"Not someone to leave reviews but felt this was important to let future travellers know before parting with their hard earned money! Strap in 😂
First of all on our arrival we were greeted by a man on reception who just shoved a bit of paper in our faces, told us to fill it out and then hand it back to him, then he proceeded to charge us €60 tourist tax! We expected to pay this but it was his approach that was all wrong. Didn’t even offer us a “good evening, or a “welcome”, or offer any water after travelling all day. He also never explained anything about the hotel or its surroundings. There was no concierge and we got told “roughly” where our room was. After finding our room we were greeted by a small basic room (6124) with a dodgy handle, limited storage space, 6 hangars for 2 people and a filthy floor so clearly it had not been cleaned before our arrival, we soon found out that they don’t really clean your room properly either, they just make the bed, not even change it. They also don’t change your towels daily either, we’d come back to find they change 1 or 2 when they felt like it, not once did we receive a full set of new towels. No toilet roll holder in the bathroom so you had to place your toilet roll next to a wet sink. The shower floods and there was also no fan in the bathroom.
Now while the pools looked aesthetically pleasing, never in our 6 days did they get cleaned once, not maintained or checked by anyone, we found them murky and dirty in areas. The sun beds had no tables with them so you had to put all your stuff on the floor meaning your stuff got wet as all the water runs back from the pools (see pic) there was zero atmosphere round the pool areas and no music. We found it odd that there is no actual paths around the pools either, you have to hop over little bushes, walk in front of peoples rooms or walk all the way round the hotel to get anywhere, the design is all wrong with this place!
We found the food was actually ok with plenty of variety, but there is no one watching people to enforce wearing clothes around all the food, oh wait.. maybe because staff were to busy rolling their cigarettes in sight of everyone 🙄 people were just walking in sweaty or damp. However the chef was always available to give allergy and dietary advice which was nice to see. The drinks were awful, all too sugary, not 1 tasted the same and there was no care taken in making them. The bar areas are in random places, 1 was a hole in the wall next to the pool with 1 member of staff all day/night and 1 in reception randomly so you had to walk through the eating area or through reception to get to it! There is 2 maybe 3 bits of entertainment on each week which is standard all inclusive stuff.
We had 2 nights out to get a break from this hotel, 1 in Rhodes old town and another in Lindos and these were our best evenings by an absolute mile. great drinks, food, atmosphere and sightseeing that we’d definitely recommend visiting.
We picked a hotel that wanted to be relaxing and quiet but even by our standards it is DEAD! You had you get a bus or hire a car to do anything remotely interesting. It really does sound we are being very picky with some things but having stayed in other 4 star rated hotels, the things we feel that were below standard are basic provisions and facilities in other 4 star rated hotels.
As you can clearly tell we won’t be visiting the Olivia Blue Sea hotel ever again, please be cautious as the pictures are deceiving. As are the reviews on TripAdvisor, we have since found out that guests were being offered a late check out in return of positive reviews being left on this site."
