Blue Sea Island — Hotel in Municipality of Rhodes

As many other people have found out to their cost, if you book an 'Annexe' or 'special offer' room at the 4* Alpha Beach Hotel you will be made to stay in the 3* Alfa Hotel over the road. The way this is done is so misleading, as there is no information about this other hotel in the Alpha Beach Hotel's write-up. We found out about the scam when we went on trip advisor after booking, so we emailed our holiday provider and got reassurance from them that we would be housed in the 4* Alpha Beach Hotel, however to our disgust when we arrived we were told we were across the road in the 3* Alfa Hotel. This is exactly what we didn't want to hear! The hotel told us we could use the all inclusive facilities at the Alpha Beach Hotel if we paid another nearly 400 Euros for the two weeks!! We are in the process of making a formal complaint to our holiday provider and will take things as far as necessary until we receive compensation. ||||On the plus side we found our room at the Alfa Hotel to be clean, although the fridge did not work, nor did the outside light. The air conditioning was noisy and set to go to a minimum of 20 degrees, plus your key is a smart card which you have to insert into a slot to make the electric work in the room, so you can't leave it running if you go out, so it's stifling when you get in of an evening. Also they charge you 7 euros per day for the privilege! (even though in the write-up for the Alpha Beach Hotel which we thought we'd booked said air-con is free in peak season). The cleaners come every day and give clean towels and change the bed linen, which is good. They are about the only staff there who show any friendliness at all though. The pool is clean and situated in a pleasing location and there were always plenty of loungers available, even though hoards of reps seemed to come and use the pool fairly often. ||||Breakfast is supposed to be served between 7 and 11am, however if you arrive any time after 10am you may find they are clearing the food away before you can get anything. The breakfast chef was a miserable, dour looking man who spent most of the time staring with malice at anyone who dared to go up and get any food! The food is all cheap nasty stuff and is kept warm by lamps and hot water under the trays. This makes it dry out quickly, so what was poor to begin with soon becomes inedible. I survived on melon for most of our stay! The juice machine serves ultra strong squash, the honey has a really strange flavour, the jams are cheap and runny, basically not good at all. Also available at breakfast time was a selection of cakes and some buscuits - although you don't want these at breakfast time, that was the only time they were put out! Lunch was brought outside to the pool bar area in shopping trolleys. It was meant to be warm but was mostly cold by the time we got to it. I had the greek salad, tzatsiki and melon every day, which was edible, but the 'hot' food was disgusting. The only good thing about the lunches was that the horrible chef wasn't there to stare at you and put you off your food. The dinners at night were served inside, the air conditioning was never switched up high enough to make any difference so you were melting into your plate. They served packet soup and a selection of nasty hot dishes, along with salads. Dessert was creme caramel, jelly, melon and some squirty cream, sometimes with chocolate in, plus one other item, sometimes baklava type things or tiny squares of gateaux. Drinks are not flowing, if you had the audacity to ask for a second glass of wine they looked at you as if you had grown another head! We put up with it for 3 nights then decided to eat out so our holiday was not ruined by the disgusting food and service. Most of the guests at the hotel were from various European countries, so people didn't mix as there was always a language barrier. The bar area was usually empty in the evening as there was absolutely no atmosphere there. All in all we did enjoy our holiday, but only because we swore we wouldn't let the hotel grind us down, and we spent most of our time away from it, just coming...

Avoid this hotel if you value your health - We were initially enjoying our stay and had high hopes for a relaxing holiday. Despite the rain upon arrival, we looked forward to using the spa facilities. However, we were surprised to find that access to the jacuzzi and sauna — which the website implied were included — actually came with a £25 per person, per hour charge. When we raised this with reception, the male staff member was shockingly rude and dismissive — not what you expect from a hospitality professional. Thankfully, Nicole stepped in. She was polite, understanding, and handled the situation with great professionalism. After showing her the website information, she resolved the issue and kindly arranged for us to use the sauna free of charge.

The spa experience itself was lovely. Regina and George made us feel so welcome, and our “Divine Duet” treatment with Katerina and Elisavet was incredibly relaxing. Their professionalism and warmth really stood out.

Unfortunately, our stay took a serious downturn on Saturday evening. A few hours after lunch, both my companion and I became violently ill with what was later confirmed by medical testing to be food poisoning. The severity was frightening and left us bedridden for days. When I informed reception, I was met with indifference and was told it was a "virus going around the hotel" and that we were not the only ones affected. Despite repeated requests for fresh bedding and towels due to the illness, housekeeping did not arrive until nearly 10 p.m. — long after we had requested assistance.

We reported our illness three times and were consistently dismissed. Since returning home, I’ve emailed the hotel and shared confirmation from medical professionals that our illness was indeed food poisoning, not a generic virus. Specifically campylobacter which is primarily contracted by consuming contaminated food, particularly raw or undercooked poultry, or drinking contaminated water. I am a vegetarian and did not touch the meat so there must be serious cross contamination taking place. Disappointingly, they continue to deny this. We are still experiencing symptoms nearly two weeks later.

Adding to the list of concerns, my mother was elbowed in the back by a kitchen staff member to move her out of the way in the busy restaurant. She didn’t hear him approaching and was startled. My father reported the incident, but it was brushed off with no real apology. This was especially upsetting given her medical history and past surgeries.

Despite all this, there were some positives. The room was lovely, the sea views were breathtaking, and many of the staff — particularly the pool bar team — were kind and attentive. Special thanks to Kostas at the bar, who was always friendly and made us feel welcome.

In truth, I would love to recommend this hotel based on the setting and some exceptional staff members. But I cannot ignore the lack of care and responsibility shown when it mattered most. I would not wish that level of illness or the dismissive response we received on anyone else. If anyone else experienced food poisoning and have been dismissed by the hotel, would love to...

My partner and I were here for our 6th anniversary trip The hotel is absolutely beautiful, very aesthetic and very well maintained, right on the beach as well which is a plus The food was okay, most nights it became very repetitive, a lot of pork! Which I understand is a Greek delicacy but a few other different meat options would have been good too The beach snack bar is definitely the best place to go for lunch, an array of pizzas, pasta, fresh fruit and gyros, all made fresh as well which was lovely! This was our go to for pool days We had the unexpected €80 charge for reservation tax, so definitely keep that in mind when booking as I know most hotels in Greece do this, but we were not informed and wasn’t expecting it at check in.. When we arrived we were told our room wasn’t ready for us yet which we were a little let down by, we needed to move into the new room the next day which meant we couldn’t fully relax and enjoy our first full day at the hotel as we needed to wait for a call to move rooms and move all of our luggage. Once we got to the new room, we were very happy with it, we had a nice patio section with outdoor furniture and the room was spotless and cleaned very well everyday! They even left us a fruit platter and a bottle of wine for when we checked into the new room, which was a nice touch! All towels replaced as well which was very helpful The only issue with the room is the shower doesn’t drain properly and we had water come out of the bathroom door and went underneath the bed, which going forward we needed to use fresh towels to cover the floor in order for it not to flood again. Whilst I understand that it is a family hotel, there could have been more entertainment options for the adults, as a lot of the entertainment was very child focused aside from maybe one or two nights during our stay so we found ourselves spending most of our time at the pool bar during the evening, which was usually run by Kostas, who is an absolute credit to the hotel by the way, he goes above and beyond to make sure you’re enjoying your time, so chatty and very friendly! Most of the staff were absolutely lovely, they truly do their best to make you feel at home and welcome.. the bar managers were very friendly too, however I did have one issue which left me feeling quite upset, this was only on our second night at the hotel, I was in the queue at the beach bar waiting for drinks, I was stood behind someone quite tall and couldn’t fully see the bar, and the entertainment was on which also made it quite loud and hard to hear The girl serving on the bar, Eleni, started shouting at me quite loudly ‘NEXT!’ over and over again, in what appeared to be quite an aggressive manner, I walked over to her and she just shook her head at me and rolled her eyes as I couldn’t hear her.. so this was a bit triggering and I just went back up to the pool bar instead as I wasn’t happy with the way I’d just been treated.. another staff member even came and said to her ‘it’s next, please. No need to shout’ .. aside from these issues, we really enjoyed our stay at blue sea island, it really is a...