The main infinity pool at Magma Resort, looking across the eastern side of Santorini.
By our third hotel in Santorini, we had already stayed at two properties that could hardly have been more different. Vedema gave us a private villa overlooking vineyards outside Megalochori. Katikies Garden put us inside a restored monastery near the top of Fira, with the town and caldera only a short walk away.
Magma Resort was our final stop. It sits near Vourvoulos on the eastern side of Santorini, away from the caldera and the towns that produce most of the island’s familiar photographs. From here, the view runs across vineyards, scattered white buildings and the Aegean towards Anafi. There are no cruise ships below the hotel and no crowds passing outside.
We had deliberately put Magma last. After Vedema and Katikies Garden, we wanted the final part of the trip to require less effort. We could still go back out when we wanted to, but the hotel needed to be somewhere we would be happy spending a substantial part of the day.
Much of Magma’s public space is arranged around the restaurant terrace and main pool.
We booked through American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts, our third consecutive FHR stay on Santorini. The rate included breakfast for two, a $150 food-and-beverage credit, noon check-in when available, a room upgrade subject to availability and guaranteed 4 p.m. checkout. The $150 credit was the largest of the three Santorini FHR credits and one of the reasons Magma had looked particularly attractive when we planned the trip.
The hotel had also been in touch before our arrival with airport and port transfers, Lava Spa, Magma Soul restaurant, wine tastings and a long list of other activities. The hotel’s Experiences Guide went well beyond what we could possibly have used during a one-night stay.
In the end, we did leave the resort several times. We went to Oia late at night and returned to Fira the following morning. It was surprising how little those excursions undermined the original reason for booking Magma. Each time we went out, it was easy enough to arrange, and we never felt that leaving had cost us something important at the resort.
Arrival
We had arranged Magma’s €40 transfer from Katikies Garden in advance, the same amount we had paid for our transfers from the airport to Vedema, and from Vedema to Katikies Garden.
The entrance gives relatively little away. A low building sits behind dark volcanic-stone walls, with a large sculpture marking the approach and most of the accommodation hidden further up the hillside.
The approach to Magma Resort, with much of the property hidden beyond the entrance.
Inside, reception is a large, low space finished in the same dark volcanic stone. From there, a broad staircase leads up towards the bar, restaurant and pool terrace. Beyond the terrace, the resort extends uphill along paths between black stone walls, white accommodation blocks, grasses and large patches of cactus.
A broad staircase leads from reception up towards the main pool and restaurant terrace, shown here at night.
Magma’s reception area, photographed after hours.
Check-in was efficient and friendly. Our Hyatt membership was recognized, although we had no meaningful Hyatt status at the time. We also presented our American Express Platinum Card for the Fine Hotels + Resorts booking.
There was a small payment wrinkle. At check-in, after a discussion with the front desk, I understood that the Platinum Card was simply being placed on the account and that we could substitute another card at checkout. That was a surprise, and a potential stacking opportunity, if true. At checkout, we were told that payment needed to remain on an eligible American Express card for the FHR benefits to apply. It wasn’t a problem, but it was useful clarification after the conflicting conversation we’d had on arrival.
The better news was our room assignment. We had booked a standard King Room and were upgraded to a King Sea View Room with Private Pool. Our luggage went onto a golf buggy and we headed uphill to the room.
Accommodation is spread along the hillside above paths lined with volcanic stone.
Our Room and Private Pool
Inside, this was easily the most conventional room of our three Santorini stays. It was a good-sized hotel room rather than a suite, with the bed, sofa and desk sharing the main space. The bedspread had been arranged in an oddly rumpled way, more like a casually placed throw. We found it a little quirky and couldn’t quite see the appeal. The bathroom could be closed off completely from the bedroom, with the vanity, shower and toilet all behind doors. There was no bathtub.
Our upgraded sea-view room was more conventional in layout than our rooms at Vedema and Katikies Garden.
The main room also included a sofa, desk and television, with the private terrace beyond.
The vanity inside the separate bathroom area.
The bathroom had a walk-in shower but no bathtub.
The room was comfortable and well designed, but almost all of the reason to want this particular category was outside. A bottle of prosecco, truffles and a welcome note were waiting on the table.
Prosecco, truffles and a welcome note were waiting in the room.
Beyond the sliding doors was our private terrace and pool, with two loungers beside the water and a wide view across the eastern side of Santorini towards the Aegean.
The private pool and terrace were the real attraction of the upgraded room.
The view from our pool ran across the eastern side of Santorini towards the Aegean.
That became our base for the next two days. The terrace was surprisingly private given how open the view was. Timber screens separated us from the neighboring rooms, while the terrace sat above the paths running through the resort. For most of our stay, we had nobody next door and left the doors open throughout the day.
There is a limitation worth knowing about. When neighbors did check in late in our stay, we could hear their conversation from the adjoining terrace. The timber divider also ends before the far edge of the pools, so if guests in neighboring rooms are standing at that end of the water, they can see into the next pool.
White accommodation blocks sit above the resort’s volcanic-stone walls and planting.
Neither issue bothered us. For almost all of our stay, the terrace worked as a genuinely private outdoor space. It was where we returned after lunch, where we spent our final afternoon and where room-service drinks appeared within about five minutes when we ordered them beside the pool.
The Main Pool, Restaurant and Terrace
Away from our room, most of our time at Magma was spent around the main terrace.
The restaurant, bar and pool effectively share one large terrace.
The restaurant, bar and infinity pool sit together overlooking the eastern side of the island. The same restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. The loungers run alongside the pool, the bar is only a few steps away, and the firepit sits just beyond.
You don’t spend much time moving between different parts of the resort. At breakfast you’re already looking across the pool. At lunch you’re still beside it. Move a short distance and you’re on a lounger or at the bar.
The main pool loungers sit alongside the same terrace.
That simple geography turned out to be one of the biggest differences between Magma and the other hotels on this trip. At Vedema, our villa drew us back to our own private space. At Katikies Garden, Fira competed with the hotel for our limited time. At Magma, much of the day could happen on one terrace.
The view is also very different from the western side of Santorini. From the pool and restaurant, the land falls gradually away through vineyards and scattered buildings before reaching the Aegean. There is no cliff directly beneath you and no white town stacked down the hillside. The scale comes from looking across the island and out to sea.
The infinity pool occupies much of the edge of that terrace. Hyatt describes it as the largest infinity pool on Santorini. I didn’t attempt to verify that claim against every other hotel pool on the island, but it is substantial, with a long row of loungers and plenty of space around the water during our stay.
The rest of the property is much more restrained. Black volcanic-stone walls line many of the paths, with white accommodation blocks above them. The planting is mostly grasses, cacti and other low vegetation. In places, especially along the paths to our room, the resort looked almost bare against the dry Santorini hillside.
The architecture stays deliberately simple away from the main terrace.
That appearance changed considerably after dark. The paths and stairs were lit from below, the main pool was illuminated and the white accommodation blocks stood out against the black sky.
Paths through the resort after dark.
The main pool after we returned from Oia late that evening.
We saw the firepit area as we passed through but never spent an evening there, so I can’t say how much it is actually used by guests.
The firepit and seating area beyond the main pool.
The $150 FHR Lunch
The $150 food-and-beverage credit had been one of Magma’s advantages when we compared the three hotels before the trip. In practice, it suited the way we used the hotel almost perfectly. Soon after arriving, we unpacked and went back to the restaurant for a late lunch overlooking the pool. We didn’t try to stretch the credit across multiple meals. We ordered freely and used essentially the whole amount that afternoon.
The menu covered a lot of ground. Alongside Greek dishes were bao buns, tacos, seafood, burgers and other familiar resort food. We ordered several dishes between us, including bao, tacos and squid, followed by a larger gyros-style platter, with Mythos alongside.
Our first lunch used essentially the entire $150 Fine Hotels + Resorts food-and-beverage credit.
Mythos with lunch.
Everything was good. Nothing we ate during the stay would make me choose Magma specifically for its restaurant, but that isn’t how the meals worked for us. The attraction was being able to sit outside beside the pool, order whatever we wanted and then continue the afternoon without going anywhere.
The following day I ordered the chicken burger. It was tasty and straightforward, which was about what I expected. More important was how easily meals merged into the rest of the stay. Lunch could turn into time beside the pool, and on our final afternoon we went back to the room and ordered a cocktail to our private pool. Magma didn’t need the restaurant itself to become an event.
Leaving Magma
The obvious disadvantage of Magma’s location is that you cannot walk out into Fira or Oia. The hotel partly addresses that with a complimentary shuttle running several times a day to Fira and the beach. Airport transfers and other journeys are separate.
We used the 10 a.m. shuttle to Fira on our final morning and booked the 12:30 p.m. return. We happened to be the only passengers in both directions. That trip had a practical purpose. We needed to retrieve a charging cable we’d left at Katikies Garden, and we also had another couple of hours to spend in Fira before leaving Santorini.
Our previous evening was less planned. At about 8:45 p.m., after spending much of the day at Magma, we decided to go to Oia. An Uber cost about €40 and roughly half an hour later we were walking through the town after sunset. That became a much longer night than expected. We ended up near the bottom of Oia at the Andronis properties, watching the World Cup Final on a bartender’s iPhone when our own phones wouldn’t connect properly to the Wi-Fi. We didn’t return to Magma until after 1 a.m. By then the main pool was empty and the paths through the resort were quiet. The illuminated pool, stone walls and white buildings looked very different from the property we’d left earlier that evening.
The next day repeated the same basic pattern on a smaller scale. We went into Fira in the morning and were back at Magma by early afternoon. We ate again, returned to the room, ordered drinks and spent our final hours beside our own pool.
Breakfast
Breakfast runs from 7:30 a.m. until 11 a.m. This was another clear difference from Vedema and Katikies Garden. Both of those hotels served breakfast entirely à la carte. Magma has a large resort buffet, supplemented by cooked dishes from the kitchen.
Breakfast was a substantial resort buffet, with cooked dishes also available from the kitchen.
The buffet included breads and pastries, fruit, cheeses, hot dishes and desserts. Rosé sparkling wine was also available as part of the hotel’s champagne breakfast. We didn’t give ourselves much time to explore it. Our Fira shuttle was leaving at 10 a.m., and we arrived with only about fifteen minutes to spare. We still managed an omelette, fruit, orange juice and a glass of bubbles each. We also ordered iced coffees and had them transferred into takeaway cups before leaving for the shuttle.
Our rather hurried breakfast before the 10 a.m. shuttle to Fira.
It was a much more conventional resort breakfast than the ones we’d had at our first two hotels, which suited Magma. Breakfast occupies the same terrace that becomes the center of the hotel for the rest of the day.
Fine Hotels + Resorts
Our FHR benefits worked particularly well here. The most valuable was the upgrade from the standard King Room we had booked to the sea-view room with private pool. Without that upgrade, our experience of Magma would have been materially different.
The $150 food-and-beverage credit was also unusually easy to use. We spent essentially all of it on our arrival-day lunch after arriving, at a point when we had no reason to leave the resort in search of somewhere else to eat.
Breakfast was included, and the guaranteed 4 p.m. checkout gave us the room for the whole of our final morning and into the afternoon. Our airport transfer was at 2 p.m., so we didn’t need the final two hours, but there was no checkout deadline interfering with the Fira trip or our last few hours beside the pool.
For this particular stay, FHR did more than add a collection of nominal benefits. The upgrade, dining credit, breakfast and late checkout all supported the way we actually used the resort.
Final Thoughts
Before this trip, we had deliberately booked three very different Santorini hotels. Vedema gave us the most private stay. Katikies Garden put Fira at the center of the experience. Magma was supposed to give us an easier final two days. That is essentially what happened, although not because we stayed inside the resort.
We still went to Oia. We went back to Fira. We spent hours away from the property and got back from Oia after one in the morning. Magma worked because none of those decisions made the hotel’s location seem like a mistake. When we were there, almost everything we wanted was concentrated around two places: our private pool and the main pool terrace.
For us, Magma worked because the resort was easy to use without making it difficult to leave.
If the point of a Santorini hotel is to open your curtains onto the caldera every morning, Magma isn’t the obvious choice. Vedema and Katikies Garden also offer far more connection to the history and streets around them. Magma’s appeal is simpler. Of the three hotels, it was the easiest one to use. And after several days of moving around Santorini, that was exactly what we had booked it for.