Eri Beach & Village — Hotel in Municipality of Chersonissos

I was extremely anxious about this holiday after reading the reviews online. However, I was pleasantly surprised. ||Hotel - Room was standard, nothing special, but had a lovely view & beds and bins changed daily. Pools were cleaned in the mornings and surrounding was kept clean and tidy. We did have one complaint though. My daughter sliced her foot on a broken tile in one of the pools (the one located up the stairs, just before star beach pool) I informed the life guard who seemed concerned and came to check she was ok, however a lady staff member who was with her, laughed at me when i explained i was letting them know incase it happened to someone else and said ‘We know’ and rolled her eyes. ||Resort- The Hotel Had a large salt water pool with slides, a beach pool, another two pools, and a large separate slide selection, all with bars available to get hot and cold drinks, with plenty of beds. It was kept tidy and other holiday makers respected the surroundings. The toilets were a bit untidy due to wet feet and sand and the drainage system often struggled, leaving toilets unflushed. Lots of shops for essentials and luxury’s, places to book trips, hire cars and beautiful restaurants to eat out. Views were stunning. ||Entertainment - There wasn’t much entertainment, as in ‘shows’, however, there is plenty to do without it. There was lots of arcades on the resort and also local go karting, mini golf, again stunning restaurants with beautiful views and lots of bars. On the resort itself they had a kids mini disco every evening, and a DJ after that, so when we didn’t go out we just chilled with drinks and played cards, listening to music. There was also a lot of water sports and fun you could book on for to. ||Food - Probably the only complaint I had. It wasn’t amazing, however, i never really enjoy the all inclusive food, I find it repetitive no matter where you go. They offered special every morning, afternoon and evening, which was great, however, this lead to extremely large cues. Salad and fresh fruit was always made available though so we were fine. We did eat out in the evening for 5 days of our 10 day holiday though. ||Staff - For us personally, staff were great. Friendly, helpful, and welcoming. Our air con stopped working and they had it fixed within the same day. The only comment i’ll make on staff, is that the two bar men by the salt water pool need to go. They were extremely rude (to everyone) and simply look like they don’t want to be there. They really let the hotel team down by being so unkind to guests. ||Location - As mentioned above, location is amazing. The views are stunning. I felt safe, which for me personally is a biggie as i suffer with anxiety. The views again are beautiful, and there is just so much to do. ||People - I noticed some of the english reviews mention about the foreigners and not being many english guests. This was true for us, however, they were all lovely, kind, and made the effort to speak english, say thank you, sorry, hello etc… as i said i felt very safe and this was no problem for us. |Ofcourse, you will have the odd human that doesn’t know how to cue up, or act like it’s every man for himself, but, again, this is normal for an all inclusive resort. ||All in all, we had a lovely family holiday at this hotel, and came home feeling very satisfied. ||PS - Extra shout out to the bar man at Star Beach pool, he made the effort every day to ask us how we were and engage in conversation with us. Maybe if they decide to keep the two grumpy men at the salt water pool bar they can take some tips and training from him. ||I would also like to add that there were hundreds of guests. I would say that not even half complete reviews, so the reviews you read don’t reflect the true opinion of this hotel. I saw everyone having a lovely holiday, If all those people i saw left a review, then tripadvisor reviews would look...

TL;DR: Great location by the sea, but everything else was a disappointment. • Room was dirty, infested with ants, air conditioning didn’t work for the entire stay, water was either not running or dirty. • Food was tasteless, plates were often missing, meals undercooked, cutlery dirty. • Staff unhelpful and repeatedly ignored reported issues. • All-inclusive bar lacked many drinks, was far from the beach. • Town full of pushy street vendors.

Conclusion: This hotel doesn’t meet even basic standards. I strongly recommend avoiding it. Where do I even begin. After landing, we spent an hour and a half on a bus with a broken air conditioning system — although that’s probably not directly the hotel’s fault.

Rooms: When we received our room key, we discovered the room was infested with ants, the air conditioning didn’t work, and the sink was clogged. They managed to get rid of the ants that same evening and replaced the entire drainage pipe under the sink, but the air conditioning was never fixed during our stay. The maintenance guy came three times on the first day, each time fiddling with the condensation drain hose and telling us it was fine. Even though I kept telling him — and the reception — that the AC wasn’t cooling at all. Each time I reported the issue, the receptionist would reply sourly with, “We’ll fix it,” and after the third time I told her they kept doing the same thing without results, she snapped back with, “Don’t worry.” They didn’t even care that there was a puddle of water under the AC unit in our room. One day, I was told that a technician would be coming to refill the refrigerant, and she wrote down our room number along with about ten others. Of course, no one ever came — or maybe the refrigerant ran out before they got to us — because the AC never worked. The room temperature was constantly above 30°C. They couldn’t move us to another room because the hotel was supposedly full. We’ll be following this up with our travel agency, because a functioning air conditioner was part of what we paid for. On Wednesday, we even had no hot water the entire morning, and once it finally came back, it was dirty until the evening.

Food: When it comes to the restaurant, it’s more of a queue simulator. Plates were often unavailable, and several times we didn’t even get to eat because nobody brought any out. The food was tasteless, rice and pasta undercooked, eggs spoiled, and cutlery dirty. Most dishes didn’t even have name tags, so you had no idea what you were eating. Two out of the three drink dispensers were missing several sodas for the entire stay (like diet cola, etc.), and carbonated drinks were often out as well.

Location: The only real positive about this hotel is the location — it’s close to the sea and within walking distance of the town. However, going into town requires nerves of steel — there are countless flower vendors who will push roses into your hands while saying “for free” and then demand money. Best advice: raise your hands or put them behind your back, because they’ll literally force the items into your hand. The same thing happens with glowing bracelets. Also, don’t bother getting drinks at the hotel bar in the evening. You’re better off walking a bit to the city, where prices are much more reasonable. For example, a beer at the hotel bar costs €6, while in town it’s €3. The all-inclusive bar is located on the opposite end of the resort from the beach, while the paid bar is right...

Eri Beach is a complex that has outgrown itself massively. Its not just one hotel, its a combination of Eri Beach and Sun Bay, but without having any of the Sun Bay facilities or staff.

FOOD - There's literally one restaurant to serve 2000+ people. Meal times are absolute carnage, if you can even find a table! Once you get past that challenge, it's time to play Hunt The Plates...

The layout of the serving areas means you're stuck in huge queues wherever you go, whilst others are trying to squeeze past and get drinks/head to tables. The food itself is very basic and repetitive, the mass catering element meant that some meats were often either overdone (pork so tough it couldn't be cut) or underdone (turkey that was gelatinous and pink).

30 mins before the end of the mealtime, they start removing half the food, regardless of whether you're literally in a queue to get it, resulting in further pileups as everyone shifts over to the other side to grab whatever scraps are left.

Forget about getting any ice cream, the queue for that at lunch and dinner is horrendous.

DRINKS - The only all-inclusive drinks are soft drinks, watery beer, wine or brandy. Even getting these becomes a mission as the bars are massively understaffed and you face more huge queues. The cups themselves are tiny, less than 300ml.

In the evening, they open the paid bar, where you'll be forking out €9 for a cocktail, €5 for a beer.

EVENING ANIMATION - A kids disco that lasts 10 mins. With the same music, same dances. That's it. There is an amphitheatre but it was never used in our werk there (and we stayed in August so prime high season!)

POOLS - The pools are clean and well maintained, with good play areas for younger kids.

The waterpark has salt water, so make sure you go prepared with googles! For the first 5 days of our stay, there was no supervision on the slides, which meant you had adults and teens ploughing down and into smaller kids without a single care. Our son actually ended up getting kicked in the head by one such person!

CLEANLINESS - The cleaning staff are massively overwhelmed. They have an army to clean the thousands of rooms, which resulted in the communal areas being left to quite literally rot. The toilets were awful, with open bins and signs saying not to put tissue in the toilet. Sounds OK, until you realise women are having to leave soiled sanitary items in the open, in 30c+ heat...

ROOMS - We had a family room, as there were 4 of us (2 adults and 2 kids). The room itself was OK, if crowded with a double, a bunk bed, and a single bed. It was extremely dark though, and we found that the aircon unit leaked pretty bad!

The room was pretty tired and definitely needs a lick of paint and a decent wipe around.

OVERALL - The whole place has an aura of chaos, caused by too many people and not enough staff. The decor and surroundings were generally very outdated and the main part of all inclusive (food/drink) became the worst part of the stay!

The fact that the Sun Bay side had an extra restaurant and bar that were all closed off just made it worse, we could see the potential but were stuck in hell!

Personally, we won't be going back and I'd recommend everyone else to avoid until they work out the staffing issues and get their...