"We booked a sea view room at this hotel and to be fair we had a beautiful panoramic sea view, unfortunately the room had only been partially renovated, a mix of old and new furniture and a dated bathroom, the shower screen had chrome gaffa tape wrapped around the bottom of it to disguise the fact that it was rusty and rotten. The shower flow was poor, you had to get right under it to shower, which was made difficult by the taps, hand rail and shelf all running along the length of the bath, narrowing the area available, no plug provided for the bath, and the basin plug kept getting stuck in. The patio door had a glass panel that was misted up The bed was large and comfortable, no problem sleeping,(room 547). The room was on the same level as the reception area, which is the highest level, everything else was down stairways ramps and flat walks, the buffet restaurant was the level below the reception area, more steps down to snack bar, further down again to beach. It's a very large, spread out complex, lots of walking and steps to climb. A bit hard on wonky joints.
The buffet restaurant we found to be very good, lots of choice and plentiful, desserts were good, drinks served by staff, who work very hard, mostly of Asian origin always polite and obliging, only thing was the plate warmers were rarely switched on which meant your food went cold on cold plates. Snack bars we found disappointing, only serving burgers fries, chicken nuggets, hot dogs, all these were pre cooked and kept warm, resulting in hard dried up fries and rubbery chicken nuggets, small choice of sandwiches, pre packed salad box, yoghurt, we tried one of the snack bars, where I ordered a turkey baguette, on opening it up to add mayonnaise, i found it was cheese and tomato, not turkey, took it back to the counter and pointed this out to the staff member who took it from me, she inspected it, wrapped it back up and put it back on shelf to be served to the next customer, she obviously knew I had handled the food, I was horrified, certainly not acceptable food hygiene. I reported this to the rep, who was going to raise the matter with the relevant department manager. There are two buffet restaurants at the beach area, greek taverna and Mediterranean, these have to be pre booked at reception, the rep told us this could be done on the day, so after breakfast one day we went to reception to book the greek taverna for lunch that day, when we arrived at the restaurant, we were told that we were not on the list, so there was a discussion, where we were told she would let us in this once but we must book next time, we had booked, obviously reception had not added us to the list, we were made to feel like we were guilty of gatecrashing a party, it was embarrassing.
There were not enough sunbeds on the beach, what were there were crammed together, no space at all, we rarely got any, and had to resort to just putting our towels and bags on the sand when we wanted to go for a swim in the sea, getting in to sea a bit tricky as there is a gritty bank that you sink into before you get to the sand, but the water is not deep and you can walk quite a long way out. There are plenty of sunbeds around the numerous pools, so never struggled to get one, but unfortunately not on the beach. None of the sunbeds have any padding, so a little uncomfortable after a while.
You are told that hotel is only 15 minutes from airport and some aircraft noise is to be expected, what they don't tell you is that the hotel is directly under the flight path and aircraft coming in to land are only 850 feet above your head, very noisy, start early morning and go on until late at night, didn't particularly bother us, but might be seen as a bit of a nuisance by some.
Entertainment not too bad, although two nights in the week were quiz followed by bingo inside, other things happening in area outside, a concrete built tiered area, first night we went to it we got badly bitten, so avoided that afterwards. Most of entertainment strangely was south African, singers, three south African tenors, acrobatics outside, greek night, quite a variety.
Walked to Kardamena, about 40mins, we did it on a cloudy day, unfortunately you have to pass the sewerage station, it smelled really bad every time you passed it, if the wind was blowing towards the hotel there was an overwhelming smell in hotel grounds.
This hotel allows dogs, I was very surprised to see them in hotel grounds, not on leads or restricted, one had it's own sunbed by the poolside, one I saw sat on sofa in snack bar. So if you are allergic to dogs, perhaps this is not the place for you.
It would appear that the hotel has been extended recently, new blocks of rooms added on, perhaps the hotel might consider renovating the old rooms now up to the same standard, don't know how you book new rooms as opposed to old rooms.
Nothing around area, except 3 or 4 hotels and waterpark. 10 euro for taxi to Kardamena, or local bus 2euro, suggest hiring a car to explore, we had one for two days, TUI have trips to book, but pick-up is around 8 am in morning, ok if you're an early bird.
TUI reps all very helpful, could not fault them.
All in all, not a bad experience, but expected better for a five star platinum rated hotel, we would not return. Too spread out, too many flights of steps, don't think it's made clear that you need to be a mountain goat to get around the complex."
