"We stayed at this hotel for 4 nights as part of your summer holidays. We chose this hotel due to its association with Marriott Bonvoy program and beach front location.
Even though it's an aging hotel, the staff goes above and beyond with a customer satisfaction first attitude. This experience made us leave the hotel with fond memories. However, the main shortfall of the hotel was the pebbly beach which makes it getting into the sea pretty hard. It is worth to note that is not a hotel issue but an Ixia beach issue. If you prefer pool though, the hotel offers a pretty good service.
Getting into some of the specifics:
Welcome: Due to a 3 hour delayed flight, we arrived the hotel at 2 am. Even though the reception was only staffed with the night receptionist, we had quite a full experience check in. The receptionist warmly welcomed us acknowledging our Marriott Bonvoy status, confirming a room upgrade is offered to Junior suite room, and offered our welcome gift of choice. When we entered the room, there was a nice fruit platter, a bottle of wine and some salmon wraps in the fridge which we greatly appreciated since we had to skip dinner during the flight.
Room: The junior suite room was very spacious including a huge balcony. While the room was super clean (and kept regularly clean with daily cleaning and turn down service), the bathroom fittings and the wardrobe was showing the age of the hotel. I think they are incrementally refreshing some elements of the room to keep it up to date since the shower space felt brand new at the same time. The room included everything that you could need. The bed was a bit on the firm side but still very comfy and plenty of pillow options were offered. The towels were showing their age and needs a complete refresh soon. The TV also didn't have streaming pairing function which is quite a standard thing for most Marriott hotels at the moment.
Hotel Grounds: The hotel is pretty big with 12 floors with two wings. It takes a bit of time to figure out where everything is. It offers 3 pools and direct beach access with a tunnel that goes under the road, making the access to the beach seamless. There are plenty of small shops onsite offering a market, a nail saloon, an ice-cream shop (which we loved) and plenty of pool side bars. Some areas are reserved for Marriott Bonvoy elite guests which also made our membership to the program more valuable. Beach towels were offered at various locations and it was a pleasant experience to have access to anything you might need. Our suggestions to the hotel would be to create more clearly marked adults only areas (e.g. 6th floor pool, one side of the beach) as it really makes a huge difference to have that as someone who doesn't have children and wants to avoid ball games in the pool.
Location: The hotel is located in a central location where you can leave the hotel and reach many restaurants, shops and bars with a short walk. If you want some walking adventure, it was also very pleasant to walk to old town by the shore (took about 1 hour for a 5.5km walk). Buses are also available in front of the hotel to go to old town. Having direct beach access with a hotel reserved area was also pleasant but you should mind that the beach is pebbly and it is a bit hard to get into the water. The sea is super clean and warm to swim in though.
Restaurants: Breakfast was included in our booking and we chose to eat at the hotel restaurants for 2 nights. Breakfast was excellent with a good range of options and fresh produce. We were consistently greeted by Dimitri with great positivity and welcome; he carried our experience to the next level with his friendly attitude. A la carte Greek restaurant was reasonably priced compared to the prices in old town and the food was delicious. The evening buffet was alright for the price and offered a good range of items but some food options were not great (e.g. the chicken skewers were super dry, the halloumi wraps were similarly dry and not exciting). Overall, we enjoyed the food options and didn't need going out.
Spa: We found the spa reasonably priced and decided to book a massage. The spa was operating independently from the hotel and we couldn't charge it to the room. Furthermore, we couldn't take advantage of the 15% off voucher offered at check-in because the voucher wasn't with us at the time of our booking. The reception staff seemed unpleasant to deal with; they seemed bothered by the clean beach towel distribution responsibility, didn't want to fix the credit card charge when we asked about the voucher; almost argued with me telling “why didn't you tell me before paying” as if talking to a child. The massage was great but it was lacking the spa calmness feeling at the beginning and it was done as a matter of transaction ( no changing rooms offered, no massage covering was offered and oil was put all over my swimwear). Finally, when we needed a shower a few hours after check out, the hotel redirected us to staff changing rooms with dirty showers and no towels while the spa has clean and proper shower facilities suitable for guests. The disconnect between the spa and hotel is really obvious and it could be managed so much better.
Service: Apart from the spa, every member of the hotel staff is super friendly and welcoming. The elite member event with canapes and wine; watching the sunset was extremely nice and we really enjoyed it. The Greek night evening show and the band was also great, making our evening more enjoyable. It almost felt like a friendly family business that knows the customer by name, even though the hotel is huge.
Overall, we truly enjoyed the experience and appreciate the service provided by the staff greatly. There are minor areas of improvements. While we noticed that Rhodes is not what we expected from our summer holiday, the hotel provides good and consistent service for anyone who is visiting Rhodes."
