"This hotel is listed as 4 star and tourist-taxed at 4 star, but it's only 2 star in reality. At best...
Check in was nice. Reception is big, clean and tidy and looks good. We (family of 4) checked in after midnight and we were offered food before completing check-in. It was a nice start.
Then up to our room. The room hadn't been cleaned, the shower room was filthy, no shower curtain, old toothpaste in the sink, no towels, no toilet paper. Since we checked in after midnight, they had plenty of time to get the room done. I wouldn't be surprised if we were sleeping in sheets used by the previous guests.
Housekeeping remained very poor. Of 14 days here, we had our room attended to 6 or 8 times. The times it was done, the maid often left 4 hand towels for 4 adults, with no bath towels, no floor towel, and not enough toilet paper. We kept running out of it all. I gave up reporting to a totally indifferent reception, and I went around taking towels and sundries from maids' supplies. With no shower curtain, the shower was constantly overflowing , leaving a sodden, wet floor. And ants too! Everywhere! I reckon regular cleaning might have tackled that problem.
The room we had was split into 2, separated by the (filthy) shower room. Air con was only available in 1 of the 2 chambers, so not much privacy since we had to leave the internal doors open to allow the cool air to flow. The room was up either steep roads or numerous flights of steep stairs. The view from the very small balcony was very nice. Hersonissos port and Malia in the the distance along the coast, with mountain views to the rear. The minimal balcony furniture was thickly filthy.
The dining room and terrace can't seat the number of guests, so it could be difficult to get a table for 4. The buffet is cramped so constantly jostled when plating food. Breakfast was ok, not special. No sausages but hotdogs instead. No bacon but grilled reformed ham. Lunches were slightly varied, as were dinners. There doesn't seem to be a plan of how to plate a meal, just a few different dishes to try (e.g. hamburger patties but nothing to put them on and no cheese or sauces etc to serve them with). Food was usually lukewarm and bland. And often with little black flies crawling over it. There wasn't a great deal of local dishes. Clean plates, clean cutlery and food were often slow to be replenished. Glasses for drinks were always boiling hot, so at least they were clean, but made drinks quickly go warm.
Drinks were awful. The soft drinks all tasted weird, the "fruit juices" were from a weird concentrate or syrup. Beer was passable as was white wine, didn't try the red or rosé. I don't drink spirits so can't comment. Nothing else was available unless you paid for it, and all inclusive finishes strictly at 11pm meaning a hefty cost for the distinctly ordinary beer and wine from daytime service.
Service was usually rude and never with a smile or basic courtesy, anywhere in the hotel, but especially from the man whose serves in the pool bar during the day. He is actively unpleasant and aggressive, even with children. His employer should seriously assess his suitability for working around minors, I don't think he has the natural disposition to bring the warmth required for making holidaymakers feel welcomed. He doesn't appear at all happy in his work, preferring instead to sit at the bar smoking or cooling his backside by sitting on the freezer. Having to do his job seems incredibly burdensome and tedious to him. I wonder if he'd be happier as a prison warden?
There are exceptions. I'm not sure of her name, but I think it's Elfi who runs the spa. She was lovely. Eva in the dining room was chatty and helpful, somewhat matronly in a nice way. The other exception, and she is truly exceptional, is Anna, who serves in the pool bar in the evenings. She was always very smiley and very friendly. We chatted a lot and it was a genuine pleasure to get to know her a little.
The pools and water slides are ok. One pool is outside the dining room, the other is across the road/courtyard/roundabout. Both are Saline pools so could sting your eyes, but water is gently warm. They don't seem to be cleaned or filtered much, there is a fair bit of debris in the bottom of both pools. There's mud, dirt and a lot of litter around the pools, since drinks are served in flimsy plastic disposable cups, and there are a lot of smokers who can't find ashtrays. There doesn't seem to be a daily clean-up of the pool areas. Jet washing the flooring around both pools would certainly benefit their appearance. And cleanliness!
Sun loungers are in short supply, so get up early if you want some. There seems a steady stream of people to claim theirs from around 6am. The loungers themselves have definitely seen better days. Many are broken, many are threadbare. Given the state of the rest of the hotel, which seems to have had it's last makeover with 1980s leftovers, I wouldn't be surprised if some or many of the loungers are second-hand, since they are mismatched and so worn out.
There are some arcade style facilities at the pool bar. There's air hockey, a punchbag machine, a couple of claw grabbers, a side-by-side basketball game and a pool table. I played pool a bit but didn't use anything else. They are all in a state of disrepair. The pool table is pretty bad, filthy cloth, the table tilts such that the balls move unassisted and it frequently broke down. Claiming refunds at reception of the 2 euro charge was usually met with mistrust from staff, even once with the accusation that I was lying and trying to defraud them of 2 euros! Not even joking!
We 4 are not too bothered about hotel-provided entertainment but if it's important to you, this is a hotel to avoid (if it wasn't already). There is very little during the day, it isn't scheduled or advertised, and evening entertainment was sometimes plagued by power cuts, especially the karaoke. The stage and amphitheatre are pretty good, it's a pity it's not used to it's potential! The background music through the day is the same collection of around 8 songs, not originals but probably AI generated versions to avoid royalties. Music, like the food, gets very repetitive very quickly.
It's a shame because there are definitely the bones of a decent place. It would just need investment. And anyway, a lot of it is very quick fix. As I type this, I'm sat in the pool bar, and the roofing of some of it is cane. In one place, something heavy must have landed on top of the canes, breaking some and pushing them down. It would take maintenance staff under 5 minutes to push them back into shape. Locks on reception and poolside toilet doors are easy to replace, it's easy to clean the toilets too! It's pretty easy to fix the poolside showers so that they work! It would take an hour to jet wash around the pools. It would take under half an hour each day to send 2 staff out with litter pickers and bin bags and clear the rubbish. Take the hit and replace the stock of sunloungers. But it is evident that running a hotel on the cheap and cutting corners is how this hotel is operated.
So a 4 star hotel? You're kidding, right? Hotel Mediterraneo is a dump. It sits very firmly in the poor quality end of all-inclusive. I absolutely would not recommend it. With so much choice and far better standards for similar money all around the world, I certainly will never return here."
