy eater without one.
The Pool Bar is open 10:00 to midnight beside the main pool, for drinks, cocktails, beer and light snacks through the day. There's also an indoor bar and lobby lounge, used mainly in the evening and for events such as wedding welcome drinks, rather than as an all-day bar for guests.
Smart-casual dress is asked for in the restaurant.
How dinner booking works
You only need to book a table for dinner, and mainly for the theme nights, the weekly barbecue and an Italian night. Bookings are made at the front desk once you're there. Breakfast, lunch at the Taverna and the pool bar are walk-in.
Rooms and suites
All eight room types with their official sizes, which suit a family with a baby or toddler, plus the steps to watch inside them.
There are seventy-five rooms across eight named categories. The hotel's own site is a little inconsistent about the number, since its intro line still says six types of room while the booking grid immediately below it lists eight. The table below uses all eight, since that's what you actually choose between when booking. It's the full line-up with the official sizes and how many each sleeps; the guidance after it is which ones suit a family with a young child and why.
| Room | Size | Sleeps | View |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deluxe Double Room with Sea View | 22 m² | 2 | Sea |
| Superior Room with Garden Jacuzzi | 26 m² | 3 | Garden |
| Junior Suite with Sea View | 28–34 m² | 4 | Sea |
| Junior Suite with Interior View | 28–34 m² | 4 | No sea view |
| Junior Suite with Infinity (shared) Pool | 27 m² | 3 | Sea |
| Junior Suite with Garden Jacuzzi and Infinity View | 27 m² | 3 | Sea |
| Junior Suite with Private Pool and Sea View | 28–34 m² | 4 | Sea |
| Maisonette with shared Pool | 38 m² | 5 on request | Sea from the terrace |
Every room, whatever the category, comes with air conditioning, free Wi-Fi, a mini-fridge, a safe, a 42-inch satellite TV, tea and coffee making facilities, a phone, a shower room, a hairdryer, a magnifying mirror and bathroom scales. None have kitchens, so this is a hotel rather than self-catering. Children up to four years old stay free, with a free baby cot in any room.
The Deluxe Double with Sea View at 22 m² is the smallest room, with its own balcony, and like much of the hotel it's positioned on one of several different levels of the complex, so there are steps involved in reaching it. It's fine for a couple with an infant in the free cot but tight once a toddler needs floor space. The room to look at for a family is the Junior Suite with Sea View at 28 to 34 m², which the hotel labels its family room and which sleeps up to four. It's split-level, joined by a small internal flight of steps, so that's a trip point to know about with a toddler. One specific version of it is a single-level 30 m² room on the top floor that avoids those internal steps and can interconnect with a double room for up to five, a useful option for a larger family that wants to skip the steps inside. The Junior Suite with Interior View is the same room without the sea view, lower on the price ladder.
Several categories come with their own water. The Superior Room has a private garden jacuzzi, with the surrounding garden shared between three adjoining rooms. Among the Junior Suites, one is split-level with its own private balcony and an infinity pool shared with one other suite. One, split-level and open-plan, has its own private garden jacuzzi looking out to sea plus a private terrace, and comes with robes, slippers and pool towels. One has a private pool of its own, again on a split-level layout, with a large terrace, the premium single-room family option. With a toddler, treat any room pool or jacuzzi as open water at your door and supervise it as you would. The Maisonette at 38 m² sleeps up to five on request and shares a secluded pool with one other maisonette, but the hotel states its loft sleeping area isn't suitable for children under six, so it doesn't suit a family with a baby or toddler.
Interconnecting combinations are bookable by contacting the hotel: a Double with a Junior Suite Sea View, two interconnecting sea-view Doubles or a Double with a Junior Suite Private Pool. The hotel's booking engine also lists finer occupancy bands and a couple of rate-only options such as a Combi Room and a Promo Room; these are variants of the eight rooms above, not extra types. The Deluxe Double Sea View rooms are the most recently renovated.
Pools and water features
The main pool sits near the top of the site with a sea view and the Pool Bar beside it. It's fresh water rather than salt, with umbrellas, deckchairs and pool towels (given out on a refundable deposit), and it's open 09:30 to 18:30. Beside it is a second, smaller pool for young children, used by families with babies and toddlers. There's no splash pad, and no adults-only pool.
Beyond those two, the only other water is the pools and jacuzzis attached to particular rooms, covered above. If you book a room with one, it's the main water-safety point to plan around.
The beach
The beach below the hotel is Agia Paraskevi, a long, sandy, south-facing bay sheltered by headlands and pine hills, so it's calm and shelves in gently, which is what you want with a toddler paddling. It holds a Blue Flag for 2026, and it's the same beach the larger Skiathos Princess sits directly on, a short way along the coast. The beach itself has toilets and showers, the Bamboon beach bar, watersports, boat rental and parking, plus Seatrac access into the sea for wheelchair users; these are public beach facilities open to anyone, not Atrium's own.
The catch is getting down to it. The hotel isn't beachfront: the sand is reached either by a 50 m pinewood path or a longer route of about 400 to 500 m along the road, and both are steep and stepped rather than a level walk. The longer road route has no proper space to walk where it meets the road. On foot it's about five minutes. With a pram this is something to plan for, not assume; a baby carrier or a beach trolley handles the pinewood path better than pushing a pushchair up and down it.
Babies and toddlers
What's here for the youngest guests, what costs extra and the safety points specific to this hotel.
There's no organised, supervised kids' club or crèche here, which is a real gap if you want childcare built into the holiday. The larger Skiathos Princess along the same beach has a crèche from four months and a kids' club; Atrium has neither. What it does have is an indoor children's playground, a separate room with table tennis and toys for younger children, but that's a space to use together, not staffed care.
The baby cot is free for any child up to four. Highchairs are confirmed in the main restaurant. Babysitting is available on request and charged, so arrange it in advance if you'd like an evening out. A doctor can be called on request through an outside partner, and the nearest health centre is about 6 miles (9 km) away. The hotel has a defibrillator on site and says its staff are trained in basic life support.
A few things about this hotel are worth holding in mind with a baby or toddler, each of them a real feature rather than generic caution: the steps between levels across the site, the steep stepped path down to the beach, the unfenced pools and jacuzzis attached to some rooms and the Maisonette loft the hotel itself says isn't for under-sixes. None of these rules the hotel out, but they're the specifics to plan around.
What costs extra, beyond the room and breakfast: babysitting, massage, watersports and boat trips, car, motorbike or bicycle hire, the half-board upgrade, laundry or ironing and fax or photocopying at reception. Parking is free and needs no booking.
On and around the hotelThings to do
Most of what there is to do is arranged through reception and run by outside partners for a charge, rather than laid on and included. The list is long: horse riding through the olive groves and pine woods between Platanias and Ligaries, tennis, scuba diving, sailing with a skipper, hiking to the island's chapels and monasteries, boat and speedboat rental, watersports on the beach, wine tasting, cooking classes, a visit to a local dog shelter, fishing and bike, car or motorbike hire. Excursions run to Skopelos, Alonissos and the Pelion peninsula on the mainland, along with island tours and sunset trips, and there's a padel club nearby.
On site, there's a small fitness room, a sauna open 08:00 to 18:00, massage on request, billiards, table tennis, a business centre, a gift and jewellery shop and a piano lounge. The hotel also hosts occasional live music and retreat groups, and runs a wedding and event service, so a concert or a wedding party during your stay is possible; it can add atmosphere or, depending on timing, some evening noise.
Off the parkThe area and days out
Platanias is the small village just below and beside the hotel, about an eight-minute walk, with a handful of restaurants, and mini-markets are 250 m away. Skiathos Town, the island capital, is about 6 miles (9 km) and roughly twenty minutes by car or bus, with shops, restaurants, museums, evening life and the old port where the Mamma Mia ferry scenes were filmed. The port itself is about 6 miles (10 km) away, also roughly a 20-minute drive.
Skiathos has a single bus route along the south coast, and the stop is about five minutes down the hill, so you can reach many of the island's other beaches without a car, among them Koukounaries, Vromolimnos, Troulos and Achladies. Bookable day trips run to Skopelos, with the chapel from Mamma Mia, to Alonissos and to mainland Pelion. A car isn't essential, since the village, the beach and the bus are all close, but it helps for the beaches off the main road. For the full island picture, see our Skiathos guide.
Loves and gripes
What families consistently rate and what they flag, how it compares with the alternatives, the journey in and the weather by month.
Atrium rates well across the review sites, with families warm about it on the whole. On HolidayCheck it scores 5.5 out of 6, with 88% of guests recommending it from 43 reviews. TripAdvisor, Booking.com and Expedia rate it well too. The hotel's own site carries the usual recognition badges from TripAdvisor and HolidayCheck alongside quality and food-safety certifications. Below is the balance of what they consistently praise and consistently flag, drawn from our research rather than one stay.
What families love
- The setting and the sea views from the rooms and terraces.
- The family-run feel, with the owners closely involved and the staff well regarded.
- The main pool, clean and with plenty of shade.
- The stone-and-wood, monastic design, singled out as distinctive for the island.
- A varied, plentiful breakfast.
Common gripes
- The hillside and the steps, the single most repeated point.
- The steep path down to the beach, and the longer road route with no proper room to walk where it meets the road.
- Food and drink prices, seen as high against eating out on the island.
- Road noise for some rooms nearer the road.
- Restaurant service that a few found slower at busy times.
- No kids' club, and a small children's pool that's modest.
How it compares
The closest comparison is Skiathos Princess, on the same beach. Princess is nearly double the size at 131 rooms, sits directly on the sand with no hill to climb and has purpose-built childcare, a crèche from four months and a kids' club, none of which Atrium offers. If you want organised childcare and flat, direct beach access, Princess is the stronger fit. Atrium is the smaller, quieter, design-led choice on the same bay, for a family happy to manage a pram on a slope. Further afield on the island, Elivi Skiathos is a larger luxury resort at Koukounaries with a kids' club, and Kassandra Bay and the boutique, family-run Mandraki Village both sit on flatter ground with dedicated children's pools; each is a different proposition at a different beach.
The journey inGetting there and when to go
Skiathos airport is about 7 miles (11 km) from the hotel, roughly a 30-minute drive. There's no hotel shuttle: send the hotel your flight details ahead and it will pre-book a taxi, and it's worth booking the return taxi to the airport a day in advance. There's no minimum stay.
The hotel is open from 7 May to 4 October. September tends to be the calmest month for a young family, warm with the sea still around 24°C and fewer people about. July and August are the hottest and busiest. May is workable but cooler for long spells of baby bathing, and early October is still swimmable, though the season winds down fast and the hotel closes on the 4th. A Greek tourism tax of €7 per room per night applies, set by the government, excluded from your rate and paid at the hotel. Check-in is from 15:00 and check-out by 11:00, with early or late subject to availability and a front desk staffed around the clock. Parking is free.
Month by monthWeather
The figures below are long-term averages for this coast, and they cover the hotel's whole 7 May to 4 October season. The warm, low-rain stretch runs through June to September; September holds a warm sea with softer heat, while July and August bring the strongest heat and the fullest weeks.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days | Sea temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May | 25° | 13° | 40 mm | 6 | 19° |
| June | 29.5° | 18° | 25 mm | 4 | 23° |
| July | 32.5° | 20.5° | 20 mm | 2 | 26° |
| August | 32.5° | 20.5° | 25 mm | 2 | 27° |
| September | 28° | 17° | 40 mm | 5 | 25° |
| October | 22° | 12.5° | 70 mm | 7 | 22° |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records. Sea temperature is the open-water figure, so a sheltered bay can feel a degree or two warmer. The hotel is open 7 May to 4 October.
Questions
The things families ask most, the official page worth a bookmark and when this guide was last refreshed.
Can we get a pram down to the beach?
Not easily. Both routes down are steep and have steps, so most families carry a baby in a sling or use a beach trolley rather than push a pram up and down. If step-free access to the sand is a must, the flat Skiathos Princess sits directly on the same beach.
Is there a transfer from the airport?
No, there is no hotel shuttle. Give the hotel your flight details in advance and it will pre-book a taxi, and book the return a day ahead so you are not left waiting on the day you fly.
How old do children stay free?
Up to four years old, and the baby cot is free for any child up to four whichever room you book. For any child rate beyond that, children are counted as roughly four to eleven.
Is there a kids’ club?
No. There is no supervised club or crèche, only an indoor playroom with table tennis and toys to use together. If you want an evening to yourselves, ask the hotel about babysitting, which is on request and charged, and arrange it in advance.
Are there highchairs?
Yes, in the main restaurant where the buffet meals are served. Mention it when you book if you'll want one at the Taverna for lunch.
Is there a children’s menu?
No children’s menu is listed, but the buffet breakfast and dinner let you build a plate for a young or fussy eater without one. Lunch at the Taverna is à la carte.
What does half-board include?
Buffet breakfast and buffet dinner, added to any room type. It is an add-on rather than the standard rate, so decide when you book whether you will eat out in Platanias often enough to skip it.
Is there a tourist tax?
Yes, €7 per room per night, set by the Greek government. It is not in your room rate and is paid at the hotel, so keep a little cash aside for it.
How far is the bus stop?
About five minutes', or 300 metres', walk down the hill. It's on the single south-coast route between Skiathos Town and Koukounaries, so you can reach several other beaches and the town without hiring a car.
Will the Maisonette sleep our family?
It takes up to five, but the hotel states its loft sleeping area is not suitable for children under six, so it does not suit a family with a baby or toddler. The Junior Suite with Sea View is the room to look at instead.
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Useful links
- Atrium Hotel Skiathos: the hotel's own site for rooms, dining and booking.
- GOV.UK Greece travel advice: entry rules and safety updates before you travel.
- Skiathos with little ones: our guide to the island, its beaches and when to go.
Last updated 12 July 2026.
