Blue Sea Holiday Village — Hotel in Municipality of Rhodes

Basic information The hotel is located in the not very attractive area of Afantou between Faliraki and Kolymbia. It is large, as the accommodation is in blocks. Our travel agency states that the hotel is right next to the beach, within 200 meters walking distance. But this is a big lie, because between the hotel and the beach there is only a road and sand, at least 350 meters with sand, unfinished artifacts, garbage, dry grass. The hotel boasts HolidayCheck Award from 2024, but it seems rather modest. The reception is just a large table with smiling receptionists. The staff are mostly fine, friendly, smiling, and helpful. A few hundred meters from the hotel is a shopping center, and right next to the hotel is a car rental company. Otherwise, there is absolutely nothing. If you want to get to the town of Afantou, be prepared for a long walk, but think twice, as there is almost nothing in the town - a few shops, hotels, restaurants, bars, and a bus stop at the end.

Food I have no complaints about the food, there is a large selection of tasty dishes. Although they are repetitive, there is still a varied selection. The menu offers almost everything you would find in a 4* hotel in Greece. There were many types of meat, cheese, desserts, ice cream, tasty yogurts, and pancakes on a regular basis. Seafood was missing, there were shrimp (larger type) once and calamari once. The staff in the dining room were mostly nice. There were usually enough seats, and the time slots were reasonably long. However, the seating area did not seem very pleasant, more like a cheap restaurant dining room. There was a bar by the main pool where they served food such as pizza, gyros, and sweets. We often ate there before lunch and had full stomachs before lunch or dinner.

Staff I read some negative reviews, but my experience was good.

Rooms Although the hotel did not make a very good impression in terms of cleanliness, the rooms were fine. Clean, spacious, although there were a few minor issues (mold, quick fix), overall a better experience. There is a safe in the room and even in the more remote areas, the Wi-Fi was relatively good. Only once did I prefer my own data plan to Wi-Fi. I have a complaint about the staff who cleaned the rooms, or rather our room. Sometimes the cleaning lady didn't come at all. I don't mind not having a sheet, clean towels, or a wet floor, but the trash can from the toilet needs to be taken out EVERY day (you know why...). I even had to ask for new toilet paper twice – strange, isn't it? We also lost one earphone, which my daughter left on the bed – we never found it.

Pools There are many of them, about 7, some of which are only for children. There is even a mini water park (more for younger children). The furthest pool has the fewest people, but unfortunately there is no bar.

Surroundings As I mentioned above, there is almost nothing in the area, but for €18 you can take a taxi to Kolymbia, where there are many shopping opportunities. I recommend trips by car or bus if you want to see something.

Beach and Sea The beach is large, long, next to a quiet road, pebbly with coarse sand, and the sea is clean. There are few people on it. I am sure that if there were more hotels and more services on the beach nearby, there would be more people here. On the beach where we went, there is one (yes, one) small restaurant or buffet. Add two showers by the sun loungers and you have all the beach facilities you need. Forget about sports activities. The hotel does not have its own sun beds with umbrellas (about 20 pieces) on the beach. An unpleasant guy charges for the sun beds on the beach, and he asked us to pay the full fee even at 6:30 p.m. when he saw our daughter sitting on one of the sun beds and putting on her shoes.

Summary If you don't mind the above and just want to lie by the pool with a drink and a book in your hand and occasionally walk to the beach (without services), this hotel will probably suit you. If you like to go for walks in the area at least occasionally, look for...

First of all my comparison is based on the hotels in Turkey, which we visited during two previous years - the level is way lower. Let me go through everything. Rooms are nice, spacious, with good air conditioning. But, if you want to stop the air conditioning for the night, the bathroom starts smelling like a sewage. Cleaning is done everyday but it's more like a floor sweep. Food was the best part of the stay - good selection, quite tasty, various special meals everyday. Sweets mostly tasteless or extremely sweet, definitely the worst part of the buffet. There are three swimming pools, main one usually really packed, so we stayed mostly in the back one. Now - water is ok and that's all good to say. Now all the bad parts: no guard (maybe there's one at the main pool), so there's total chaos - if you're lucky and you have civilized people around, you will have a good time, if you're not, there will be kids jumping into the water, splashing everything, or people coming with huge inflatable things taking all the space. There are signs, for example forbidding jumping into the water, but no one cares. Pools are open 10-18, officially, and cleaning is done around 9 in the morning, when people are obviously already swimming. Sunbeds are booked with towels, and there are way fewer of them than needed. Some English group was "booking" 6 beds at 22:00 on the previous day... Towels can be exchanged only every 3 days, only during pool opening hours, which is ridiculous, because everyone comes earlier and leaves later, when the sun is not as strong. Another interesting discovery about the opening hours - if you need water, you cannot get it in the morning, except for breakfast. You get some bottles on arrival and the service people would suggest buying bottles in the shop, if you want more. Now - cleanliness... Cleaning is done in the morning, by which I mean 8-10. You go to breakfast seeing trash everywhere, walking between people that use water hose to clean swimming pool surroundings. Once everything is cleaned, that's all that you ever see that day. New piles of trash are slowly appearing during the day and no one cares. Public toilets are worse than on most dirty gas stations. There are 3 bars in total, but one open in the morning, meaning from 10 to lunch time, second after dinner. When you go to the bar, after waiting in the queue, there's equal chance of the following: you can get a beer in the plastic cup you can get a plastic cup, if you ask, but be asked to pour the beer by yourself in the station nearby get a beer in paper cup, which gets soft quite fast, because hotel did not invest into reusable cups enough. There are tens of paper cups everywhere, everyday, especially when it gets windy, as people don't care to keep their surrounding clean and no one from the hotel cares as well. Another interesting part: if you want to go on a trip, usually you need to ask for an early breakfast. Early breakfast is bread with butter, yogurt or sweet cookies. No way to even make a sandwich. Last, but not least - daily attractions. During the day there's for example a dart tournament. The way it looks is you throw darts from really far, while a guy from the hotel that wants to be funny pushes you, touches, or invents special way of throwing darts, to be "entertaining". We went once and it was too much, and we really like dart in general. The whole "tournament" was also done as to finish as fast as possible, even starting 10 minutes earlier than the schedule. Evening animations are nice once per week, where there's an acrobatic show, while during majority of days there are singers, with almost fully empty audience (one day hotel moved the show to the bar, as live music, because I think no one was coming to see it in the amphitheater). In general, ladies cleaning the rooms and mrs Anna from the jungle bar are the only smiling friendly people, the rest of the organization is terrible. We're definitely not...

Just spent 2 weeks here with our 12 year old son. The hotel definitely isnt a 4* but it has potential to be much better than what it is. I appreciate everyone has a different experience and different expectations but this was our experience. Before going I had red some bad reviews on the Facebook page but with every holiday thought we would fo and make our own minds up...|On arrival (approx 11.30pm) we were given our room card and sent on our way, opened the room and it was occupied - thankfully noone was in there just all of their belongings. We went back to reception to tell the man there (who made sure we knew he was finished soon) who sent security back up to the room, he opened the door and looked smug when it opened and used his hands to indicate it has worked. We pointed out it was occupied and he took us back to reception. The guy on reception told us to wait and off they both went and were gone for ages, eventually they came back and we were took to another room. The room was tiny with only a small window, no balcony or anything. By this point it was almost 1am so we stayed there the night and went to reception the next morning. They gave us another room which was a good size with a little pool just outside the room. ||The food is hit and miss, we always found something to eat but it was sometimes cold, sometimes the selection wasnt great but its what you would expect for an AI. The biggest issue I found was the dining room was small for the size of the hotel. I think in peak season it would be a nightmare. The food at the snack bar was lovely, fresh pizzas, gyros, salads, pastries and ice cream all day. Drinks we found to be ok, though we got sick of the lager at times. ||The pool areas could be lovely, however you're lucky if you can find a sunbed that isnt broken. The pool area was never washed down while we were there meaning any spilt drinks or dropped food was just left there. And the slide pool was filthy, probably because to get to the steps you need to walk across the grass! There was no lifeguard at any pool, it meant the slides were a free for all. Kids climbing up them, pushing in, playing at the bottom of them and using floaties despite signs up saying no floaties. ||Entertainment was hit and miss tbh, only the last few days when a guy was doing all activities himself it felt like something was going on and he came round the pool interacting with everyone. The staff on the restaurant work very hard, as does Anna at the jungle bar. The spa lady did end up getting on our nerves, we appreciate she has a job to do but going round the pool 2-3times a day asking the same people is a bit much. You'd think she would remember who she has spoke to. And the "deal" she offered us wasnt much of a deal! ||The hotel itself is pretty dirty, very rare we seen any staff cleaning communal areas, rooms aren't cleaned properly though we always had fresh towels and bedding was changed a few times during the stay. |Be prepared for ants! We were given a spray which worked for a couple or days before they returned. All 3 of us were covered in bites by the time we left. ||The hotel is pretty secluded but Afandou town is nice with a few bars. And buses are easy to use and cheap enough. We went to Old town, faliraki, Lindos and Symi island. ||With some tlc it could be a lovely hotel. We got a really good deal on our holiday here but if we had paid what some people had told us they paid I would be very disappointed. Yes it was the end of season but I don't feel that should be an excuse for some of the...