"Four adults, in our 60s, who travel a lot, we decided on a two-centre holiday. We spent four nights in Lefkada, and then moved on to Parga. We chose the Parga Beach Resort, because of the lovely beach, the size of the hotel, the 5* status, and the seven pools!
We were worried about recent reviews, wherein clients spoke about building works going on, but I’ll come on to that later.
We arrived at Parga Beach Resort (PBR), a little earlier than expected and our rooms were ready, which was a great bonus. We’d booked two Horizon Suites with sea view and a kitchenette. We were taken to our rooms, by a member of staff and I was over the moon with our room – big, and airy, nice-sized bathroom, nice seating area, with fantastic views. Our friends were put on the ground floor, but asked to be moved, as all they looked out on to was shrubs. They did manage to move two days after arrival.
As I say, the room was lovely – freshly decorated. It had an easy-to-use safe and a fridge, both free of charge, a decent-sized and a few drawers, a little kitchenette, where coffee/tea/sugar/capsules of milk and a coffee machine with capsules. You also received a litre bottle of water each day. The only problem with the wardrobe is that you close it with a huge sliding door. There was also a sliding door covering the kitchenette, but when you opened the wardrobe, you couldn’t get to the kitchenette, and vice versa! Didn’t see the need for the huge sliding door over the kitchenette area. The bathroom was newly decorated, with a window, huge shower, nice toiletries and plenty of space, with a super power shower. So, overall, good room, with a balcony, two chairs and a little washing airer, to hang any items on. Again, I am talking about a Horizon Suite.
There was a long dressing table, with a mirror above. I was glad to have taken an extension lead! But, to be honest, I used the bathroom for getting ready. And, nice not to have a hair-dryer stuck to the wall – you could unplug it and move it around.
There was no iron or ironing board in the room, but ordering one from reception was easy. I did this by way of the hotel app. Saying that, the hotel reception is pretty central to most rooms, so no problem walking to reception to ask for anything, and the reception staff were always very helpful.
The aircon worked perfectly, as did the Wifi.
We booked B&B, as we wanted to explore Parga. The main restaurant (Iporia), where breakfast was served was nice. Quite a few staff around, showing you to a table, so no chaos! Lots of choice, including smoked salmon and avocado, for those who like it. We had to make sure we were down around 8.30am, as it started to get busy and as some people have mentioned, queuing for the coffee machine was a bit of a pain! But, overall, no complaints with regard to the choice of food! The pool bar is open until 6pm, so good for a little drink, and a stone’s throw from the pool bar is Parga Beach Club, which is a restaurant which serves a nice selection of food, from 11am. It’s ‘sort of’ attached to Iporia, but sits over-looking the beach. We ate here a couple of times (salad and pizza, for us, but they have a nice selection of other food) and the drinks are pretty reasonable, for a beautiful setting and beach restaurant.
There are a few other restaurants along the beach, which we did walk to, for a change, so you won’t be stuck in the same restaurant every day, if you wish not to! And, nice to know there were no stray cats around. A few dogs, but mainly on leads.
We never ate at any of the other hotel restaurants. One is a Greek Taverna, at the very back of the hotel, set near a pool. They also have a fine-dining restaurant. We were tempted to try it, but so many restaurants to choose from, especially if you walk over to Parga Town – or take a water taxi (€3 pp each way), or a local taxi (which was around €10 each way).
Now on to the pools and beach. PBR advertise that they have 7 pools, and that they do, but they are small and scattered all over the resort, and they are nestled in the midst of all different rooms, and it appears that the people whose rooms are around these pools, seem to think that they are theirs, so first thing in the morning, the beds are taken (towel problem) and because they are small and because of the amount of children at the resort, there are lots of inflatables. And, most of the small pools are in the shade. We didn’t use one of the pools, due to all the inflatables and noise. Even the biggest of the pools, which isn’t that big considering the amount of guests, is filled with inflatables – even adults on inflatables! Such a shame, as we love to use a pool, but it didn’t work out for us. Some of the rooms have their own dipping pool.
Valtos Beach is lovely, set in a bay, with a view looking up to the castle, with boats coming and going. There are a few beach clubs, where you can hire two sunbeds and a parasol, from around €15 per day. The beach club beds have big sponges, with a nice view. PBR has its own private beach (you DO NOT have to pay for sunbeds and parasols) and it was rather confusing, as only the guests, who have booked the suites, can use an area which had sponges on the beds. OK, we booked a Horizon Suite, but our room wasn’t classed as a suite – very odd! So, on the first day, when we plonked ourselves down, we were asked to move on. Very upsetting! The sunbeds for all the other guests are those netted ones, and they are comfortable, but sponges would have been nice – especially in view of the price we paid! Beach towels were provided in our room, and you change these at reception. And, we always managed to get a place on the beach, although people still go out early, to put towels and beds, and they are not removed. But, because of the amount of children at the hotel, the beach was always pretty empty.
All I would say, is that you see the water taxi come in (every 30 minutes) from Parga Town. The water taxis must hold 30-40 people, so everyone disembarks, and walk up and down the beach, looking for beds. Most are told to move on from PBR, although PBR do rent out their beds, but they are a lot more expensive than the beach clubs, so you don’t have many outsiders using them.
Most of the rooms at PBR are spread all over the resort – mainly because it’s not a high-rised resort, which is pleasing. And, a lot of the rooms are in the shade, which I wouldn’t have liked. Infact, not many of the rooms have a sea view.
Now, going on to the building works. It was quite clear that a lot had been going on when we arrived in early June. All the gardens were being re-modelled, so there were gardeners everywhere, planting shrubs up, so I can imagine it had been quite messy but this wasn’t the case for us. And, the building works must have been the new villas, which looked fabulous, with their own pools and direct access to the beach (and big spongy-bed area). By the time we left, new signs were going up everywhere, new towels were being issued, so the people arriving around the time we were leaving, wouldn’t have had any upheaval! It was starting to look so pretty.
For those who need a supermarket, there’s one a two-minute walk away. There isn’t a courtesy bus into town, as there are taxis and the water taxis, or you simply walk up to the castle and down the hill into town, but a word of warning ………………… if you are not good at walking up steep hills and steps, you will only attempt it once! If you desperately want to walk up to the castle, go from the Parga Town side – it’s much easier. Well, I say ‘much easier’, it’s still a tough walk!
The spa is OK. I went for a massage, which was great, but I felt the spa was soulless, I only went the once.
We didn’t experience any evening entertainment at the hotel. We didn’t have a problem with wasps, flies, mosquitos, but we did have a problem in our room! We came back from dinner one night, to find our room swarming with flying ants – never seen so many! They were coming in from a room underneath us, through a gap in the inside of the sliding doors. They have sliding netted doors over the sliding doors themselves, and we always kept these shut, as we did the main sliding doors, when we left the room. Anyway, a lady from reception turned up with a spray and a broom, but even she gasped at the amount of flying ants. My husband was using the spray, it was strong. The reception lady and I walked out of the room, coughing! We were asked to pack a bag and we vacated our room. We returned to our room at 7am the following morning, as we were due on a boat trip, but there were dead ants everywhere – it was really nasty! We missed the boat trip that day, due to the upheaval! I asked if we could move rooms, but they didn’t have the same category of room available. They assured us our room would be fully cleaned, so we left for the day. When we went back to our room, later that day, there were still ants about. My husband found himself spraying and bunging wet toilet tissue in the gap, above the inside of the sliding doors! Later that night, the manager turned up, as did two maintenance men. We finally fell into bed at 1.30am. It wasn’t a nice experience and we wasn’t offered any compensation, which was rather upsetting, but hey ho – every country has bugs, but this was clearly a problem. A silicone joint was used to fill the holes, which should have been done before!
Going back to taxis ………. we had booked a Greek night at Docos, but when we tried to hire a taxi, from reception, none were available, so do book well in advance. Sadly, we missed the Greek night, but I should have investigated the taxi situation a little better.
There are lots of restaurants around, only the Valtoas Beach side - many to choose from. We were at PBR for 7 nights and could have eaten in a different restaurant every night, on the Valtos Beach side, but we wanted to go over to Parga Town, where you are spoilt for choice. There are also boats trips (you can book the night before) to Paxos and other beaches, from Parga Town. The trip over to Paxos is around €40 pp. Together with lots of bars and some nice shops – I don’t think you could get bored in Parga – if you don’t mind climbing up steps. Don’t bother taking heels, stick with smart flats!
The hotel doesn’t have a shop, but it doesn’t need one, due to the local shops.
I hope this information helps anyone who is reading.
Would we return back to PBR? Probably not! It seemed more for families, and yet we went in a quiet season. So, if you are going, be prepared for some European countries whose childrens’ holidays commence (for 3 months) in mid-June! And, don’t get me wrong, we adore children, but it’s our time now to go to grown-up hotels, without loads of inflatables.
On a lasting note, the PBR is a very pretty hotel, but too many children for us. We will definitely be returning to Parga, and we’d probably choose to stay on the Parga Town side, even though the beach isn’t very nice, but with boats going over to other beaches, it would be our choice."
