First impressions are good in Holiday Club Naxos, the setting is really lovely and the place seems perfect, until you see inside the accommodation. We stayed in two different apartments within the complex, the first was awful, decorated in 1970's style and quite obviously hadnt ever been decorated since then. No kettle, not very clean, light hanging out of the ceiling, 2 inch gap under the front door - very basic although it did have a good air conditioning system. In my opinion this was not a 3* - far from it. The second week we got moved to a different apartment, this was much better and had obviously been updated in recent years and was a lot cleaner. Still no kettle! There's not a lot going on in Giardini Naxos so we ended up getting the bus up to Taormina (much nicer) almost every night. We also walked to Naxos Centre (about 10 minutes) and San Giovanni (about 20 mins) which have a little more going on than Giardini Naxos. Holiday Club is a minute from the beach but very difficult with pram/buggy. If you manage to get a good apartment it is perfect for a family holiday, lots of activities for kids and adults if thats what you are in to.

Beautiful setup: Many different bushes with nice flowers, large pool, large area with the houses.
The large pool has only 2 ladders, no area to slowly enter the water like some stairs. We saw a handicapped women almost drawn trying to get out. Children have to be lifted out, even in the children area.
The animation is done by teenage students, quite unprofessional. Neither children nor adults were joining.
The beach (400m pass 2 streets) is stones only, no sand and a chair costs you another 10Euro per day.
The air conditioning, fridge and toilet flusher did not work. We had called 2 times with no reaction, passing by the reception (3times in total) did help and the fridge and airco were repaired.
At the end of the stay we were presented with 9Euro per day for the baby crib, we could have bought a new one for the same price of our stay.

My husband and I stayed at the Holiday Club Naxos self -catering apartments in Giardini Naxos in May 2007.

The holiday village is set in beautiful grounds with a great view of Mt.Etna and covers a wide area.There is 24 hour reception. When we arrived, we were told to leave our luggage in reception and it would be delivered to our apartment. We decided to bring our luggage. Boy were we sorry! Our apartment turned out to be at the end of the complex (a good 5 minutes walk) not nice wheeling heavy cases. we were soon overtaken by staff on a golf buggy, delivering other peoples luggage.

Our apartment was a spacious ground floor studio apartment. It had a good size kitchen/dining area, with large window overlooking the beautiful garden. There were 3 single beds. 2 single beds were in a partitioned off area and another single bed was in the living area. There was a T.V and built in air conditioning, though we didn't have any need to use it whilst there. Decent size shower room with hairdryer. SPOTLESSLY CLEAN!!!
Apartment was spotlessly clean, though a little dated. It would benefit from an upgrade. We found the beds to be a little on the uncomfortable side.

Overall apartment was a good base for exploring the area. It would be very suitable for families with children and teenagers. There was a lovely swimming pool, restaurant and shop (open until 8 p.m) on the complex. There are also tennis courts, a volleyball court, small football ground and an open air theatre in the grounds. If you are brave enough to rent a car, there is good private car parking available.

Shingle beach 2 minutes walk from reception.
Town of Giardini Naxos and sandy beaches 15/20 minute pleasant walk.
Bus stop very close by going to Taormina, Catania and day trips to Mount Etna etc.

We found this to be a good base, very suitable for families and couples who just want a relaxing break at a reasonable price.

We have stayed in Russott hotel from 15 to 22 seprt. Hotel first of all has good location, generally it is not in giardini, the village is called Recanati, although note this when you are coming back from Taormina by bus to avoid founding yourself half way to Catania. The private beach and first line, both are very unusual for sicily hotels. However beach is tiny even for not 100% full hotel, even suported with two sunbed areas above the beach. Facilities are pretty worn out, (the moment of our stay some floors were closed for refurbishment). But huge suit room with 3 sea view balconies and small but exciting garden fixed this.
Restaurant serving classic buffet for breakfast and a la carte for dinner. Food is good quality italian cuisine, a little bit lacking charm, but ok. Don't take lunches in a hotel! Its 10-15 minutes walk to Giardini promenade with scores of restaurants (seafood dinner for two with wine 30-40 euro). F.e. "Da pippo" somwhere in the middle of promenade. If you want to fit the tight budget, you can eat pizza which is 5 to 7.5 euro maximum and pretty enough for two (yummy). Water and stuff better to buy in a Euromarket aross the street to hotel, the owner and the cashier at the same time will serve you with a short lesson of italian :). Hotel stuff is very helpfull and friendly. I'll recommend to visit Russott hotel after they finish the reconstruction.