Ionian Sea Hotel villas & Aqua Park — Hotel in Lixouri Municipality

We've just come back from Kefalonia and a 7 day stay at the Ionian Sea Hotel. There's a real mix of reviews so I thought I'd try and clear up a few points.

Firstly the beach is a 5 minute walk away which is very pretty. It's sandy and the sea stays shallow for a while so is good for swimming etc. There's a cafe and shower and rentable sun beds but no toilets or water sports etc.

The location of the hotel means if you want to eat out or explore you'll need to rent a car. It's far enough in the sticks that it's a concerted effort go anywhere further than the beach. Kefalonia is so beautiful it's worth trying to do a tour of the island somehow at least once.

The water park is very good. Can get busy at peak times but is definitely a highlight of the location. Your all inclusive drinks and food don't apply here, but it's within the hotel complex so close enough to walk to the bar and restaurant to make the fact you don't get all inclusive there not a real issue. We spent many hours here. Kids loved it. (so did I).

The other entertainment in the hotel is a bit lacking. There was a Greek band one night but I don't recall any other adult entertainment. The kids liked the mini disco 9pm-10pm that the Ents team put on every night but that seemed to be the highlight of the night life. The gym, playpark, football pitch and arcade all look like they've not been maintained for some years. Useable but a bit rundown.

The pool bar area is nice. 3 pools (2x 20m sort of size with a baby pool), and a decent amount of sunbeds. These were usually taken by about 8:30am. Towels on the sunbeds on the way to breakfast seemed to be the way it worked. The bar itself is decent enough and stocks drinks, ice-cream and pastry snacks during the day free for all inclusive customers. The ice cream is very refreshing. At night it can get quite busy but by far the biggest issue is the size of the plastic cups. I would say they are less than half a pint and so drinking local lager means constant trips to the bar, and a lot of queuing, especially as you can only get 2 drinks at a time. It's fine if you are a spirits drinker but if not it's very frustrating. This is probably the worst thing about the hotel and makes all inclusive not good value IMHO. They just need bigger cups for lager. Also, the bar shuts completely at midnight. All inclusive drinks finish at 11pm.

I thought the restaurant was good and worthy of all inclusive. It does get busy but you can just avoid the peak times. Best time for the restaurant are breakfast before 8:30, lunch after 1pm and tea after 8pm. Restaurant bar is good, doesn't use the silly cups. They always have 6 main courses every day and these were different pretty much every day. All very nicely cooked too. A very good selection. There is pasta and chips etc always as well for the more picky, along with great salads and continental breakfast ingredients etc. I thought the food was excellent. Only issue with the Restaurant is that the coffee machines do keep going out of service and keep need maintaining. The staff do deal with this but it can mean you have to wait for coffee sometimes.

The apartment was fairly basic but clean and kept clean well by the staff. The aircon was good enough and shower good enough 99% of the time. Bath was small but fine. I ended up buying some instant coffee and mugs and milk from the hotel shop to make my own coffee because of the coffee machine issue. You do get a fridge and kettle (but no cups) in your room. Also a TV. Beds were on the firm side but comfy enough.

Finally the staff were amazing. I mean everyone too. Water park, Bar, Restaurant, Cleaning, Ents, Reception. Everyone. Very friendly, eager to help and approachable. We were arriving late on our first day(11pm) and emailed the hotel to ask for some food to be kept for us. They had saved a very nice selection for us and opened up the restaurant just for us out of hours so that's worth remembering. Really...

If you want the basics of a comfortable bed, hot weather, a pool and cold beer then you had that. |When we got there, we had a trek to our room in sea view block. This was atleast a 5 minute walk with cases in the heat. Then you had to tackle two lots of outdoor stair cases with heavy cases, as no lifts or ramps. |The room was a good size a pretty clean, however the floor in the bathroom and the shower, had brick size tiles was grubby grouting.the shower was like a bath on the first day, as the drain was blocked. I kept my pool shoes on while I was in there. There is shower gel and hand wash. No cups to rinse mouth out. |The air conditioning leaked and we reported it to reception and that seemed to get fixed. |Lovely views of the sea from our balcony and a good sun trap. ||From our block of rooms up the main walkway, there was always a bad smell from the bins, and residue from the bins over the whole start of the walkway. There was a trail from the bin waste leaking out all the way up the walk way. The bins got empty every day, fresh residue on the floor. There was no way of avoiding this so you had to walk through it. Even though several ladies were mopping by the pool/restaurant 7:30am/8am in the morning, it doesn’t fix the issue. That residue is then walked about by pools/play areas. ||Every toilet I came across outside of the room didn’t have seats. Several toilets didn’t have locking door. This made me feel unsafe, and I did slip into the toilet once in my wet pool wear, as no set and small bowl rim. ||Most of the staff were miserable apart from Fotis and the man checking your room number in the restaurant.||I had no WiFi one evening, so went to reception to ask what was going on. They said WiFi not working…told to use WiFi at reception 3 minute walk away and out of range.||Evening entertainment was poor but entertainers did try their best. All aimed at small kids. ||Pool were good and clean, always sun loungers to use. Waterpolo and Aqua fit on in the day on Greek time that is! Music on by pool through the day from 10-9. One type of beer and three wines on tap, strange cocktails made up with cheap spirits. You have to pay for named drinks. Hot drinks served all day.||Not much choice for food in the restaurant with around 10 hot food choices and a salad bar. Continental and 10 choices of hot foods for breakfast. The only fruit was tinned fruit or melon slices. Some biscuits and a cakes but not a lot. Ice cream always available in a tub. I still found something to eat, but with the heat, wasn’t eating much. ||The snack bar was pretty grim food wise. Evening meals not served till 7 so you get hungry before hand. Choice of nuggets and chips were cold and very cheap meat. Pizza was cold and dried out. Nothing fresh apart from some poor looking fruit cocktail. Ice cream always at snack bar to have in a pot. ||Thankfully I was happy to just lie in the sun all day and pop in the pool every now and again. There is hardly anything around. Very small beach 3 minutes way from our room, and a bar restaurant near the beach. Shop up the road but nothing else for miles. |Shuttle bus from the hotel to Lixouri a few times a day for €2, but last one back around 2pm. Taxi €15 one way. ||They charge you €15 a day if you leave the air con on. They don’t tell you at reception this. €10 a night resort charge. ||There is a lot of waste, with plastic cups uses for outside bars. All drink waste and cups go in the same bin with food waste.||Would I return, yes if it was cheaper as you got the basics. In enjoyed my runs in the morning around the roads and swims in the...

Stayed here from 8th till 15th September, lots of positives and a few negatives about this hotel but overall a good stay.|We paid extra for an upgraded room (38) and the room was fabulous, amazing view and mostly quiet which is what we like. The maids come every day , give you fresh towels and make the beds etc. The sheets were clean but they did have some stains in them which I didn't like. |This hotel is geared up for children however going at this time of year I didn't think there would be many kids around, I was very wrong, there were loads of kids so bear this in mind if you dont want to be around noise / children. |There are 3 pools, they are all very close together so if there's music blaring at the bigger pool, you can hear it at all 3, there is no quieter pool. The aqua park bit for me was actually more relaxing than the pool area, so I used that area to sunbathe some days. All drinks and snacks are not free / all inclusive down there you gave to pay. |The reception staff are incredibly friendly and helpful, I can't fault them at all. The bar staff in the beginning i didn't find very friendly, but as the week went on and a few conversations later, they became more friendly. |The food was OK, im not a fussy eater at all and I found plenty that I liked every day , the dining room is more of a canteen and very very noisy , not a relaxing meal but lots to choose from. Always fresh salad, chips and pasta, and plenty of meats to choose from, lots of pork but also beef chicken and prawns one day too. Just so noisy ! The strawberry cheesecake was amazing. |The drinks really let this hotel down, not branded cola / lemonade etc and the wine is undrinkable . Local spirits which is fine but the mixers weren't up to scratch in my opinion. The lager was drinkable, baileys or baileys equivalent . |We hired a car for a day to explore the island through Mercury, they were very helpful.| I'd recommend hiring an automatic rather than a manual , it will make driving that bit easier, a lot of steep roads and sharp turns. |Theres a lovely little beach just down a steep hill next to watermark, 3 / 4 min walk , no sunbeds down there , just need a towel on the sand and the sea was so beautiful and calm. I spent 2 days on the beach as was just so peaceful down there. |We paid £531 pp for a week all inclusive so for what we paid, I can not moan. Would I stay here again? Probably not because I don't have children and I dont want to be around lots of noise/ children on holiday but if I wanted a cheap week away in the sun then maybe. Would I recommend this hotel ? Yes I think I would if you dont mind noise, loud music by the pool and have children. |The staff work very hard here and very friendly, they are the biggest asset to this hotel. Special mention to the lifeguard at the aqua park, long hair man in his 50s whos name is Mikiaees or something very similar, he was a lovely lovely man. |Theres 2 other beaches in walking and the one beginning with V ( see photos) had an amazing view of the sunset. Wish id found out about this...