Site Description
The Festival location is located an hour from Athens and a few kilometers from Corinth. Here are some of the key details:
- Feast site will hold 350 people.
- Cost for housing ranges from €150-315 per day (depending on type of housing) for a single person. The price includes breakfast and dinner each day.
- Cost of housing for two with breakfast and dinner each day ranges from €160-325 per day depending on the type of housing you desire.
- The costs increase for numbers higher than two people.
- There is a climate resilience tax of €15 per room per night to be paid by each guest individually upon check-in.
- Attendees will also need to budget for airfare, meals outside of the resort, transportation to and from the Athens airport (one hour away) or a rental car for the duration of your time in Greece. Other expenses would include sightseeing, gifts, etc.
- It is important to know that the resort is on a hillside leading down to the Gulf of Corinth, which means walking up and down inclines will be necessary. Many of the rooms are separate pods, so there is not an elevator. Please be aware of this should you be accepted to attend.
- The Church will plan one or two excursions during the Feast (likely a trip to Corinth and one to Athens) and a couple of activities. You will have time to plan other options on your own.
- If you would like to attend Greece only if friends or family members are able to attend, you will need to note such when you register, giving the names of those you would like to attend with you. If one name of the group is drawn, the rest of that group will go in with the name drawn. Keep in mind, however, that this can be a limiting factor when the numbers get close to capacity—if your name is drawn and you have more in your group than we have capacity for, we will place your group on the waiting list rather than accept.
- Below is information pertaining to our previous attempts to keep the Feast in Greece prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic for anyone that may have made a reservation in 2020. This is designed to help you fully understand what happened in the past, as we will be keeping the Feast at the same location as we tried to hold it previously.
We had plans to keep the Feast in Greece in 2020—until we were hit by a worldwide pandemic that forced everyone to stay in their home country. All who were accepted to attend and paid a deposit were told that their deposit would be good for the following year. Unfortunately, the pandemic kept us from being able to keep the Feast in Greece in 2021 as well. The resort could have refunded everyone’s deposit at that point, however, after discussions with those desiring to attend and church administration, the decision was made to try one more time, as we anticipated being able to keep the Feast without any problems in 2022.
In the late winter/early spring of 2022 we needed to be certain we could actually keep the Feast in Greece without any restrictions or concerns so people could begin booking airfare and making further plans. At that time, the Greek government was changing from week to week on whether immunizations would be required. The Greek government also decided that businesses could reopen for tourism, however, they wanted to revisit that decision in a couple of months. In short, we seemed to be at the mercy of the Greek government as to whether or not we could attend and if we could do so without vaccinations. At that time, we decided it best to cancel our contract and revisit the possibility in the future when we would know the pandemic would be a nonfactor.
Since the Greek government decided they would be open for business around that time, the hotel was not required to refund any deposits. However, the Church offered to refund deposits (and did so for all who requested) since we made the decision not to attend due to a lack of clarity on what would be required of anyone attending—for example, vaccinations.
It is important we share this information for anyone that made a deposit over five years ago and may have felt that the hotel did not treat us correctly. The truth is that they followed the contract, and we did as well. The pandemic did keep the hotel from hosting in 2020 and 2021. However, they were open for business in 2022—but based on the best information we had in the spring of 2022, we were uncomfortable moving forward. We do not want anyone considering attending in Greece to be concerned about losing deposit money this year. Barring another pandemic or natural disaster, we will have a Feast site in Greece. If there were another pandemic or natural disaster that would keep the hotel from being able to host the Feast, it would return all deposits.
We look forward to sharing an exciting and inspiring Feast with you in Loutraki, Greece!
Mark Winner