"We were disappointed with our stay here but it's actually a lovely hotel and the bad things are very fixable, so I write this review genuinely to be helpful and hope it is read by someone in charge at the hotel.
The grounds are lovely and we had no issue with cleanliness. Also, something that is very important to us - no sunbed wars! We never struggled to get 4 sunbeds at 11am. We were in a signature room with a minibar but it is only restocked once a week though I did have to remind them. We've never stayed in a 5* hotel with minibar refills so rare. The things in it weren't even great, so I'm not sure why they are so reluctant to refill.
Reusable water bottles are provided in your room to keep, to cut down on plastic consumption. They were fine in theory, but we used them only once. You couldn't name them as they were made from stainless steel. As we had no washing up facilities, they were no good for us - I love my kids but I'm not sharing a dirty bottle with them on holiday 🤢 a way to name them would be both appreciated and practical
We really liked the food, although our room type meant that we only ate in the main buffet restaurant when we absolutely had to - the hotel was bigger than what we are used to so we found this restaurant busy and a bit hectic. There were a small number of staff here who were actually rude rather than just unhelpful. They made my 5yo daughter cry one lunchtime as they shouted at her for apparently being wet. She had been out of the pool to dry off for 25 mins before we went for lunch, and the ends of her very thick hair were mildly damp. The way she was spoken to was not acceptable - she's a polite and quiet little girl. If you are providing food to people who have been in a pool all day, you should expect them to be mildly damp - I do stress that she not wet. In any case, approach the parent if you have an issue, don't shout at a small child, especially when they've done nothing wrong.
We used the restaurant overlooking the beach every breakfast and most lunchtimes and it was so much better. Everyone can use it at lunchtime, but it's well worth upgrading your room for the breakfast. Though it would be nice, as in other 5 star hotels, if you could bring over some water and glasses for those who do not drink tea or coffee, rather than us have to get it ourselves. I understand in the main restaurant hot drinks are self serve, which would have disappointed me even more! We were happy with the drinks but our kids really missed kids mocktails that they've had on other holidays - the normal mocktails were probably not to most kids taste. Al la cartes were great but could do with better kids menus. Very repetitive and "beige", annoyingly we didn't realise until our third visit that our children could have ordered from the adults menu...
The beach wasn't the best, but we expected this. Lots of red flags but not the hotels fault. Worth mentioning though if you are beach lovers.
Our main issue was the service. Most (not all) of the staff just didn't seem to like their job. We've always found Greece so friendly, but here was so so different. We felt like an inconvenience. I would be curious to know if there had been a staff meeting on Sunday 10th Aug where they were told bad news - service this night was ridiculously bad in both the Greek restaurant and main evening bar. Even the kids commented that there was only one nice man who even talked to them (Stratos around the small pool - he was amazing and much more like what we are used to! Honestly, give him a promotion so he can teach the other staff some customer service)
The evening entertainment was quiet but fine for us - it was actually nice to not have to rush our evening meals to get to the last 10 mins of a kids disco like usual - but the set up was odd. No where near enough tables outside the main bar. Plenty of staff standing and walking around not doing much but still hard to get a drink without calling out loudly to them. Staff on the bar didn't like it if you went to the bar to place an order because you got bored trying to get someone's attention, only to be ignored. We did wonder if it was just us, but noticed most people around us were not being served easily too.
It's the only hotel I've been to where there doesn't seem to be anyone in charge, organising everyone and over looking to make sure it is being run the way it should.
This is personal preference, but there are lots of paper cups rather than nicer plastic ones in the day.... I do not want a nice drink out of a paper cup. And at the pool restaurant at lunch, it's just cardboard containers and wooden forks - plus the most uncomfortable chairs in the world - I had a lovely salad one day but gave up eating it when I couldn't find a knife anywhere... We used the restaurant overlooking the beach to avoid this.
Our kids used the kid club twice and we were very impressed with it - it was much better than I was expecting and I felt very comfortable leaving them there for a couple of hours. Staff here were friendly.
It's a nice hotel but for what we paid, we were hugely underwhelmed - this was because of the staff (and paper cups, if I'm honest!), so quite an easy fix in theory."