Zelia Halkidiki, Part of Destination Hyatt

"We are currently staying at Zelia on an all inclusive basis. We came last year and absolutely fell in love with the place, it really was 5* luxury. Unfortunately, it has changed for the worse and what felt like a special, luxury holiday now feels like a bog-standard typical 3* all inclusive with 5* aesthetics. Yes the hotel itself is stunning, but what really blown us away last year was the food, the cocktails and the staff. The main restaurant was à la carte and the menu was exceptional, with a variety included in the all inclusive offering. The meals were so tasty, you can see the standard in old reviews/photos. The chefs are what made this place. Food is now buffet only, with a small selection of casserole warming dishes to plate your meal from, along with salad and bread bar - it’s such a limited selection and extremely bland and boring. Example of the dinner time selection: 1. White fish in a sauce 2. Beef in a sauce 3. Chicken leg 4. Moussaka 5. Pasta & sauce 6. Vegetables 7. Rice 8. Potatoes Not what you’d expect from a 5* Hyatt. Last year drinks were what you’d expect of a 5* hotel, now, it’s completely different with only 3 cocktails to choose from (Margarita, Sangria & non-alcoholic) and no longer can you ask for a bottle of water - this is now €7. So you have to wait until a waiter comes around to order a glass of water - which can be a while. What’s usually typical of a an all inclusive package, especially in a 5*, is that you get at least a night’s dinner in the à la carte restaurant. Last year, we stayed for 7 days and had 2 nights in Shizen - it was incredible. Now, you don’t even get one night included - you get a €30 voucher each, which doesn’t even cover the cost of a full meal there. It’s so so disappointing. We feel completely robbed of our money this time and if we had knew the true extent of the changes here, we would have never returned. The standards have completely dropped but the price of the holiday hasn’t, it is extremely disappointing."

"A very nice hotel, although the room service is very low level, we stayed for 2 nights, they didn't change our sheets and towels, they just didn't clean the room even though we called the reception and asked, and it turns out that another couple who was with us had the exact same thing! Very disappointing that in a 5 star hotel you have to ask again and again to have your room cleaned and tidied up, very disappointing"

"LOCATION (Excellent, if you want to get away from everything) The location of the hotel is at the end of what is basically a track road. Yes, as you get closer to the hotel and travel through the more rural areas there is a lot of rubbish on the roadsides but this is not unusual for rural areas on the continent. It has a wetland nature reserve next to it as well as a lovely public beach. The hotel also has small private beach but to get to it you have to access concrete steps which are not for the feint hearted or if you have any ailments! There were two more access steps but one had collapsed and the other was out of use as too dangerous to use. There are no shops or eateries within walking distance so if you are on half board you would have to use the hotel for eating in, which could be problematic given our experience of the food (Food discussed later in this review) HOTEL BUILDINGS (Excellent) Initial appearances on arrival are one of a new, modern and smart hotel and this proved to be the case for most of the areas. There was a “concept shop” but it was closed, and didn’t look like it was in operation anyway. The only other issue with the hotel buildings was in the dining room. After a short downpour of rain there were a couple of leaks in the roof. Staff put ice buckets out to catch the drips but it is not something you would expect from a relatively new hotel. ACCOMMODATION (Excellent) We had a swim up room and we can honestly say it is one of the best rooms we have ever stayed in, both in terms of size and fittings. FOOD (Abysmal) Cutlery At each meal the tables were set with a knife and fork in a napkin and a dessert spoon and fork. This infers you are only going to get one “main” course and a desert so getting a starter, even a salad, was problematic and required you to keep used cutlery or request another set. General The hot food was presented in small casserole type containers on individual hot plate stands. Whilst we support the use of small batch cooking to reduce waste what was presented was often lukewarm at best and once moved to your plate became cold very quickly. At mealtimes a number of items where either very low or missing, and not replaced. Once, the executive chef came out, looked into each container, shrugged his shoulders and went back in to the kitchen area – nothing else appeared. Breakfast Breakfast was again very limited. Only one juice available (Orange). Croissants were mini size and often ran out. Other bread was available but no toaster. We did complain to reception about the food and a day after our complaint a 4-slice toaster appeared. sometimes water was available, sometimes not. Only one person took coffee orders causing confusion and delays. Greece is known for its yogurt but this again was very limited in amount available, and served in salad area rather than near cereal. Dinner This is the only hotel we have ever stayed in where soup is not provided at the evening meal as a starter option. It was never provided the whole time we stayed at the hotel. Ingredients were poor quality and badly prepared for example with gelatinous fat left on meats, almost all food was served in small casseroles, each often containing different meats but often all meats had the same sauce poured over, (ie demi glace on each meat) . There was no shellfish or any luxury ingredients, food was either over seasoned and inedible or no seasoning at all, The fish option was sea bass for 4 consecutive days, just a different “covering” each day. We had potatoes served the same way (small potatoes with skin on cooked in oil) for five consecutive days. On our first night we were presented with uncooked jacket potatoes in tin foil, in a casserole dish as a main course. This is a five star hotel and this is not good enough. A number of the ‘hot’ meals involved the main element (e.g. meat/fish) being sat in a very shallow sauce rather than being completely surrounded in sauce so the item dried out by the time it was presented. The vegetables were served in the same type of small casserole type dishes but for whatever reason were often soggy, probably from having been in the cooking liqueur for a long period. With regards to the salad section (again small and limited) Halkadiki is world renown for its olives yet there were none in the salads and when it did make a couple of appearances during the week it was in a small glass bowl which would serve about four people. We did complain about the food to reception and later in the week to our tour rep. The outcome was a toaster appeared after the reception was contacted and the food selection improved ever so slightly after we spoke to our tour rep but not enough to make any significant difference to the overall experience. Drink Wine menu was very expensive with only a few options to buy by the glass and no house wine. The sommelier was very nice, but the supervisor upsold very aggressively. As the food was so poor, we stopped buying wine – there was no point. No cocktail or mocktail was less than E15. Bottled water in the bar was E7 but free water was available when eating in the restaurant – although this ran out sometimes. SUMMARY Fantastic remote location and superb room, but our holiday was spoilt by the poor food on offer at every meal."