"We booked a room with a sea view. The check-in procedure was quick and the employees very efficient. The sea view was amazing! Someone had obviously returned to the room after it had been cleaned, had a nap on one of the beds, and had taken all the coffee capsules, the bar of soap and the tea bags with them. The complementary bottle of Raki was sticky at the back too. We did not alert the staff to this, because as an all-inclusive hotel, we knew that at some point the items would be restocked, which they were, and we did not drink the Raki anyway. The staff work incredibly hard at keeping the hotel clean and the rooms well-stocked, and it is a shame that (leaving) guests jeopardize their efforts. The room was small and the decor very dated, but adequate, as you do not need to spend much time in it. Unfortunately, the sound-proofing was terrible, so between 20:30 - 22:30 (or sometimes later) the music (especially the bass) from the entertainment at the pool below was deafening in the room: we could not hear each other speak and could not hear the audio of the movie we were trying to watch to pass the time until it was quiet again. This would not have been a huge problem, if we had been able to sleep longer in the morning. But at between 7:30 - 8:30 am some sort of generator was turned on, and the walls were reverberating again, so you could not continue sleeping. After two short nights, we decided to ask for a room change. Reception said that the entertainment at the pool wasn't going to be so noisy that night, and the hotel was rather full, so would we mind trying a third night in that room? So we did. It was just as noisy, so guest relations kindly arranged a new (larger) room for us in a very quiet part of the hotel, which was perfect. They also apoloized for the inconvenience with a plate of fruit, desserts and wine, which was very sweet of them. As our daughter went down with gastroenteritis and we were stuck in the room for a couple of days, it was such a relief to be in a larger and very quiet room.
The facilities (pool, bars, beach access & sunbeds) were very good. There is a nice children's playground out the back that is quite large with some fun water features, a tennis court, two padel courts, a gym with a free training area outside it and a boxing bag, and a bouldering wall. There is a new centre for "wellness", i.e. massages, pedicures, etc. The massages were pretty good (we tried hot stone and aromatherapy) and the team helpful and friendly. Our pedicures were comprised of a foot soak, foot sanding with a file, cutting toe nails, pushing back and trimming cutibles. I opted for shellack on top, which was done very nicely; I liked their colour selection too. The rooms in which the pedicures take place are awful though: very dated and in desperate need of rennovation, not much natural light and the sliding door to the entrance was broken. By contrast, the rooms in the "Welling" center are new and look good, with plenty of natural light. The centre is a great addtion to the hotel.
The weakest point of the hotel in our opinion is definitely the food. It was kept just about warm, but not hot, and was mostly cold by the time you reached the table. Although we were always able to find something to eat (e.g. spinach pie, cheese pie, pork roast, stews), a lot of it was far from delicious and only just ok. We appreciate that it is difficult to cater for such a large range of tastes, and that it is better to have to add salt because you can't take it out of the food afterwards. But a lot of the food was just generally not that tasty. Sometimes it was the combination of foods, sometimes the spices didn't quite work with a particular dish. Their strong points were definitely the desserts, and the freshly pressed orange juice they served at breakfast, both of which we very much enjoyed. The best example of a lack of flavour was the Tex-Mex Brunch we tried on our last day: the avocado on toast tasted of absoultely nothing, probably because they used unripe avocados. By contrast, the guacamole they had served on a couple of days at the general food buffet was pretty good. We wondered why they didn't just take the same recipie for the brunch. The fact that the food at the general buffet was kept only warm and not hot may or may not have contributed to a large number of guests going down with gastroenteritis. Having read reviews and comments on various platforms about this in Rhodes in general, however, it seemed to be a general annual problem on the island and not limited to the all-inclusive hotels. Also, the staff ate the food too and did not seem to be sick. Although our daughter caught it, we were fine, and we had the same food she did. So difficult to say where it might have come from and inevitably an issue, where you have a large number of people sharing spaces.
We would like to commend the staff for doing a fantastic job, even though it had obviously been a very long season for them and they must have been exhausted. Despite working very hard, they still mostly managed to make you feel welcome and were polite and helpful, or at least efficient. The majority were incredibly friendly and made our stay very pleasant. Thank you!"
