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Travel bug
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Posted: 2011-05-07 06:17:53
It's a 5* hotel where you would expect best chefs in the kitchen, well seasoned maintenance staff and excellent customer service at the reception. Never mind the facilities within the hotel walls.
Hotel Location
It has relatively good location but is surrounded by undeveloped, agricultural land and several cheap house owners. If you don't go out of the hotel - you don't care about that much.
The hotel building itself makes no impression from the outside and it looks more like a 3+ star hotel. However - it is different from the inside.
The environment within the hotel area looks impressive - impressive trees, palms, seashore just several yards away with incredible view: mountains just across the sea (Turkish land is just several miles away from the island) and sky blue see.
Buildings and room interior does not make any impression. I could compare it to a 3-4 star Holiday Inn somewhere in Liverpool. Design and furniture very simplistic.
Tap water has disgusting taste of chlorine and some minerals. Rhodes Island has no freshwater and all water is coming from deep drilled wells. The hotel itself has no water treatment filters thus tea & coffee tastes awful. There is a coffee shop 5 min walk where you can get filtered water and coffee is great.
I thought I'm the only one not happy with the water and spoke to several other guests of the hotel. An English couple said - they love tea in the mornings and would never go to work before they have a cup of tea. But they don't drink tea or coffee here. Even for free.
Food selection is quite miserable for this time of the year. Most of the food is repeated every day and you are out of choices on the third day. I missed lobsters, better selection of fish and mussels. An ok hotel in Germany or UK would offer you teh same selection. Where is all the seafood, fresh figs, fruits? Where are all the sorts of nuts and local cheese?
The only fresh fruits you have are kiwi, oranges (small and sour), grapefruits, bananas and apples.
Well, there were watermelons and honeydews, but they were not meant for eating. Just for looking at them as there were just 4 or 5 of them. And all of them were presented this way:
How do you eat sculptures? Well, you don't eat them. They are not meant for eating. So where do you get watermelons and honeydews? The answer is - nearby shopping center.
They definitely need a new chef with new ideas as current ones seems to be burned out. Waiters are polite and very responsive but sometimes they forget to ask you - can they take this plate away from you.
And I must note that dinner drinks are not free. Even water. In the morning you get some cheap concentrate quality juice - orange, pineapple and apple and tap water that you cannot drink. Well, tea and coffee are made of the same water.
Lobby bar will make you tea and Capuchino or Latte coffee of the same great taste water for 3-4 Euros.
Internet is free when you use your own laptop. And works a short distance from the lobby. It does reach pool area and some of the rooms facing the lobby. It is not available elsewhere. And it works well only 10pm -10 am. When most of the guests are asleep or eating. Otherwise internet speed is low most of the time, but the worst part is - you may loose internet connection every 15-30 min for 1-2 min at times. It is best to leave it then for an hour and do something else.
The hotel is short of housekeeping staff thus cleaning quality may suffer at times.
After 4 days stay I'm starting to think that the hotel gets better when the season starts and more visitors are coming. It is just 1/3 filled now.
You can feel Greek/Turkish mentality everywhere around in the city or old downtown. It is great to come here once in a life time for the great views.
I'm probably spoiled by the quality I'm used to and cannot stand false quality anymore. Tough on me. Main hotel visitors Russians, some English, French, Danish and German.
Keep in mind that this hotel is actually one of the best in the area and I'm not comparing it to expensive Sheraton that cannot offer the same I listed here.
Many people would not agree with me and I agree that this is just my personal experience and opinion and feedback from other hotel visitors may be helpful for fellow travelers.
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Alex
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Posted: 2011-05-09 03:02:56
Well, i'd add slamming of the doors is a great addition as well. You cannot close any room door without slamming it. They are not self closing either. Early morning wakeup - slam, late night good night - slam.
Yeah, the water is awful there. You cannot drink it really. Smells like sewage. The pool water is probably better quality.
I can't say much about surrounding area of the hotel. My wife was harassed by taxi drivers when she walked alone to the shopping center. And the whole area looks poor outside the hotel. |
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Ann
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Posted: 2011-05-09 15:25:34
Outdoor pool (actually there are more than 4 of them) is large and nice but you should be cold water lover. Once you get used to it - it is fine, but kids were shaking all the time. |
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Lily
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Posted: 2011-05-10 08:37:33
I got there just when the low season is changing over to high season. And guess what - a number of people went double overnight. Waiters are going crazy, a barely able to clean the tables. If you had enough time yesterday to discuss what tea or coffee you like - today you'll have to wait for your coffee for 10 min or even more.
They were absolutely unprepared for visitor surge. Food selection has got a little more variety but nothing much has changed. |
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