"Our previous visits to Cyprus have been on the eastern side of the island around the Protarus area so we thought that this time we’d try the western side so chose the Cali Resort & Spa which was close to Coral Bay Beach.
We went for an all inclusive 10 day stay and booked a Superior room with a sea view, we arrived at around 11pm at night and missed dinner so they put a plate with a sandwich, a wrap and some fruit all under cling film in our room. It was a rather disappointing offering for an all-inclusive hotel which reports as a five star but it was all they gave us and we were hungry. Our first impression of the room was that whilst it was clean and newish it felt rather small and reminded us of a lower rated hotel room which we had stayed in some years earlier in Protarus. The room was warm so we set the air conditioning to 19 degrees but despite it being on all night we could not get the room below 25 degrees so it stayed warm. The next morning, we contacted reception to ask if we could pay to upgrade the room to a better one, I’m not going to go into too much detail here but the attitude of the reception at this point was poor to say the least so we felt like we were stuck in a room which we were very unhappy with.
By the next day our discontent had filtered back to one of their managers by the name of Stelios and this was when our entire holiday turned a corner. Stelios completely understood our feelings and immediately showed us a really nice suite which had just become available, much larger than our original room, great bathroom and a much better view of the sea and pool. After agreeing the upgrade price, we paid the difference and felt much better about the remaining 8 days of our holiday. After this we saw Stelios almost every day, it seemed like he was there mornings, afternoons and evenings always giving guests the best personal service and making sure that they were enjoying their holiday.
The Cali resort & Spa is comprised of two main blocks joined by a furnished walkway, one is just hotel rooms and the other is the main reception with a huge lounge, buffet restaurant and lounge bar. Outside there is a large pool with sun loungers around the pool and an extension sun lounger area with a handful of cabanas. Two outdoor bars with one being the pool bar which closes at 6pm when the other outdoor bar opens, an outdoor lunch restaurant which doubles as their Asian Al a Carte in the evening and a small area where the evening entertainers perform.
To the left of the Cali is the main strip which has shops, supermarkets, restaurants and bars, to the right and about a 10 minute walk away is Coral Bay Beach which is long but not very wide and the sun loungers which cost 10 Euros per day for two plus a parasol are tightly packed together, we did not like this beach at all. Keep walking along this beach to the far end, go up some steep steps, across a finger of land and down the other side and you will find a small marina, keep walking past this and you will arrive at Corallia Beach which in our opinion is a better beach and worth the extra walk.
As it was such a long walk to find a beach we liked we spent the other days just relaxing around the pool, reading and being served drinks by the hard-working waiters who collect the drinks orders and deliver them. To get a cabana which we preferred you had to reserve one with towels and personal effects by 9.30am otherwise they would all be taken, the favourite sun loungers seemed to be the ones which were perched directly one edge of the pool, these were all reserved by 8am so unless you’re prepared to go down at that time to reserve one then you have little or no chance of getting one. Having said that there are plenty of sun loungers altogether so you are almost guaranteed of finding one somewhere even if it’s not in your location of choice. The fact that the Cali Resort & Spa is an adults only hotel ensures that wherever you are your space is peaceful.
We ate twice in the Asian Al a Carte restaurant which was nice but by no means excellent as the choices on the menu are limited, twice in ten days was quite enough. When this same outdoor restaurant is used as a lunch/all day snack venue we used it about three times and the snack choices were very good and tasty.
All breakfasts and other evening meals were taken in the buffet restaurant, the offering here was reasonably varied, the breakfasts seemed to be the same every day but enough to satisfy most tastes. The evening buffets always had a different theme each night but this only seemed to alter about 15% of what was on offer with the remainder being the same each night. The serving staff work very hard in making sure each table has sufficient coffee, tea etc at breakfasts and whatever your drink of choice is for the evening meal.
The evening bar staff work equally as hard in making sure that if you are seated in their area that you always have a drink to hand if you need one. The quality of the evening entertainment does let the standards slide well below what you would expect from a hotel which markets it self as a five star. Would I agree on the five star rating, not yet, I feel that this place is a work in progress, it needs at least one more pool as the one they have whilst large is not enough for the number of rooms they have.
Whilst they do allow inflatables in the pool, they have some ridiculous rule that they can only be used on the outside edge as if you float towards the centre of the pool you will interfere with people swimming lengths which hardly anyone does. If you take your inflatable into the pool, close your eyes to listen to some music then your relaxation which you came on holiday to enjoy will be rudely interrupted by a lifeguard shouting at you to say that you have drifted away from the edge, this happened to me several times and was exceptionally annoying. It also happened to several other guests who were upset by this as there are more people trying to relax in this pool than there are people who have their heads down to swim lengths up and down the pool.
This is one reason why we will not consider returning here until they have built another pool and scrapped this stupid rule, there is plenty of wasteland space within their borders to do this and I know it’s in their future plans but I came on holiday to relax and not to be reprimanded in front of other guests by a lifeguard due to closing my eyes on my inflatable and drifting too close to the centre of the pool.
They also need to need to build at least one more restaurant due to the number of guests they accommodate and maybe organise better entertainment, in their huge lounge there is a large piano, maybe they could get a pianist in to play on occasions as there is nothing on offer for guests who choose to relax inside instead of outside.
In summary I would rate the Cali Resort & Spa to be a very good 4-star hotel but investments and improvements need to be made before I would consider this hotel to be a true 5-star."
