Aktea Beach Village — Hotel in Ayia Napa

We stayed (two adults plus kids: 4 years old and 19 months old) at Aktea's for 11 days. When we arrived, we were impressed at the first sight by the front yard with trees, bushes and various vegetation. It perfectly fits for the facility like Aktea, that consist of main building with only ground floor and cottage like houses that serve for accomodation. Alleys amongs the cottages are bordered by maintained bushes, greenery, fruit and palm trees. We like such places much more than huge hotels with immense footprint with everything inside that are covering the sea sight and destroy the feeling of peace and relax. When we walked to main building, we lost our breath. It was perfectly styled inside: with blue shaded sofas, old massive wooden furniture, house plants, brass lamps on ceilings and granite tiles on the floor. The lobby itself is a place to relax for itself. The main builidng has a underground level too, but we didn't visited it except the toilets that belong to the outer swimming pools on the hotel's backyard. Way to toilets passes by saunas, inside pool and laundry. We lived in a two room apartament with a balcony, equipped kitchenette and some furniture. It had almost everything for a peaceful vacation. The room with toilet and bath was weared out, but it was nothing that would cause our eyes to cry. The window in the room was a great bonus. Only the noisy sliding door was annoying, especially at night. We are surprised with the aircondition - it was really quiet and the outter units were hidden, so there were no buzzing sounds from them during night. What we missed in the apartament - one hanger to dry our swimsuits was not enough, better noise reduction from neighbouring apartments, better sealing around the door (slot between door and floor was big enough to put a little finger there). We payed all-inclusive, but it was not as limitless as I had expected to be from 4 star facility. They served no real juices, they were tank like syrups mixed with soda, mixed drinks were made by these and mixed with less knows alcoholic / coloring beverages. This was no real problem for me, because they had a decent ouzo and zivania, but I would like to have a good mixed longdrink one or two times per the vacation. They had wines and beers of several brands, surprisingly good tasting. The only disadvantage was that you can ask for the drink on the bar near the backyard pool and in limited count (per person). Wide offer of meals, fruit, sweets on breakfast, lunch and dinner, however I lack them to be more tasting. I understand, that the food has to be prepared in a way of people that are visiting Aktea the most (Russians), but more spices, herbs, juices in the meals would attract us more ! Please be more like 4 star facility, not 3 star in food. My wife during the last few days were disappointed by the food. Don't get me wrong - they had thematic days (greek day, italian day, seafood day, asiatic day, ...), they filled the missing meals instantly and staff was really caring, but after all these days she just found them tasting generally the same. As I wrote, Aktea has a great surroundings. There are many trees, bushes, greenery mixed among the cottages, the unlimited sea sight and the best thing is, that it is just 5 minutes in walking distance from Nissi beach !! Aktea is a place for families, not for drinking parties, it is not top notch, you will miss some things here (for a 4 star facility) but definitely not be disappointed. Oh, and I forgot to mention they had a small grocery / souvenir store near the bar and...

The location is terrific, near plenty of good restaurants, near bus stops to go further east (eg. to the sea caves) and just a short walk up from Nissi beach. The rooms are fine, except that the mattresses for the sofa bed the kids slept on were extremely thin - fine for our younger but not so much the older one. But rooms otherwise for us lacked nothing and were cleaned daily, sheets changed, bin emptied, floor mopped, room towels changed. We were also allowed to change the beach/pool towels as often as we liked. We were all very happy with the breakfast buffet, lots of fruit, cereal, bread, potato cakes and the British staples of eggs, bacon, sausages and beans and all with a beautiful view of the sea. The evening buffet meals were a big letdown on the whole, especially for the veggies among us. There was generally only one labelled veggie option, usually very bland, apart from salad and though sometimes there looked like there might be another, many dishes were not properly labelled meaning you had to go back and forth finding someone to ask about ingredients, and were never really sure. Also, the food on offer was often not really kid friendly - some fries would have meant at least they always definitely had something to eat. The staff were on the whole extremely helpful and generally very smiley and friendly and I couldn't fault them at all. They created a very nice atmosphere at the hotel and in some ways were perhaps the biggest plus of the hotel. They are clearly very well trained, or whoever is employing them is doing an extremely good job. They created a very warm atmosphere and were always as accommodating as you could ask for. The pool is a good size, plenty of loungers and so forth. There is a shop on site, so you can get what you need without going any further if you like. The evening entertainment was just not my kind of thing, so I shan't comment any more than to say 'light entertainment'. If you like that kind of thing, you will enjoy what they offer. The weather in June was ideal. While we all did still manage to get at least a little burned at some point, the sun was generally hot but not oppressive. Most of the guests appeared to be German or Polish, though not only. There were some Serbians, Ukranians and others. This is probably not the place to come to if you're looking to party. Late teens and twentysomethings were few and far between. On the basis of our stay, the hotel seems far more geared towards older guests, or families with young kids and though our kids are a bit older, we all had a great week. Definitely...

Definitely not a 4 star hotel. I'm not sure it even deserves 3.

The high score for cleanliness that this place has makes me think they gave us the worst room. Yes, they sweep the floors every day and they change the sheets every two days, but that bathroom has not been thoroughly cleaned since God knows when. I know that there are ants and all sorts of bugs in Cyprus in this time of year, but those flies in the photo provided were dead and glued to the wall and no one cleaned them. The bathroom has no drain, so good luck cleaning all the water from the shower. Not that I don't bring my own anyway, but there were no toiletries provided. All inclusive, but no water provided in the room. And yes, they have a sign in the lobby saying their tap water is drinkable (and they serve it at the table btw), but it has a bad smell, like algae. Air conditioning is dirty and a health hazard. The smell coming from the kitchen drawers is atrocious. Some of the electric outlets in the room did not work. Couldn't put our beach costumes and towels to dry on the balcony because of the garden sprinklers.

I would not recommend the all inclusive. The breakfast is good, but most of the time, at lunch and dinner we could not find anything we actually liked, and it was very frustrating - in the last two days there, we skipped their lunch and dinner and ate at the taverns in town. They use the cheapest cuts of meat, and I do admit I am picky with meat and I eat mostly chicken and turkey breast, but come on, chicken breast is a basic food and they served it only once. The beef and the pork cuts used were already very fat, and the sauces they used made the food even heavier. The breaded vegetables, mozzarella sticks and the turkey cordon bleu had to have been the frozen types you get from Lidl, there is no way those were made from scratch.

The staff is mostly ok. The guys from the bar are nice, the restaurant serving staff is also ok, but we found out that we had free cocktails and alcoholic drinks included three days into our stay, because the receptionist told us that we get free drinks if we stay at the pool (which we excluded because we are beach people), instead of saying that we can get free drinks on the condition we drink them in the bar area, which is located next to the pool.

Location is great because of its proximity to Nissi Beach, the gardens are pretty and the cats are lovely.

Would not...