Lindos Royal Resort

"I have just returned from a week-long stay at the Lindos Royal, and I can honestly say I have never been so disappointed by a holiday. The trip was with Jet2 and cost our family over £3,000, and in hindsight I would genuinely not even have paid £500 for the experience we received. I left feeling exhausted, frustrated, upset, and completely let down. What should have been a relaxing family holiday became something we simply endured until it was time to come home. The Positives: To be fair, there are a couple positives worth mentioning but sadly that’s all. 1. Stunning Location: The hotel is set in a beautiful location with fantastic views of both the sea and the surrounding Lindos mountains. Wherever you look, the scenery is impressive and undoubtedly one of the hotel's strongest assets. The beach is easily accessible from the hotel however is a pebble beach not sand and is extremely painful on the feet, so generally not usable or enjoyable without foot ware or rock shoes. 2. Excellent Food: The food was genuinely superb throughout our stay. There was a good variety available every day, although the buffet area is far too small for a hotel of this size and can become chaotic during busy periods. A special mention must go to the two Italian chefs working at the pizza and pasta station. Their food was exceptional and easily the best dining experience we had during the entire holiday. Most of the restaurant, bar, and housekeeping staff were also friendly, hardworking, and helpful. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the reception staff and management team, who often appeared completely indifferent to guests' concerns. The frontline staff seem to be the people keeping this place running. Arrival – A Disaster From the Start: We arrived shortly after 2am following flight delays. We were travelling as a family of three with our five-year-old son and were already exhausted from the journey. The night receptionist who checked us in appeared completely uninterested. There was no welcome, no smile, and no useful information provided. We were simply handed a key card for Room 1422 and sent on our way. There was no information about breakfast times, Wi-Fi access, hotel facilities, or anything else guests would normally expect at check-in. A porter assisted us with our luggage and escorted us to the room. As we walked down the corridor, I noticed water flowing out from underneath one of the room doors and spreading across the hallway floor. To our disbelief, that room turned out to be ours. Flooded Room on Arrival: When we opened the door, we were greeted by a bathroom full of stagnant water. The smell was overwhelming—a combination of damp, stale water and sewage-like odours. The porter attempted to help by bringing a stack of towels and mopping up the water, but the leak was clearly ongoing and the towels became saturated almost immediately. To enter the room, we literally had to walk through dirty water of unknown origin. Given the smell and appearance, it seemed highly likely that it was wastewater coming from the bathroom plumbing. I immediately returned to reception and refused to allow my family to stay in the room. While I was there, another guest was already complaining about mould, unpleasant smells, and the fact that his room had not even been set up properly for his family. When I explained our situation, the receptionist showed absolutely no concern. His response was simply that there was nothing he could do because all alternative rooms were occupied and we would need to return the following day. I explained that I was not willing to have my wife and young son sleep in a flooded room. He called the manager, who instructed him to tell us to make an appointment to see her after 1:30pm the following day. There was no apology, no urgency, and no attempt to find a solution. When I returned to the room, my wife and son were both extremely upset and wanted to go home. As a husband and father, I felt completely let down. We were thousands of miles from home and had no realistic option other than to spend the night there. A Miserable First Night: The room smelled terrible. The floor remained wet and slippery, and the source of the water was never explained. As we tried to settle in, we noticed that the bedding felt damp and smelled strongly of chemicals. There were visible signs of damp and mould on parts of the walls, and several mosquitoes were already flying around the room. The entire night was spent swatting mosquitoes, trying to keep our son protected, and struggling to cope with the smell. We never unpacked our suitcases and slept in the clothes we had travelled in. None of us got any meaningful sleep. For what was advertised as a five-star hotel, it felt more like survival than the start of a family holiday. Moving Rooms – But Not Solving the Problem: The following morning, we returned to reception as soon as it opened. After both my wife and I made our frustrations clear, what I believe was the assistant manager finally came to speak with us. She apologised and promised to move us to another room later that day. We were instructed to bring all of our luggage down to reception ourselves, store it there, and return later to inspect another room once guests had checked out. By this stage we were exhausted and simply agreed. We were eventually shown Room 1612, located on the sixth floor above our original room. At first glance it appeared much better. It looked clean, smelled fresh, and seemed acceptable, so we agreed to move. We were told to return a few hours later once the room was ready. Feeling relieved that we could finally unpack and begin our holiday, we returned to the room. Unfortunately, things only got worse. No Air Conditioning and Another Leak: The room felt like a sauna. We switched on the air conditioning only to discover it didn't work. When we contacted reception, we were informed that the owners do not activate the air conditioning until 1st June. This was despite temperatures in the room regularly feeling well above 30 degrees. Trying to make the best of the situation, we unpacked and spent the day by the pool. When we returned later that evening, we were greeted by a familiar smell of drains and stagnant water. To our disbelief, the bathroom was once again flooding. A large puddle had formed around the toilet and sink, appearing to come from within the wall cavity. We reported the issue immediately to both reception and our holiday representative. We were repeatedly told that maintenance had inspected the room and could not find a leak. Yet we had photographs clearly showing water pooling on the bathroom floor. The leak continued throughout the entire week. No alternative room was offered, and no meaningful solution was provided. Unbearable Heat and Mosquitoes: With no working air conditioning, the room became unbearably hot, especially at night. When we asked reception whether a fan could be provided, particularly for our five-year-old son, we were simply told they did not have any available. Our only option was to leave both the patio door and corridor door open in an attempt to create airflow. Unfortunately, the mosquito net was also damaged tears in the mesh and holes, meaning mosquitoes easily entered the room constantly. By the end of the holiday I had received well over twenty mosquito bites, most of them during the night while trying to sleep. Noise and Lack of Soundproofing: The hotel also suffers from virtually no sound insulation between rooms and balconies. Throughout the week we were disturbed by constant shouting, arguments, crying babies, and noise from neighbouring rooms. On more than one occasion, the arguments next door became so heated that my wife contacted reception because she was concerned for the welfare of the children involved. Peaceful nights were virtually impossible. Facilities and General Condition: The swimming pools themselves were perfectly acceptable. The water was clean, and the slides provided entertainment for children, unlike the children's entertainment, kids' clubs, and mini disco, which were virtually non-existent. They consisted of a few young women with a Bluetooth speaker leading some popular children's songs and dances for about eight minutes, and then it was over and done with. My son was then bored, with little to do other than swim and use the slides. Finding fresh drinking water was a challenge. The bars were fine if you wanted to drink alcohol all day long; however, I prefer to stay well hydrated and drink plenty of water throughout the day in those temperatures, not just soft drinks or alcohol. The bars did not provide filtered water or have plumbed-in filtration systems, as I have seen in most modern hotels these days. If you did get a glass of water, it tasted like seawater — very salty and quite bizarre. The pool areas had a few old-fashioned water dispensers dotted around, but they were consistently empty and rarely refilled unless you asked. As a result, you often ended up going to the shop and buying packs of bottled water. This is poor for a so-called five-star hotel. At the very least, the dispensers should be monitored and kept available for guests to use at all times. Embarrassing. The sun beds are aluminium with some razor sharp edges in places due to a lot of the safety caps being missing, on day one of the holiday my 5 year old slices his knee open climbing onto a sun lounger, this just should not be happening, later that week I also caught my hand on the hinge of one and received a nasty slice to the hand, I’m pretty sure this is a daily occurrence for other guests too. Overall the wider resort is very tired, poorly maintained, and nowhere near the five-star standard advertised. In reality, I would struggle to rate it above two stars. The buildings appear neglected, with numerous areas showing obvious signs of deterioration and lack of maintenance even the render of the buildings is cracking and starting to fall off. Throughout the resort there were potential hazards, including exposed wiring, damaged fixtures, and sharp metal grates. The hotel's so-called private beach area was particularly disappointing. It was closed off, neglected, and featured a dangerously rusted metal grate with exposed spikes protruding from it. For something advertised as a major feature of the hotel, it was frankly shocking. Final Thoughts: It is such a shame because this hotel clearly has potential. The location is beautiful, the views are stunning, and some of the staff work incredibly hard. However, none of that can compensate for flooded rooms, damp and mould issues, lack of air conditioning, poor maintenance, safety concerns, and a management team that appeared completely indifferent to guest welfare. Our holiday was genuinely one of the most disappointing travel experiences we have ever had. By the end of the week, we were counting down the hours until our transfer arrived. Returning home felt like a relief. I have attached photographs to support the issues described in this review, as unfortunately the reality of our experience is almost difficult to believe. Based on our experience, I would not return to the Lindos Royal and would strongly advise others to research carefully before booking."

"I read a lot of reviews before choosing to stay here, and based on the enthusiasm of my travel agent I decided to assume that the bad reviews were just picky. How bad can it really be given it's rated 4/5 star? The answer is very bad, I should have listened to the reviews. TripAdvisor, to its credit, rates this hotel 3 out of 5 which is probably bang on. The hotel, to its own credit, ignores this entirely and continues to describe itself as luxury five-star accommodation. I stayed for 9 nights in May for our first wedding anniversary and first family holiday in a couple years having previously preferred Canary Islands. I'll start with the positives: the view from the à la carte terrace is genuinely beautiful, as are the views from around the hotel generally. The bar staff and several waiting staff are lovely. On several evenings they put baklava out at the buffet, which were delicious, especially given the general lack of quality Greek food most the time. Strangely also the Asian a la carte was exceptionally nice. NO AIR CONDITIONING We arrived to be informed, with the breezy confidence of someone announcing a minor schedule change, that the air conditioning wasn't on because they don't turn it on until June. It was 23-25 degrees in the room at midnight even with the balcony door left open. They'd also run out of fans, I heard countless guests complaining about the temperature. The temperature at breakfast in the buffet was 27C according to a thermostat I found on the wall. The hotel's position was that our travel agent should have warned us so not their problem. We should have been better prepared to stay here. We did get a fan on our third night I think it was, bafflingly at around half past midnight just hours after getting the fan, the front desk rang the room whilst we were asleep to ask if they could have it back! Why on earth they thought we wouldn't still need it is beyond me, and even more confused why they thought it ok to call my room and wake us all up. I complained in writing about this incident but never got an acknowledgement or apology. ROOM QUALITY The shower had no door, so the bathroom flooded every time we showered. The bath plug was broken; they had provided a rubber replacement that popped out the moment you ran the tap. The main door lock was broken, so they'd fitted a bolt to the inside — the kind you'd find on a garden shed, which is fairly on brand for the general maintenance standard of the hotel. Walls were marked and wall paper torn. Bedding was stained or had holes in, and towels were also stained or threadbare. The housekeeping team have no idea how to make a bed as the sheets were not put on right and kept coming off. As far as I can tell the sheets were not changed either once in our 9 night stay. One morning housekeeping forgot to replace a pillowcase entirely. The room also had no kettle, though given what the water tasted like, this may have been a mercy. FOOD The buffet advertised themed nights. I cannot tell you what the themes were. One evening appeared to be "beige." Another may have been "pasta, again." Greek food, at a Greek hotel in Greece, was present in theory and absent in practice. The olives were so aggressively salted that eating any could land you in a stroke ward at the hospital. The feta was cheap, the edam was strangely bouncy. The tzatziki tasted of very little, certainly not remotely Greek or authentic. The nights baklava appeared caused something of a frenzy, I heard one older lady declare those were the best nights of the holiday as it was something she actually liked. If you are vegetarian you need to like salad, and chips ideally. You are going to eat salad, mostly the same salad every single meal. There is no variety, and the vegetarian options they do offer occasionally are not nice at all. The fruit juice at breakfast came from a machine and was undrinkable, truly vile. It tasted like neat orange squash with salt added. The water at breakfast was also strangely salty. Whilst they serve bottled water at lunch and dinner, that apparently is impossible at breakfast for reasons I don't understand. I did see some people getting bottled water, but perhaps they were Italian who get special treatment at this hotel. A note on service in the main restaurant, there isn't any. When asked (if asked) what you would like to drink, order several drinks each. And don't forget bottle water to wash away the awful salt fake Pepsi/Fanta taste. The waiting staff if you do get their attention for a second drink, likely will never bring it, assuming you even get their attention at all. There are seemingly hundreds of staff running around in all different uniforms but I've no idea what they all do. Side note, I saw one member of staff walking around all day long the same circuit around the hotel with a clipboard, no idea what she was doing either, just looking busy I guess. Maybe she is quality control. WINE & COCKTAILS The wine was closer to vinegar than anything else, it is disgusting. The rose is almost drinkable but tastes like a £4 bottle from a discount supermarket. The cocktails — and I use the term loosely — were dispensed by machine, containing what I estimate to be a capful of alcohol combined with 2kg of sugar and a bottle of syrup. They are weak, no alcohol, and taste awful. If you want a drink with actual alcohol then ask for a mixer such as Vodka and "coke". I watched what I took to be a manager observing the pool bar one evening carefully, at which point the drinks got noticeably weaker. The bar staff were lovely though. PEPSI Everything is Pepsi, or quite possibly fake Pepsi as not even that tastes right for Pepsi. The orange Fanta and lemon Fanta are clearly not Fanta. All the soft drinks taste of soap and salt, and all served in toddler plastic cups. If you want actual Pepsi that tastes like Pepsi, assuming you have accepted your fate with regard to actual Coca Cola, then you can get it in the a la carte restaurants but you have to pay for it. A LA CARTE The à la carte restaurants are not really à la carte. You get shared starters you didn't choose and a selection of three mains. Fine. The Asian one was, against all odds, very nice. The Mediterranean restaurant was mediocre, as a vegetarian I had mushrooms for every course, literally the same dish - cold for starter, warm and bigger for main. The Greek restaurant was an embarrassment to the concept of Greek food and to the country of Greece more broadly. The gyros was dry and seasoned poorly, my wife left all of hers. I'm vegetarian. I asked the waiter if there was a vegetarian option. He looked at me like I had gone insane. He suggested, with apparent bafflement, that perhaps I'd like noodles. At a Greek restaurant. I asked, gently, whether there might be something actually Greek, halloumi perhaps. I know it isn't Greek but given that we were approximately 40 miles from Cyprus, a country that has built an entire identity around a grilled cheese, and it goes well in gyros this wasn't unreasonable. The suggestion did not land well. The waiter was in fact quite rude for the remainder of the evening. It's 2025. Vegetarians exist. We've existed for quite some time. You could serve halloumi. You could do a spanakopita. You could slice a tomato and drizzle olive oil on it and I'd have been grateful. Instead: noodles, and a waiter who made me feel that requesting food I could actually eat was an imposition on his evening. Drinks aren't included at the à la carte either. There's a passive-aggressive sign about "serious tax implications" if you bring your all-inclusive drinks in from outside. I looked into this. It is not a real thing. The wines are priced accordingly — €48 for Prosecco, if you're interested. I paid €18 for a rosé that tasted awful. CROSS CONTAMINATION On a rare identifiable themed night at the buffet there was an Asian theme where they served sushi. Whilst waiting for more vegetable Sushi I noticed that they used the same chopping board and knife (both green not blue) to cut both raw fish and crab as the vegetable. The vegetable Sushi were then placed in direct contact with crab sticks. I would note that preventing cross contamination is not a quality issue, it's the law throughout Greece and the European Union. If basic food hygiene falls apart at the sushi station in plain sight, I'd have real concerns about what's happening in the kitchen. If anyone in your party has a serious allergy, eat elsewhere. Every meal. MOSQUITOS AND BUGS The mosquitoes at the Lindos Royal are not an occasional nuisance, they are everywhere and monstrous. My wife and I were covered in bites from the moment we arrived and were actively swarmed every evening. The entertainment area in particular, the Calypso bar where they run the nightly shows, is apparently their preferred gathering spot. Which brings me neatly to the entertainment. On the topic of bugs, a huge beetle randomly appeared in the bathroom having crawled out from under the shower on the first night. Subsequently cockroaches appeared from time to time, I mentioned it to reception and they just congratulated me for getting rid of it... ENTERTAINMENT The children's mini disco play the same five or six songs every single night, with no real effort to engage with individual children. My daughter Aoife is six. Nobody from the entertainment team sought her out, learned her name, or made any attempt to include her in the way you'd hope. Meanwhile, a subset of children received sustained personal attention from the entertainers throughout the stay, for reasons I cannot work out. They sat with families at dinner, sought out by name, or one to one at the pool together. Whether there's some arrangement behind that, I genuinely don't know. Really unimpressed by the children's team, they seemed more interested in each other and chatting and having a laugh than entertaining children. Once the mini disco is over the regular entertainment is poor. But it is loud enough that going to bed early to escape it doesn't work either. You lie in your sweltering, un-air-conditioned room listening to the entertainment, while simultaneously being eaten alive by mosquitos that have followed you back from the Calypso bar. Incidentally, the Calypso bar sounds very nice in writing, but it is channeling underground car park vibes, its dark and dingy and smells damp. After a big rain storm I observed multiple members of staff frantically sweeping water (and hundreds of bugs and cockroaches) out of a cupboard all over the bar floor. Strangely, the hotel also has a stunning amphitheatre. Proper stage, good capacity, beautiful setting — the kind of venue that could host a genuinely memorable evening with proper shows. They do nothing with it. It is used exclusively by an Italian tour operator for their own private events, for their own specific guests. Why a Greek hotel on a Greek island has handed its best asset to an Italian tour company for the exclusive entertainment of Italian guests is a question I cannot fathom. I have been to hotels that are 4 and 5 star at the same price point that have acrobats and performers coming to do shows who would be incredible in a setting like that, instead the Italian guests get an amphitheatre whilst the rest of us get an X-Factor drop out, at an underground car park style bar, whilst being eaten by mosquitoes, without even the sweet release of a Pina Colada to make the evening more enjoyable because we've all got diabetes from the sugar. POOLS / LOUNGERS Unheated. In 29-degree sunshine the water was cold enough to take your breath away. The tiles around the pools were smooth, wet, and genuinely dangerous to walk on. The loungers all had exposed metal where the frame folded so I saw many people injure themselves, and when you weren't being injured they were very uncomfortable. The loungers just weren't the quality you'd expect for this star rated hotel and price point. The lifeguards were physically present near the pools. Whether they were watching them is a separate question. At least one emergency button was smashed and appeared non-functional. Pool towels required a cash deposit, could only be exchanged every other day, and the exchange had to happen at the spa. The woman at the spa seemed as tired and confused by this policy as I was. ANNIVERSARY As mentioned this was my wedding anniversary, I had attempted to arrange a package to mark our first wedding anniversary. The hotel offered it and I agreed. On arrival though nothing had been prepared, they had put some flowers on the bed but that was a thing they offered already not part of the package I agreed to pay for. They promised me a nice wedding anniversary, we love Greek food so we booked the a la carte for our wedding anniversary (and final night). They promised to make it special, to give the best table, flowers, candles, make it really nice. They even said whilst we were out they would make the room nice, and I tidied the room before going out to be sure it would be. I checked in with reception the day before, and the day of my anniversary to make sure they remembered, they assured me they had. We arrived at the restaurant to find "Anniversary" written beside our name in the booking sheet. The table was ordinary so far as I could tell, not reserved for us, not special in any way. The room, when we returned, was untouched. This was genuinely upsetting, the anniversary food at the Greek restaurant was terrible, the waiter was rude, and no one wishes us happy anniversary despite having it written in front of them. No one did anything at all to make it special, it was very upsetting for my wife and I. You can't demand freebies of course, but surely include an €18 bottle of Rose, a glass of Prosecco, even some flowers or a candle, literally anything to make a guest stay memorable. Nothing at all. This is not the experience of a 5 star hotel, or a 4 star hotel, or even a 3 star hotel. My daughter tried to tell the children's team it was our anniversary hoping they'd do something nice, they didn't acknowledge it. On a previous holiday she told the children's team of my birthday and I got dragged onto a stage and happy birthday sung, and a whole bag full of random hotel branded swag given to me. At this hotel it was barely eye contact, certainly no congratulations. SUMMARY The Lindos Royal is not a bad hotel by accident, it's a bad hotel by choice. Every cost that can be cut has been cut. Every machine that dispenses a smaller pour than a human would has been installed. Every opportunity to do something well has been weighed against the cost of doing it cheaply, and cheaply has won, every single time. There are easy cheap things they could do to elevate the experience of guests, but they won't. Like all reviews this review will get a reply thanking me for my feedback and promising me they will pass it on to improve things, but they won't. There are countless reviews saying the same things I have. Don't stay here, go literally anywhere else, if they had Travelodge in Rhodes I'd recommend there over this hotel. I rate my experience 2 stars, I rate the hotel 3 stars if I am being very generous."

"In the glossy brochure of modern travel, the term “Five-Star” is tossed around with the reckless abandon of confetti at a shotgun wedding. It implies a world of effortless luxury, where your worries are ironed out by a staff that anticipates your whims before you have even fully formed them. Sadly, the Lindos Royal in Rhodes is a five-star hotel only in the minds of its marketing department and whatever bureaucratic committee hands out plaques in Greece. Clearly, the product teams at easyJet Holidays and TUI, who brand it as a five-star resort, have probably never actually spent a night here; to award this property such a rating is an act of pure, optimistic fiction. A cursory glance at the collective outcries from May’s TripAdvisor dispatches confirms the reality: it is a perfectly respectable, hardworking 3.5-star establishment. To compare it to a true bastion of luxury, such as an Ikos resort, is like comparing a reliable family hatchback to a bespoke Aston Martin. They both have wheels, but only one makes you feel glad to be alive. Our descent into this velvet trap began at check-in. We had travelled to the Aegean for our daughter’s wedding, burdened with seventy kilograms of luggage, essentially an entire haberdashery of formalwear. We were escorted to our booked 'Deluxe Sea View' room, a space so comically hostile to storage that it offered a single wardrobe and two lonely drawers. It was entirely untenable; a space designed for two ascetics with a single loincloth between them, not a British couple attending a Mediterranean marriage. Yet, out of the architectural bleakness stepped the resort’s true saving grace: the Front Office Manager, Valasia. Where the room's infrastructure failed, she triumphed. Confronted with our logistical nightmare, she did not hesitate, haggle, or resort to the usual bureaucratic shoulder-shrugs. With a sharp, decisive efficiency that belongs in a much finer establishment, she immediately upgraded us to a human-sized room. It was early in the season, thankfully, but her flawless professionalism single-handedly saved our holiday from curdling into a disaster in hour one. Beyond the reception desk, where Ivan was most helpful and polite, dispensing the sort of smooth, unflappable charm usually reserved for handling erratic minor royalty, the hotel’s aesthetic foundations are genuinely satisfactory. The pools are good, not pristine. They provide a sprawling labyrinth of azure water kept clean and treated, but very cold. The buffet food, too, is a triumph of volume and decent flavour; you will certainly not starve, nor will you ever be surprised. It is plentiful and varied, a vast geography of sustenance. However, while the structural cleanliness of the dining room is nothing short of exceptional, the atmosphere refuses to rise above the clatter and echo of a municipal canteen. The staff do their absolute best, scuttling about with the frantic energy of un-nested ants, but they are fighting a losing battle against the architecture of mass catering. Furthermore, the resort stumbles on the most basic hurdles of presentation; they cannot, it seems, be tasked to wipe the water spots from the plates. Instead, they provide stacks of paper tissues at the side of the crockery mountain, inviting guests to manually polish the damp drips off their own plates before loading them up with moussaka. It is a marvellous touch of five-star DIY. A special shout-out and heartfelt thank-you must be extended to Stavros. He navigated the breakfast chaos with a perennially warm smile and an enviable, razor-sharp efficiency, even managing the minor miracle of remembering our absurdly complicated coffee order day after day. It is a testament to his character that he managed to inject a necessary dose of humanity into what otherwise felt like a military feeding operation. The dining room is also the only time during the day you are permitted to glimpse a drink served in an actual glass. To obtain a proper vessel anywhere else, you must subject your wallet to a premium surcharge in the lobby bar. For the British traveller, this triggers a very specific, tribal sort of psychological trauma. There is an unwritten, sacred contract embedded in the British soul regarding the "All-Inclusive" holiday: we pay a king’s ransom upfront precisely so we can leave our wallets locked in the room and live like medieval lords. To be told that our prepaid status only entitles us to plastic, and that glass requires actual cash, is an ideological mugging. It goes entirely against our national grain. We aren't being cheap; it's the principle of the thing. Why am I paying a premium to drink out of a glass when I already bought the entire hotel for ten days? Where the staff are heroic, the hotel’s corporate policy operates like a miserly accountant. True luxury includes; it does not ration. For example, the hotel’s climate control is governed not by the actual, sweltering Mediterranean heat, but by a rigid, bureaucratic calendar. The air conditioning remains legally dead until the first of June. By a marvellous stroke of calendar coincidence, that happens to be today, meaning the switch will finally have been flicked, but for those of us visiting in May, guests were trapped in a claustrophobic catch-22: sweat it out in a sealed room, or open the balcony doors and invite the local insect population inside. Foolish travellers, unaccustomed to the climate, sat with lights blazing and windows wide, leaving the mosquitoes to zone in like heat-seeking missiles on the rising plumes of human CO2 and perspiration, treating the unventilated rooms like an all-you-can-eat buffet. The result was a horrendous menagerie of lower-limb carnage; we witnessed some truly horrific, swelling bites on fellow guests. If you are reading this before travelling in May next year, it is vital that you pack your DEET, accept the heat, and do not subject yourself to this trauma. Better still, Lindos Royal, simply factor a few extra euros into the room rate and activate the climate control early so your paying guests can sleep with the glass shut. To add insult to injury, a scan of the small print reveals a charge of thirty-five Euros simply to use the room safe. It is the hospitality equivalent of being mugged by the person holding your coat. Then we come to the liquids, and they require no sommelier to diagnose their shortcomings. Here, we entered the realm of the "part-time all-inclusive." At lunchtime, the draught beer and wine possess the distinct, underwhelming character of being aggressively watered down. Two pints in, and you feel entirely unchanged, save for needing the bathroom, largely because the drinks arrive not from a bottle but via the depressing hiss of a pressurised soda pump. The cocktails, meanwhile, are a transparent joke, syrupy, neon concoctions engineered by automated vending machines. Occasionally, these are poured into a metal shaker by a remarkably friendly and helpful bartender who shakes it with tremendous, theatrical gusto in a desperate, valiant attempt to convince you that some actual human labour went into making your drink. Ultimately, it is a grand performance of illusion, and we found ourselves escaping the resort grounds in the evenings simply to discover what a proper, un-watered drink actually tasted like. Not saying they are, they just taste like it! There is a distinct lack of poolside service, forcing guests to fetch their own drinks in plastic cups like thirsty schoolchildren. Once back at your station, the battle for survival begins in earnest, courtesy of the hotel's ridiculously miniature parasols. Providing next to no sufficient shade, they force you into a weary, hourly game of high-stakes sun-bed chess, shifting your lounger around like a heavy plastic piece on an azure board, trying desperately not to breach a neighbour's square. Fortunately, it was quiet during our May visit, but one shudders to imagine the territorial warfare that must erupt here in the height of summer. The management urgently needs to scrap these pathetic canopies and invest in umbrellas of a civilised size. As it stands, a terrifying number of my fair-skinned compatriots simply abandon the shade altogether, choosing instead to lounge until they resemble a colony of aggressively boiled lobsters. Worse still is the utilisation of the resort's spaces. The lobby bar is arguably the most elegant, visually stunning architectural asset in the complex. Yet, because the hotel demands a premium cash surcharge for a proper glass, it sits completely deserted. It is an unpopular concept, so the finest room in the hotel sits entirely devoid of life, a monument to corporate greed. Ultimately, the Lindos Royal is a lesson in expectation management. If you come here expecting the seamless, friction-free paradise of a true luxury resort, you will find the micro-transactions and mechanical cocktails an insult to your intelligence. But if you accept it for what it truly is, a clean, sun-drenched, friendly 3.5-star resort with spectacular pools and exceptional staff like Valasia, Ivan, and Stavros, you will have a perfectly grand time. Just make sure you pack some mosquito spray, a heavy dose of patience, and for heaven’s sake, don’t arrive until June."