Dana Villas & Infinity Suites in Santorini – the honeymoon suite, the caldera, and why Firostefani beats Fira

You know that photo. The one that made you put Santorini on your bucket list in the first place — white-washed cave hotel, infinity pool hanging off the edge of the caldera, the volcano sitting in the water below, warm light doing what Aegean light does at 7 PM. You’ve seen it a thousand times on Instagram and quietly wondered if it actually looks like that in real life. At Dana Villas & Infinity Suites in Firostefani, yes. It actually looks like that. Sometimes real life and the algorithm land on the same thing.

This stay is the Honeymoon Suite in July 2024 — 1,728.90 EUR (~$1,908 USD) for the night — at one of the original boutique cliff hotels on Santorini, open since 1986 and quietly hosting something like 3,000 weddings over the past two decades. The vlog covers the full room tour, spa and infinity pool area, the hotel restaurant for dinner and breakfast, and walks through both Fira and Firostefani by day and night. Let me break down what actually matters before you start checking availability.

Why Firostefani — and why it’s the right call

Before getting to the hotel itself, let’s talk about location because it’s genuinely the first decision anyone planning a Santorini trip needs to make, and the vlog’s walk through both Fira and Firostefani illustrates the difference well.

The usual debate is Oia versus Fira. Oia gets the sunset photos — the village profile behind the sinking sun, the blue domes, the castle viewpoint that fills up hours before sunset in peak season. It’s genuinely the most photogenic village on the island. It’s also extremely crowded in July and August, the sunset viewpoint becomes a contact sport, and prices are significantly higher than everywhere else on the caldera.

Firostefani is Santorini’s worst-kept secret. It sits immediately north of Fira, connected by a short 10-15 minute walk along the caldera rim. The same caldera views. The same volcano sitting in the same water. Sunsets that are about 95% as good as Oia and experienced without anyone standing on your feet. Cruise ship buses sail straight past without stopping. Fira’s restaurants, bars, nightlife, shops, and bus terminal are walkable. Oia is reachable by bus from the stop five minutes from the hotel. It’s the “goldilocks zone” of Santorini accommodation — experienced Santorini visitors consistently recommend it in exactly these terms.

Dana Villas & Infinity Suites sits on the caldera rim in Firostefani, about halfway down the cliff face. Opened in 1986, it’s a 28-room boutique property divided between the original Dana Villas section (lower level, panoramic caldera views, private terraces, double showers) and the newer Infinity Suites section above (heated infinity pools, cave-style or river-style, caldera views). The two sections function as one hotel. The location is as good as caldera-rim Santorini gets without being in Oia.

The Honeymoon Suite — what it actually is

The Honeymoon Suite at Dana Villas is the room the hotel has built its romantic reputation around, and the vlog spends proper time on the room tour. Here’s the configuration: a king bedroom, a separate living area, cave-style architecture in the Santorini tradition (whitewashed curves, arched ceilings, thick walls keeping the temperature manageable even in July), and the thing you came for — a private plunge pool with an infinity edge over the caldera.

The pool is small as plunge pools go but it doesn’t need to be large. You’re floating in it looking at the volcano and the Aegean with no one else around. There’s also an indoor cave plunge pool/jacuzzi for the fully enclosed option. The terrace has sun loungers, an outdoor dining area, and the kind of view that makes you briefly incapable of completing sentences. Marble surfaces throughout. Room service available. The maid service runs twice daily which at this price point is appropriate and keeps everything consistently clean.

A few honest things reviewers note: some suite positions have partial sight lines to neighboring terraces, which affects the privacy you might be imagining. Room 103 specifically gets mentioned in this context — worth checking which specific unit you’re assigned and asking about privacy when booking. The pool lighting at night means the room doesn’t go fully dark, which is worth knowing if you’re a light sleeper. And there have been reports of intermittent power outages in the area — common across Santorini in summer from the grid load, not specific to this property. Blackout curtains on the windows would be a genuine improvement.

The arrival includes rose petals and candles for honeymoon guests, which is the kind of detail that sounds cheesy and actually lands well when you’re standing at the villa entrance for the first time. Porter service handles your luggage at street level — because yes, there are a lot of stairs. Santorini is stairs. Anyone visiting and expecting otherwise needs to recalibrate their expectations before landing, not after.

The rest of the hotel — spa, infinity pool, restaurant, weddings

With 28 rooms, Dana Villas & Infinity Suites stays small enough that the shared areas never feel crowded. The main infinity pool overlooks the caldera — reviewed consistently as having a relaxed atmosphere with no daily lounger wars, even in the height of summer. That’s a direct consequence of the boutique scale, and it’s worth appreciating compared to larger caldera hotels where the pool becomes a competitive event.

The Soma Spa has two treatment rooms including a couples treatment option and outdoor treatment areas. Deep tissue massages, hot stone, aromatherapy, hydrotherapy, a spa tub, steam room, and Turkish bath/hammam. Several room bookings include a complimentary spa session — worth using and worth confirming at booking whether it’s included in your rate. The spa’s views are part of the experience; the caldera cliffs above the treatment rooms aren’t nothing.

The hotel’s restaurant serves breakfast and dinner with a Greek-Mediterranean menu that reviewers have praised specifically for using quality local produce well rather than defaulting to tourist-menu basics. There are floating pool tables for poolside dining — yes, actual tables that float in the pool section — which is either the most romantic dinner setup you’ve ever heard of or a mild anxiety attack depending on your relationship with tablecloths near water. The breakfast is consistently flagged as a highlight across reviews: generous, with lots of choice, served with the caldera in front of you. One reviewer wrote they would never taste a better hotel breakfast, which is high praise and specific enough to be meaningful.

The wedding setup deserves a mention: this tiny 28-room hotel has hosted roughly 3,000 weddings in 20 years. If you’re here in peak summer and there’s a wedding ceremony visible from the caldera terrace — which is likely — it’s part of the atmosphere rather than an intrusion.

Walking Fira and Firostefani

The vlog devotes significant time to both locations at different times of day, which is the right approach because each one transforms between day and night.

Fira by day is Santorini’s capital and its most practical hub. The main caldera promenade with the Orthodox Cathedral dome is beautiful when you’re not sharing it with the full complement of daily cruise ship arrivals. The strategy that experienced Santorini visitors use: get to the caldera-facing streets before 10 AM or after 4:30 PM, when the cruise crowds are either still boarding or already heading back to the port. The cable car from the old port up to Fira runs constantly and is worth the short queue for the views. The shopping streets inland from the caldera have genuine variety — jewelry, wine, art, ceramics — at better prices than Oia. Lucky’s Souvlaki in Fira is locally legendary and for good reason.

Fira at night is where the island’s nightlife concentrates and the vlog’s night walk section shows why. The caldera terrace restaurants go magical under the lights, the bars stay active well past midnight, and the absence of cruise ship visitors means the atmosphere shifts from tourist processing to something more genuinely festive. If nightlife matters to you, Fira — or Firostefani’s short walk from it — is the correct base on Santorini.

Firostefani village itself is what Fira wishes it could be when the ships aren’t in. Small, authentic, a handful of traditional tavernas and modern restaurants, the Church of St. Gerasimos, and the caldera-rim path that connects it to Fira on one side and continues toward Imerovigli and eventually Oia on the other. The vlog walks this properly and captures the quality of the light in the late afternoon that everyone visiting Firostefani mentions — there’s a reason photographers seek it out specifically.

The dinner and sunset sequence in the vlog lands at roughly the right time: pre-sunset cocktails somewhere with a caldera view, then dinner as the light shifts. The hotel’s restaurant terrace or any of the caldera-facing spots in Firostefani village work for this. The sunset itself from Firostefani is over the open sea rather than behind a village profile the way Oia frames it, but the color palette over the water and the volcano at dusk is the kind of thing that recalibrates your expectations for what the sky is capable of.

Getting to Santorini and the hotel specifically

Fly into Santorini Airport (JTR), which is about 7 km from Dana Villas. Taxi from the airport takes around 15-20 minutes. There’s also the ferry connection from Athens (Piraeus) to Athinios Port at roughly 9 km from the hotel — taxis and bus connections available. The hotel itself sits on a footpath above the caldera in Firostefani, just off the main driving road connecting Fira and Oia. Coming by taxi: the driver drops you at street level and the porter system takes care of luggage from there.

Best time to visit: Late April through early June and September through October are the sweet spots — weather is warm, the caldera views are clear, and the island hasn’t hit full peak-season density. July and August are hotter, more crowded, and prices peak, but the light is extraordinary and the energy of the island at full summer is its own experience. The vlog’s July 2024 stay captures both sides of that — beautiful conditions but full summer pricing. If you’re doing a honeymoon or anniversary where quiet and privacy matter as much as the view, September is probably the most genuinely romantic month on the island.

What it actually costs

The Honeymoon Suite ran 1,728.90 EUR (~$1,908 USD) for the vlog stay in July 2024. Santorini pricing is highly seasonal — July and August peak rates are significantly higher than shoulder season. The same room in May or October can run meaningfully lower. Booking through the hotel’s official website sometimes offers better terms than OTAs for the Infinity Suite categories. No major loyalty program currently applies to this property — it’s independent.

Other suite categories for context:

• Dana Villas base rooms: Caldera view, private terrace, double shower — starting from significantly lower than the Infinity Suite categories
• Infinity Pool Suites: Heated outdoor infinity pool, various cave and river-style configurations, the mid-tier for the property
• Honeymoon Pool Villa: Two private pools (indoor cave plunge + outdoor heated cave infinity), two king bedrooms when combined with the Infinity Pool Suite as the larger Infinity Pool Villa — the top option for groups up to six
• Master Pool Villa: The newest addition, with an infinity edge river cave pool and a closer angle on Skaros Rock

A note on practicalities: check-in is 3 PM, check-out is 11 AM. Outside those windows the hotel will store luggage and offer changing room facilities if you need to keep your bags for the day. Advance booking is essentially mandatory in peak season — this property is reliably sold out from June through August, and availability appearing last-minute is the exception rather than the rule.

Frequently asked questions

📹 Video by ST Travel