Aelia Luxury Suites

"We spent a couple of wonderful days😍"

"NOT a 5 star resort as advertised. This was described by our travel agent as "close to Karterados beach" but the reality is that there are no beaches close by , these are only accessible if you have a car. The hotel is actually in a rather isolated location on the outskirts of the small village of Karterados which is approximately 15 - 20 minutes walk away, all uphill.  There are no amenities any closer. If you want to get the local buses then first you have to walk up to the village as this is the closest bus stop. The surrounding are most definitely not "lush gardens" but a vast expanse of hard landscaping with a few flower beds. Food - on the hotel website this is described as follows:    Discover the Mediterranean Gastronomy enriched with the creative imagination of our chef. Our food is prepared with the freshest of products. Our menu treads skillfully between traditional cuisine and culinary inventiveness.   Your eyes will be delighted with the cozy, unobtrusive surroundings and your mouth with superlative flavors touched by a hint of exoticism. The reality is that the only menu available all day, lunch or dinner, was pretty basic. Whilst the food was nice, fresh and good portions pizza, hamburgers and gyros don't exactly reflect "a hint of exoticism" . it was pretty repetitive for 7 days  Breakfast was similar - a pretty basic buffet with "hot" food that was only warm at best. Fresh omelettes and scrambled eggs were available to order, which were fine,but the pancakes were pre-made and just re-heated on request. The biggest disappointment was the bread. The only bread available was the most basic pre-sliced loaves - one white and one brown. No fresh bread, no rolls. The restaurant itself is more like a school canteen than a 5 star restaurant.  The positives are that the staff are all very friendly and helpful, the rooms comfortable and well equipped  with maid service every day. Pool towels are easily available - just ask at the bar. Pool are is nice with some of the most comfortable sun beds I have ever come across and the hot tubs are a plus.  We are both fairly active people and not adverse to walking to access any amenities but for anyone less mobile this is not a good choice. The hotel does offer a free shuttle bus into the islands capital Fira daily but this is once a day at 5pm, returning at around 9.30pm so limited. Overall it was a pleasant enough holiday but not the 5 star experience we were expecting."

"We were excited to stay here, as most reviews were quite positive and after looking at the website we felt confident that we were in for a luxurious stay. It is marketed as a luxury 5 star hotel. The staff are very helpful and polite. It is very clean throughout. However, I cannot describe it as luxury. We must of had the smallest room as it looked nothing like the size of the junior suites shown on the website. The balcony is about one metre wide and north facing, as are all the others. Which meant that they never had any sunshine. We only had four hangers for clothes, two of which were taken up by the robes provided. The only hook in the whole suite was loose and would not stay upright. The curtains had numerous holes in them. The WiFi signal on the whole complex was intermittent so the TV seldom worked . The chairs on the balcony were rotten and falling apart. Hand soap in the bathroom ran out after 3 days and was not replenished. They say on their website “our suites will make you feel like home”. Ours didn’t. Relaxing by the pools was nice to start off with, but the number of flies all over us proved too annoying. So we limited our time there. The music played all day by the pool was too much for me. There were several holes in the ground, near the hot tubs (only two out of four were actually hot) each had a rusty nail sticking up out of it. One of the hot tubs had two screws sticking out of the inner internal wall, where a plastic grill once was. The only hot tub that was hot, was cloudy and had horrible grey bubbles on the top of the water. We had breakfast and evening meals in our package. Breakfast was ok, but nothing special. It was not open at 7:30am, as they said. The chef didn’t arrive until around 8am most days. The chef is the man who makes the omelettes and scrambled eggs and cleans the pools. The dinner menu is bland with few traditional Greek dishes. They say on their website: “Experience our refined cuisine, superlative flavors touched by a hint of exoticism”. This is a grossly inaccurate statement. The food is ok but is certainly not as described above. We ate out for the majority of our week. It also says: “savor a gourmet meal on your balcony as you watch the sun dip below the horizon”. There is nothing “gourmet” or “exotic ” about the food and there is no chance of watching the sunset from your balcony. The chairs both inside and outside of the dining area are so heavy that guests had to scrape them over the hard floor to pull them in and out , making a horrendous noise. This ruined meal times. Some other guests had conflict with staff over their meal packages. The guest’s confirmation showed they had breakfast and evening meal but the hotel insisted that they were only entitled to breakfast and lunch, which was a more limited menu. Their website states that it is “made to meet the needs of the most demanding guest”. We are not particularly demanding guests. It didn’t meet our needs. This place did not meet our expectations. All of the problems we encountered and the grossly inaccurate and over exaggerated descriptions in the marketing have led to the conclusion that we would not stay here again."