After arriving late with 5 hour delays from fog we were hoping for a nice surprise with our room and something comfy to have a quick snooze in. Much to our disapointment....
We arrived at the hotel with Olypmic Holidays who palmed us off very quickly on the hotel owner who took us straight to our room on the ground floor without even checking us in. (We weren't ever checked in!) She showed us to our room and advised we left the doors and shutters open at night, not safe, do not do this! As we explored our room we could hardly walk around the bed, let alone pull our suitcases through. We had to use the table to put our suitcase on and we emptied the other (although the wardrobe was dusty and dirty inside!!) and put it underneath as there was just no room for it anywhere else!
The bathroom was the worst bathroom I've ever seen in a hotel before, talk about basic, this is not even 1 star, let alone 2. There is a big black thing in the floor which looks like a drain, a whole in the ceiling letting the light in (also letting you hear the upstairs rooms shower, and trip to the toilet) and no shower curtain, therefore every shower we had, the whole bathroom was soaked and the water leaked into the bedroom. They only provide you with two soaps so make sure you take all toiletries you need. They also only change your towel every other day, we asked for two towels and got a very rude reply from the owner, Eleni explaining how little they got paid per room per night and that Emma the Olympic Rep should have explained the towel situation to us. . . We even needed to ask for toilet roll after more wasn't supplied after the room had been cleaned.
The bathroom also smelt of sewage at certain times during the day! Not nice! And the door was very difficult to shut, you had to sometimes bang it shut during the night and wake other guests up!
The bedroom itself was appalling. The ceiling light is over the wardrobe so gives you very little light, there is only one plug which is above the light switch next to the bathroom, really not helpful! There were wires hanging out of the wall next to one of the beds and the beds them self them uncomfortable to lie on. There is no TV in the room, no telephone and no fridge. So don't expect to bring your water back and have somewhere to keep it cool.
The balcony was cool as the sun was never on it, but the view wasn't fantastic... As my friend described it she thought it looked like a 'desert'. And there was bags of rubbish and dirty linen etc that they sometimes had not taken with them after cleaning the rooms. Also there was a drain pipe right next to our wall, where I happened to sit when I sat outside, which you could hear water etc going through it throughout the night, loud enough to wake us.
When we booked the holiday, we went to First Choice who said we would be able to pay the hotel for air con on arrival. They were wrong. We asked the rep at the welcome meeting (after waiting an hour and 15 minutes to speak to her) if she could ask them to upgrade us, which costs 40 Euros a week from what I remember. She phoned them and they said they had people leaving on Wednesday (we arrived early Sunday morning) so could possibly move us then. We asked the owner on the Monday evening, he was extremely off with us, very rude and said we should have mentioned it straight away (which we did). We then got a lady we met there to ask with us on the Tuesday, thinking this would help, then he went to get the list of the people coming to stay on the Wednesday and said there was just no room, that some of them had prepaid for air con anyway.. Yet he 'would try his best.' We didn't hear anything so presumed we weren't being upgraded. The rep came on Thursday and asked if we had been upgraded, she then went and spoke to Mike, the owner, after saying he was being extremely unfair on us, to try and get us a fan free of charge, which they usually charge 20 euros for per week. He said he wanted 5 euros from us, Emma, the rep, tried to give him the money but would not take it, he wanted it from us, not her. About 15 minutes later he came over to us with a fan, free of charge. Finally. But for only the last 3 days of our trip and after his rudeness, you can imagine we weren't extremely grateful. If your in an air con room overlooking the pool I'm sure you'll have a fantastic holiday at Eleni, but seeing as there are only 5 rooms, your chances are very slim. Halfway through our trip we met two families who had prepaid for air con, and we told they could not have it as there wasn't any rooms.
The owners of the hotel, apart from Poppy who works on the snack bar and her daughter, are extremely unwelcoming to the English guests. They were very nice the first day and always said hi, until we asked for something, and straight after they ignored us when we walked past and changed completely. If your Dutch or German, or even a girl on your own, he'll love you. Shame we're from London.
The breakfast is not worth having, if you're brave enough to go to the hotel, go self catering, although I don't know what the facilities are like and wouldn't want to imagine!
The breakfast consisted of chewy, hard bread, powered orange juice, tea, coffee, butter and jam. Only Dutch got more, which was egg and ham, but from what I've heard, they pay more for it when booking.
A lot of the restaurants around, only a few mins away serve full English breakfasts, I would definitely recommended going to them instead.
The pool was the only plus point at this hotel, it was clean, although hundreds of wasps constantly buzz around the edges of it, leading to a wasp bite on the second day.
Most of the guests said hi to us and we got on well with quite a few of them, shame about some of the other people there, but I guess that's just our luck.
Nice, quiet resort, not for teenagers who want clubbing, but a nice relaxing holiday. There are a few bars dotted about, tavernas and nice restaurants, I would recommend Rainbows on the seafront for dinner and Players bar on the main road for a drink.
If you want something busier at night, definitely go to Kardema.
The beach is very rocky and not good to walk along, if you go right to the left of the beach it gets slightly better and there are ruins at the end to explore and a little small beach I found. Better to sunbathe at the pool than on the beach though. Would also recommend getting a pedalo, if you have strong legs! It was fun, but we spent 40 minutes of our hour trying to make our way back to shore from the strong wind and waves!!
Would recommend going to Paradise (Bubble) Beach, which is about 10-15 mins away on the bus (only costs just over 1 euro each). Two sunbeds and an umbrella will set you back 7 euros per day but the sea is much better. Don't expect to see a lot of bubbles, they don't come often. There is also an inflatable area in the sea for kids and they do lots of water sports.
Coming back to the room one day after sunbathing round the pool, the room had been cleaned, and I had found two of my possessions to be missing. After looking all over my room, they were no where to be found. I don't like to accuse anyone of stealing, but it's quite clear that's what happened!!
Also, after coming home with over 50 mosquito bites, I would recommend you take some spray or something else with you to get rid of them!!!
Finally, on the last night, whilst waiting for our transfer for the airport in the boiling hot 'bar' (which was never open), we were joined by two scurrying guests, Cockroaches. I dread to think where else they were in the hotel (If you have a night flight, you need to check out of your room by 12 noon the day before. You can pay 20 euros to keep it on till 8pm)
Needless to say I didn't give the hotel 10 out of 10 on the questionnaire at the end of our stay.
Overall I would never recommend this hotel to anyone and if, after reading this, you still decide to go to the hotel, I wish you luck. You will need it
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC
