ELGA HOTEL — Hotel in Municipality of Kos

Hotel is behind Louis Supermarket & the main Kos Town bus stop, so location is great. Easy for taxis & transfers to find. And if very basic self-catering/bed/shower for the nights you stay is all you're after, the rooms are roomy & the beds are decent. I found it safe, secure & relatively comfortable for 2-star self catering. ||Now unfortunately that's as good as it gets I'm afraid. Before I move onto the negatives some considerations:||1. The shower is tiny & the curtain is more of a hindrance than a help. The shower head is mounted 2ft high on the wall either so you have to hold it when washing your hair & yourself. Treat the bathroom as a wet room as there is a drain in the middle of the floor. Also the shower drain clogs easily & it's never cleaned.|2. Absolutely nothing is supplied in the room - no soap, bottled water, toothpaste, iron. If you get in late at night bring supplies with you, the supermarkets don't open until 8am|3. There is a loose manhole cover outside my room, sounds like someone knocking on the door. Not the hotel's fault, I know.|4. The hotel prefer cash for tourist tax, air con & general bar spending. Staff can't/won't use their card machines.|5. Room cleaning is extremely spartan - existing bed sheets folded, the loo bins are supposedly emptied although ours wasn't during the second week, that's it.....||And now the bad|Absolutely appalled to see the lady working the pool bar smoking on my first day behind the bar, over the food & drinks behind the counter. She was smoking alongside 2 guests. Not only is this dirty, unhealthy and unhygienic but it is also ILLEGAL. She appeared to have relatives from England staying with her who later leaned over me in the bar to stub out their cigarettes over my shoulder onto my table. I am repelled by smoking and this alone would ensure I never return to the Elga, it is a disgusting dereliction of duty. To be honest hotels have been shut down for less.||The lady at the pool also seemed to permit 2 small children (6 & 8 yo) who appear to be part of the hotel family to run in & out of the main adults pool despite there being multiple signs insisting that children should stay in the children's pool only. The kids were allowed to run riot all over the pool & banged into/annoyed other guests.||People i met in Kardamena town over the 2 weeks have said the pool & the pool bar manager have a very poor, bad & sloppy reputation for this across all of Kardamena & that's why they won't go near the pool or the Elga hotel. The Kool Pool is around the corner, is a lot more popular & is clean & professionally run.||On my last week I also noticed my room did not have the toilet paper bin relined & no toilet paper was left despite us having run out for 4 days, there was a significant and sudden drop in standards. Clean towels were scarce on the second week & guess who I saw was on cleaning duty but spent most of the day smoking with the cleaning trolley with her English pals by the pool those days we had issues with cleaning? That's right, pool bar lady! To be fair later in the week I saw one of the sons cleaning & our room was rapidly brought back to decent standard. But it's blatantly obvious the pool manager is a slacker, does not care or have any pride in her work & brings your hotel into disrepute.||It is a shame but the entire hotel & the team's demeanour is sad, tired, disinterested and seems almost unfriendly. I get the feeling they don't want to run the hotel anymore, or that there are family tensions. I tried to make conversation with them but they were not interested. Other reviews have indicated that unless you spend money at their overpriced dull bars they have no interest in you & I think this is accurate. But why spend €12 on a beer & wine that costs €7 everywhere else & isn't smoked on top of by a smoking barmaid? Was made to feel like we were hassling them when we visited the bar (twice in 2 weeks, at 8/9pm), the owner & one of the kids were sat watching tv & didn't appreciate us interrupting them - we were polite & all we wanted was a beer and wine before we went out. This is not what I read about the Elga hotel in the past & it seems a shame, there is no atmosphere at all and it feels uneasy and not nice. They "don't know how to use" the card machine in the bar either, in late 2025 that is really poor & everywhere else in Karda has no issue with it. Time for a change?||Final night update. Cockroach in the room. Due to insufficiently cleaned room. All it takes is a bleach mop of the floor - a very small floor - every day but you couldn't manage that...

Hotel's behind Louis Supermarket & the main Kos Town bus stop, so location great & easy for taxis/transfers to find. And if v basic self-catering/bed/shower for the nights you stay is all you're after, the rooms are roomy & the beds are decent. I found it safe, secure & relatively comfortable for 2-star self catering.

Unfortunately that's as good as it gets I'm afraid. Before I move onto the negatives some thoughts:

Shower is tiny & curtain is a hassle. The shower head is mounted 2ft high on the wall either so you have to hold it when washing your hair & yourself. Treat the bathroom as a wet room as there is a drain in the middle of the floor. Also shower drain clogs easily & it's never cleaned. Absolutely nothing is supplied in the room - no soap, bottled water, toothpaste, iron. If you get in late at night bring supplies, supermarkets don't open until 8am Loose manhole cover outside my room, sounds like someone knocking on the door. Not the hotel's fault, I know. Hotel prefer cash for tourist tax, air con & general bar spending. Staff can't/won't use card machines. Room cleaning is extremely spartan - existing bed sheets folded, the loo bins are supposedly emptied although ours wasn't during the second week, that's it.....

And now the bad Absolutely appalled to see the lady working the pool bar smoking on my first day behind the bar, over the food & drinks behind the counter. She was smoking alongside 2 guests. Not only is this dirty, unhealthy and unhygienic but it is also ILLEGAL. She appeared to have relatives from England staying with her who later leaned over me in the bar to stub out their cigarettes over my shoulder onto my table. I am repelled by smoking and this alone would ensure I never return to the Elga, it is a disgusting dereliction of duty. To be honest hotels have been shut down for less.

The lady at the pool also seemed to permit 2 small children (6 & 8 yo) who appear to be part of the hotel family to run in & out of the main adults pool despite there being multiple signs insisting that children should stay in the children's pool only. The kids were allowed to run riot all over the pool & banged into/annoyed other guests.

People i met in Kardamena town over the 2 weeks have said the pool & the pool bar manager have a very poor, bad & sloppy reputation for this across all of Kardamena & that's why they won't go near the pool or the Elga hotel. The Kool Pool is around the corner, is a lot more popular & is clean & professionally run.

On my last week I also noticed my room did not have the toilet paper bin relined & no toilet paper was left despite us having run out for 4 days, there was a significant and sudden drop in standards. Clean towels were scarce on the second week & guess who I saw was on cleaning duty but spent most of the day smoking with the cleaning trolley with her English pals by the pool those days we had issues with cleaning? That's right, pool bar lady! To be fair later in the week I saw one of the sons cleaning & our room was rapidly brought back to decent standard. But it's blatantly obvious the pool manager is a slacker, does not care or have any pride in her work & brings your hotel into disrepute.

It is a shame but the entire hotel & the team's demeanour is sad, tired, disinterested and seems almost unfriendly. I get the feeling they don't want to run the hotel anymore, or that there are family tensions. I tried to make conversation with them but they were not interested. Other reviews have indicated that unless you spend money at their overpriced dull bars they have no interest in you & I think this is accurate. But why spend €12 on a beer & wine that costs €7 everywhere else & isn't smoked on top of by a smoking barmaid? Was made to feel like we were hassling them when we visited the bar (twice in 2 weeks, at 8/9pm), the owner & one of the kids were sat watching tv & didn't appreciate us interrupting them - we were polite & all we wanted was a beer and wine...

Its a shame when hotels get undeserving bad reviews but this hotel deserves one. Where to start? We messaged elga before hand and requested a room with aircon. We didnt realise that this was only in 1 room so while the kids were lovley and cool we had to melt in the next room or get eaten alive by the mosquitos. I understand that you can rent a fan from reception but why dont they leave a fan in each room without aircon? Its just a way to make more money from you. The rooms were acceptably clean apart from the bathroom which had mold growing up the door. The shower head hook was broken. This would be very cheap to fix! The shower is small with a horrible shower curtain that sticks to you if you pull it around. God knows who elses naked body that was stuck to! The towels are poor quality with holes and stains. On our first night we were kept awake by the 24 hour bar by people being to loud at 3am. The breakfast is included in the price but is inedable. This includes stale cereal and bread and jam with processed ham and cheese, boiled eggs and yoghurt. My husband didnt get a good night sleep all week because of bed springs sticking out of the matteress. We wern't made to feel welcome at all. On our second day we were sitting around the pool when a stray cat decided to come and say hello. Being animal lovers we gave it a stroke and the cat decided to jump up onto the sunbed. We were instantly shouted at from accross the pool to put the cat down and stared at as if we had done something terrible. We understand that people have allergies but the way the woman spoke to us was just so rude. After this inccident it was obvious to us that we wernt welcome guests so we decide to spend our time at the kool pool which is just up the road and very welcoming. Our flight home wasnt until 10.30 at night so we asked if we could keep the room on which i was told would be €25 but would have to arrange it with the owner. But when i went to sort this out the next day the price was suddenly €50! The rooms only cost €35 a night so i feel this price was because we hadnt spent any money around the pool.

Despite the unprofessonal manner at the hotel we enjoyed the rest of our holiday meeting some wonderfull local people who i hope we will meet again someday but We will deffinatly be giving hotel...