Atlantica Aegean Blue Resort — Hotel in Municipality of Rhodes

We arrived at midnight and upon arrival felt a little underwhelmed on entering the reception, we expected it to look upmarket and classy but it was rather basic. We are a well travelled family and have stayed at several 5 star resorts in the Greek islands before along with countless other holidays in Europe and were really looking forward to this holiday (as we have always wanted to visit the hotel) but feel it just didn’t deliver. It definitely is not a five star resort more like 3/3.5 star. I feel the hotel has the potential to be 5* but at the moment it is a long way from that and needs some changes. ||Rooms|We were meant to be upgraded to a family room with sliding partition to give us more space and privacy (we originally had this booked but our dates of travel were changed) however due to overbooking of the family rooms (as confirmed by reception) we were placed in a double room. Although advertised as a spacious room you will find that it is approximately no more than 12 sq ft (excluding bathroom and balcony). This was totally unsuitable for 2 adults and a 17 year old and reception confirmed that really the room is only suitable for 2 adults and a cot, so would advise if you are travelling with a child over the age of 10 you do need to upgrade to a bigger room when making your initial booking. ||Cleanliness|The hotel just doesn’t feel clean, bed linen and towels contained stains. Cups and glasses in the restaurant were chipped and cracked but still being given to guests. Plates in the restaurant were often dirty. Housekeeping teams don’t have carts and carry all items in bags so there’s bags of towels and bedding and rubbish everywhere which is collected at the end of the day by the maintenance team. ||Dining room|The dining room is chaos. You are not able to find a table yourself you have to wait to be escorted which means at busy times there is often a lengthy queue. There is not enough staff to service the guests efficiently and the layout for food means that there are people everywhere, with small children being left to roam freely. For some reason you are only allocated two spoons (why?) when the table is set so we had to request a spoon on each occasion. One time my husband asked the waitress for a spoon and she couldn’t be bothered to get one so said take it from another table!||Food|This has got to be the worst AI food I think we have ever had. The choice is very limited and there is no variation at breakfast. There is no fresh omelette station (which is unusual as they have the facilities) porridge wasn’t cooked and a limited pastries were offered. There was plenty of cake/donuts. The quality of the food supplied was poor, resulting in tasteless dishes and cauliflower and broccoli were offered for breakfast, along with raw bacon. |Fresh orange had to be pulped yourself (which is fine) and although it said children mustn’t do it (due to risk of amputation) this was not policed (one day I had to cut up oranges for a child of about 8 who was sent to get juice but wasn’t allowed to use the knife!). Staff bring you tea/coffee at breakfast but do not have fresh milk only UHT - if you want fresh milk you have to get it yourself. ||Snack bar|This seems great for 1-2 days until you realise that the menu for items offered never changes. It could be so much more with better offerings and different products offered, but each day along with the burgers and chips there was a fruit bowl, Greek salad covered in so much basil it was inedible, the same 3 sandwiches and plain greek yogurt (with or without granola),tasteless noodles and cardboard pizza. Again it has potential to be a great addition if it had a changing menu and offered different products. ||A la carte|We only dined at the Italian after the rave reviews. We love Italian food and have never had such a terrible meal. We arrived 10 mins early to be told they operate a strict seating time as our waitress would be serving the guests for the previous slot and we may be able to sit at the bar to wait ( there was maybe 5 other tables dining) The food was simply awful and the pizza was so salty it was not enjoyable at all. We had to pick our starter, main and dessert straight away - the ice cream was the best thing about the whole meal. The tiramisu was inedible and looked like it had melted. ||Drinks|The drinks supplied by the hotel (cocktails, soft drinks etc) are poor and sugary/syrupy. All the spirits used are local spirits which is unusual in 5* hotels. The hotel supplies filtered water from machines for guests. You are left 2 bottles of water each day for your fridge and canned drinks are replaced every two days (Pepsi/7 up and beer). ||Beach|The beach is nice if you go in at the Aegean Park section (you need to go through the automatic door) as it is rocky on the entrance near the infinity pool. The beach is mainly pebbles on both the beach (not overly sandy) and as you enter the sea, so swim shoes are a must (cheap to buy at the supermarket around the corner). The sea goes quite deep quickly so be careful with young children but it is great for snorkelling. You can hire loungers for €7.50 each from the man in the drinks truck. ||Pool/Towels|The main pool doesn’t feel very clean; both the main pool and the kids pool with the sail shade has a lot of sand on the bottom (this is because there are no showers around the main pool areas and people are coming from the beach areas and unable to shower) This also makes the water feel greasy as people are not washing off suncream before entering the pool. Unusually there is no towel hut to get and return towels . You are given a card and have to go to the spa to get the towels, they then stamp your card to show you have changed them. You also have to return them at the end of your stay and get your card stamped otherwise they will charge you €20 per towel when you check out - so don’t lose your card! ||Waterpark|This is the best thing about the hotel. It is clean and ran well. They have first aiders and lifeguards constantly blow whistles to alert guests if they are doing something wrong. They also have plenty of lifeguards on duty. It feels clean and safe and was great fun. ||Staff|I do not feel that the staff are particularly friendly in this hotel. The reservation manager was supposed to come back to us about our room change and we ended up needing to chase this up with them. It looked like they had forgotten to book our taxi to the airport when we checked out but this did get resolved. I feel they are rather curt in their approach with guests. The golf carts are a nuisance, they travel way too fast on the guest paths to the rooms. My 17yo son was nearly knocked over by one driving excessively fast and he had to jump in the bush to avoid being hit. The driver did not stop to check if he was okay or apologise. This could have been a serious accident if it was a small child. ||Activities/Entertainment|The activities seem to be primarily aimed at children rather than families unless you want to play volleyball or water polo. The football pitch is useable but has holes in it probably through wear and tear but could do with being updated, and the basketball court has no hoop. We did not watch the evening entertainment so cannot comment on this. ||Eating out|If you are looking for a change from the hotel Michael’s out the back of the hotel is a lovely Greek restaurant and Rosso di sera in the town is a fabulous family run Italian restaurant. I would recommend both of these restaurants for food quality, service and price. ||Overall, we wouldn’t return as feel we didn’t get what we were sold. If you’re marketed as a 5* hotel guests should have a 5* experience. We feel that in some areas it seems a bit tired and that they are overfilling the hotel and can’t really cope with the number of guests. I feel that the price paid was expensive in comparison to other 5* hotels in Greece in which we have stayed which are much better. We did visit the Aegean Park next door which is a spectacularly beautiful and clean looking hotel with a much better layout. It is also part of the atlantica chain and shares the waterpark. Despite the issues we still had a lovely holiday, after all it’s about the people you are with and the memories made but we...

We stayed at this hotel in July 2025 having booked through TUI. We arrived late on a Saturday night and we were greeted by staff and helped with our cases. There was some food available in the restaurant but it wasn't to out liking (each to their own) - we had eaten on our flight out so we weren't starving. When I booked with TUI I upgraded from the double room to a Family Room which has a King size bed and 2 x single beds in another room which is separated by sliding doors - I also opted for the balcony and partial sea view. On checking in, I was advised that the hotel had upgraded our room to a swim-up double room - I was absolutely mortified !! I had already paid for an upgrade and chosen the room we wanted for our holiday - why would the hotel take it upon themselves to upgrade us ! If I had wanted a swim-up room I would have booked one. This was a disaster and not the start I had wanted for our holiday. I refused the room upgrade and told the hotel that I wanted the room I had booked, but the room I had booked was not available ! I was so upset - I knew that the double room would be too small and my tall 11 year old would now be sleeping in a small single sofa bed and there would be hardly any room for us in the double room. This was not a good start to our holiday :-( We had no choice but to take this room and the hotel advised that they would allocate a family room to us the next day - after 1pm !!!!! Well, this was just annoying, couldn't un-pack, couldn't settle in - a day of our holiday wasted due to the hotel ! We were allocated a family room the next day and our suitcases were taken to our new room. I was unpacked and sorted in our room by late afternoon but what an annoyance - I couldn't relax until this was all sorted. Our family room was lovely though, which is what I had been expecting, it was spacious, had plenty of storage, a large bathroom, balcony, a drinks fridge that was topped up daily, lovely balcony but the sea view was not partial, it was a slither of a view ! Housekeeping visited each day and made our beds and kept our room very clean. The pools were lovely but we didn't like the pool bar much as people smoked at the bar, so was a little unpleasant. There was a poolside restaurant which served burger, pizza's etc You had to order your food from a counter, a queue formed daily and the self service drink machines regularly ran out - this area would be so much better if the food was self service - the menu was very rigid and the staff could at times be rude to the point where I had to to call a manager over as I had asked for some twister fries for my son (it came with fish & tartare sauce) but I had to have it how it came - you can see the staff preparing food in the background so explained that my son didn't want the fish and rather than waste it would they mind just making me a box of the twister fries instead. The server threw a box of food across the counter to me and said that is how it come and they can't change it (though if you spoke Greek they could do what you wanted - other guests were placing orders and got what they wanted). At this point I asked to speak to a manager, the lady got quite "mouthy" with the manager which was jaw-dropping but after she had gone, the manager served a box of fries ! Perhaps the hotel should consider changing this to buffet style - so much food was being wasted by a hotel who admired themselves as a "green" hotel ! The food in the main restaurant was very good, getting drinks could be slow, we often just helped ourselves to water and glasses but it was busy and perhaps they were short-staffed. The ice-cream bar was amazing - they served proper ice cream and all flavours were delicious ! The hotel grounds were lovely, clean and well maintained. The water park was a short walk down the side of the hotel; we had a great time here and the staff were lovely - just remember to take a drink with you as drinks are not free at the water park. There is a small beach that you can walk to which was lovely; there is also a water sports desk where you can pay for various activities - we did the jet-ski's, couch and tubes - all good fun and reasonably priced. The bar staff in this hotel were the best I have ever come across but perhaps because they were mainly women - if you are a woman you will understand my sentiment I'm sure. The ladies were always smiling, were lovely and patient with children and served guest in order they arrived at the bar - they were a real credit to the hotel. The evening entertainment was pretty much the same as every other hotel we have stayed at - some evenings its to our taste and some evenings it wasn't - can't please all the people all the time ! Recommend taking games with you - cards, Uno etc There are some nice seating areas away from the entertainment area so you can just hear the acts/music etc. We rented a car from Rodos cars who have a desk opposite the hotel reception desk - the lady (Kinga) here was very helpful - we rented a car on 3 separate days and visited Rhodes Town, Acropolis of Lindos, Prasonisi beach and drove around the West coast of the island. We also went to the water park in Faliraki which was a great day out. We also visited the island of Symi which was beautiful with its pastel painted houses. We booked a private taxi to collect us and take us to the Airport - we booked via Welcome Pickups and had no issues - we received text messages with drivers name and estimated time of pick-up - very good service. All in all we had a lovely holiday apart from the hick-up the hotel made with our room on arrival. The people of Rhodes were lovely and we would...

I am somebody that always reads reviews before booking a hotel. I have never felt so mislead by reviews than I have for this hotel. How it has amassed over 3000 excellent reviews is beyond me. This is NOT a 5 star hotel. It’s 3 star at best. ||||A luke warm welcome from reception when we arrived, a scattering of knackered faux leather chairs and scuffed tables which look like they belong in a soft play. Empty glasses surrounding a water/juice station. First impression was sub-par.||||We had a premium family partial sea view room. The only thing 5 star about the room was the view. The mountain was very nice. That’s where it ends. The room was tired and not cleaned well. The bathroom had toothpaste around the sink and splash back, toothpaste on tables in the bedroom, thick dust along the back headboard (under the bed has never seen a hoover). The appliances were relics from the 80s. The beds had rubber sheet protectors and crap plasticity duvets- every time you move it’s like going into the bag for life cupboard. The beds were also really soft, felt like sleeping on a bad airbed. ||If you were hoping for any privacy in your room should you be staying as a family forget it. The bathroom has no door. It’s a toilet cubicle and shower cubicle which don’t reach the ceiling. The kids partitioned area also doesn’t reach the ceiling. My husband had food poising whilst we were there so we all got to experience the sounds of throwing up all night which echoed round the room. ||Everything is tired. Drawers didn’t shut properly and many were dirty, marked or stained. I ended up cleaning around the sink as the cleaners didn’t bother and sand remained in all corners of the room for the duration of our stay. ||||The Buffett…. If you like really basic sub par food, chips, fried chicken, anything drenched in oil then you’ll love it. If you are hoping for some traditional Greek cuisine this isn’t for you. I have never seen a battered sausage on a stick at a buffet before and hope to god I never do again. Apart from Watermelon all the fruit looks and tastes like it’s straight out of a tin. Pastries at breakfast aren’t fresh. Nothing feels homemade. Never told what the fish was. I used to ask as the label only ever said ‘fish’ but the grill guys seemed to find this funny. I’ve never seen fish in round circles before, I would have mistaken it for fried tomato slice but the ‘fish’ label was there to help. Service in the buffet was poor. Usually you build a rapport with waiting staff but it was so hit and miss with who served your table. We often had plates piled at the side of the table, never enough cutlery and if you can find a teaspoon then you’ve struck gold. ||||The Pool… COLD. Coldest pool we’ve ever encountered on a Greek island in August. On our first morning we arrived at the pool around 10 ish to find a huge amount of beds reserved with towels. I asked a life guard what the hotels policy was on reserving to which he just shrugged and wondered off. If you sit at the shallow end it’s like I remember Faliraki in my teens…if you sit at the deeper end it’s somewhat better however at lunchtime there is a strong smell of cooking oil from the fast food outlet. ||||The beach… it’s small and quite stony and you have to pay 15 euros for 2 beds and a brolly which seems ironic as the hotel room key states ‘your key to the sea’ apparently only if you pay for it! ||The sea is great for snorkelling, far warmer than the pool and generally a more pleasant place to be. We took a couple of trips to Tsambika beach which was a great escape and lovely beach with a good restaurant and loads of activities for the kids. ||||The entertainment…is weird. The ‘animation team’, a bunch of gen Z’s in neon t-shirts perform some half baked dance routines every evening for the children’s disco to music you wouldn’t expect suitable for children. That’s as far as we got with the ‘entertainment’ and chose to miss the bingo nights and other ‘performers’. We returned from Lindos one night and assumed there was Karaoke going on, only to discover it was a band murdering some Cold Play.||||This is not in any way a 5 star hotel. It’s tired in all areas and the standard set by the hotel is low bar. Drink trolleys were left around walkways and empty cups and glasses were often balanced on handrails leading to our room. ||We ate in the Italian al la carte restaurant one evening. The setting and music were lovely. A far cry from the buffet mayhem. We had finished our main course when a family came in and sat behind us. Five children had devices without using headphones. The entire restaurant was then subjected to the sounds of slot machine games, music and cartoons. Staff said nothing so we decided to leave. As we left I asked the staff why they would allow a table to have devices playing loudly and ruining the atmosphere for everyone else. I was told ‘we can’t tell people what to do at their table, we didn’t tell you what to do’. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! How low does the standard have to be to allow that? I think that sums up the hotel really. The website looks a million miles away from the reality of the place. Don’t be fooled as we were. There are millions of better hotels than this, I couldn’t recommend not...