Royal Ariston

"This hotel has easy access to the promenade which leads to the lungo mare along the bayshore. There are plenty of restaurants withing walking distance. But to get to the Old Town, you need to take a 20-minute ride on the #6 bus which terminates outside the hotel. The room is relatively large with a real king size bed instead of two twin size beds put together. The property is quite large and getting from your room to the lobby would likely requires negotiating through a maze of corridors and steps."

"Royal ariston At first it seemed like a maze but soon we discovered a short cut from our room (block 3) to the pool, spa, restaurants and the promenade etc, through the side entrance to the bar, and then either walk down the stairs /elevator to those downstairs, or just one floor up to the lobby right away, without going through the maze again! There are numerous public but quiet corners to enjoy the sea, in addition to the Lobby with super big windows for watching over the sea. Front desk staff were very friendly for restaurants recommendation and money change, luggage storage etc Breakfast buffet restaurant has lots of outdoor tables for watching the islands nearby. Indoor window seats were also enjoyable in watching the sea if it got too windy, or the seagulls got too hungry! The food choices at breakfast were ok (no egg station indoors but hidden outdoors!) but with lots of steamed vegetables in addition to the standard salads. Seafood platter (for 2) in the Zoe restaurant was enough for 4! We also had fish soup and chichen soup. Both were good. Delicious dinner there! 10 min walk downhill along a small path led to lots of other restaurants. Or just walk along the nicely paved promenade (2.5 km) to many more restaurants/bars (within the same hotel group, or outside….mostly on the left hand side)….it was also a great jogging path. Sauna and the various indoor/outdoor pools were also relaxing after a day out sightseeing. Had a spacious room with a patio on the ground floor in front of some shrubs and perhaps that was why we saw quite many ants (30x a few times) but we didn’t have enough time to take photos as they ran everywhere so we were busy wiping them. Didn’t want to take the trouble to pack and unpack so didn’t change rooms. The man who came to inspect did say the next day deep cleaning would be done but nobody showed up. Then we got an even bigger issue the next day, in addition to ants which I repeatedly wiped off……..a live crawler on the bath towel I was using and it was quite scary when you just came out from a shower! (See photo) Front desk girls looked at the photo and said “it was not that big” (so imagine if it was her who experienced it!) This was perhaps the only nuisance during our otherwise wonderful stay."

"One of the best hotels I've visited in recent years. The hotel is a spectacle, it's clean, it's welcoming and the rooms are luxurious. The sea view balcony room is a sight to behold, so much that I would stop sunbathing by the multiple pools at the hotel, to sunbath on the balcony instead. The room offered a pod coffee machine that was restocked each day which was a wonderful bonus. The staff are brilliant, friendly and a joy to talk with. Shoutout to Juan Carlos at the Vista Restaurant attached to the hotel for the excellent iced coffees and his excellent service. The pools are amazing, I was amazed to find one of them to be a saltwater pool (right next to the ocean) which was an excellent cold plunge in the morning. There's plenty of other standard pools around, including a heated indoor version and a rooftop version for adults only. The hotel has various restaurants attached/a minute or so walk away, all of which are great and well worth going too. The breakfast and evening buffet is what you expect it to be, but again, I highlight the friendly service of the staff here. The hotel also offers guest relations, in which we booked a 3 Island boat trip, they made everything easy and also included a pick-up/drop off from the hotel. They only book the best trips from the hotel which was the highlight of our trip. Overall, this hotel deserves nothing but 5 stars. I'm actively looking to book again for this year."