"There's not a lot wrong with the hotel. Argassi though is another matter. The best part of the hotel is the ground floor, inside and out. It looks like it has been refurbished recently. And is clean and well maintained. The food from the bar was nice. Tuna Poke really nice.The rooms themselves are very dated. We had a 2 bedroom side sea view, very much worth upgrading to as the other rooms have internal views or over the access road. There is no sitting area in the rooms, to relax you only have the balcony or the bed. The side sea view rooms have the sun in the morning and shade in the afternoon. In high season, these balconies would be unusable. To be fair, they do not show or mention a sitting area in their blurb. The kitchen was very basic, no way could you self cater. There is a sandwich maker, so old and grubby we didn't use it. It needs a toaster at least. The fridge and air con were both very noisy. Our beds were comfortable and the combination of shutters and curtains kept the morning sun out. With the door closed, the normal external noise was well muted. However, there's a bar 50 yards from the end of the hotel which has live music 3 nights a week. This was loud to a stupid level and closing the doors did nothing to keep the noise out. We're not prudes, but 4am is excessive. On other nights, it was just loud. The road is very busy and noisy at times. Buses are none existant.
Argassi itself was not for us and I would suggest, not for children. The strip is about 3/4s of a mile long, with a short side road about half way along. There are 9 quadbike/car/scooter/ beach buggy hire places on it. If that's your thing, this is paradice for you. There doesn't seem to be any road rules, overtaking is mandatory, no matter how idiotic the manuver might be. DO NOT put any faith in anyone stopping at the designated crossing places, the drivers just ignore them. Pavements are trip hazzards and narrow. The walk into Zante Town is about an hour. But your chances of making it are at best 50/50. The whole island looks run down. The towns we went to / through, looked like old wild west towns. There is a nice bar if you go down a side street towards the beach, right on the waters edge. There are plenty of places to eat. But they all have the same unimaginative menu. And I do mean almost exactly the same menu. It's not particularly cheap either. Expect to pay 20e for a meal meal, 8e for a wine and 5e for a beer. I managed to get charged 10e for a Guiness.
The land train is a good way to visit other towns. We booked the Olive press museum and factory. After a very long (i.5 hours), boring, dusty trip round a lot of the island, we arrived. To be told they don't press olives until January. The museum was a row of about 12 old pressing machines. The turtle viewing boat trip was another joke. Again, a long journey on the bus. A dirty boat, and we were told when we got on "the turtles have laid their eggs and on on their way back to Africa, so you probably won't see any" The boat trip was sooo boring. A swimming stop, OK, a 1 hour visit to a scrub covered beach, with no shade and 2 dirty looking catering boats pulled onto the beach. We stayed on the boat. We will never go back to Zante."
