We recently returned from this hotel and it was generally a very positive experience, but there are a few things I wish I knew before I went.....||Firstly the hotel location is kind of in between resorts which is fine if you are going to stay and eat at the hotel, but if not you really need to be prepared to get a bus or taxi to have a good choice of places to eat. There are a couple of places nearby but you will not have a lot of choice.||Upon arrival we were greeted by very efficient and informative reception staff, the reception is generally staffed by very competent and informed staff and are a credit to the hotel. Ask them anything and they will go out of their way to find out if they don't know, but they could answer most of my requests on the spot, what bus do I need to get to Rhodes town, here have a copy of the timetable. They were very good. ||There was a porter or greeter in the reception when we arrived, he seemed to just press the lift buttons and say hello, there was no help in getting cases to the room, you were on your own.||There are only 2 lifts for guests to use in this 8 floor hotel, at breakfast and meal times this was inadequate, on the hotel plan it seemed to suggest there were another 2 lifts, not sure if these were for staff only, but they really do need to consider making them available if they exist. At breakfast we waited every day, usually gave up after 3 or 4 minutes and walked down the stairs. For us this was 6 floors. Access to the restaurants, pools and shops are on floor -1. ||The hotel guests when we stayed seemed to be mainly German, 60-70% followed by Italian. I was impressed by the staffs ability to switch from one language to another, but this was tested by English, some of the staff struggled, but I appreciated their efforts. This led to one of the main issues really, culturally the staff were used to dealing with German guests, so the hotel catered for them, so at Breakfast there was a good selection, but when you asked for Tea it seemed to throw them every time, they bought back, sometimes after as long as 10 minutes a cup with hot water in it, why not provide a flask like you would get if you ordered coffee - just with boiling water in it? Every day we had the same issue, even though the same staff were serving day after day, and wow the difficulty in obtaining a tea or coffee spoon, it seemed to be an alien concept. A number of guests commented on the fact that you had to queue for toast, there was one domestic style 2 slice toaster, so people were waiting to use it, but there was another plug socket next to the one toaster - simply add another. It's not hard. But this seemed to be the case with many things in the restaurant, simple things were not done well. You have people waiting to order drinks but instead I'll ignore you and set the table next o you without making eye contact for guests that will never arrive.||Generally the quality of the food was good, lots of fresh salad, fruit, fresh and dried, nuts, too many different types of ham and cheese, but the hot offering was crazy some mornings, onion rings and chicken nuggets for breakfast, not sure that anyone eats that.... there could have been more effort put into grilled tomatoes, or hash browns, which were seen once in 7 days. ||We also had dinner included at the hotel, which you were able to trade for lunch if you asked the day before, which was good as it meant we could eat out in Rhodes town, which is about a 30 minute bus ride away from the hotel, bus stop on the main road right outside. We did this a couple of times. The offering at dinner was hit and miss with out family, there was usually something to have but if you were vegetarian or vegan it was salad, you might get chips, or pasta with a plain sauce and there was a lot of bread options, but sometimes food was no labelled so it was a lucky dip sometimes. It is also important to note that no drinks are included with dinner, not even water - which they are happy to charge you 6.50euro for a 1.5l bottle, the same brand as they are selling in the shop 30meters away for 1euro. It was a lot for water, I paid similar in Dubai not so long ago. ||The restaurant also offers some 'fine dining' options in the evening as well as the buffet, these dishes were displayed as you walked into the restuarant and were cooked to order, one night I had the chicken, which was excellent and arrived after approx 10 minutes. I ordered the beef on another night and it took around 30 minutes to arrive, by which time everyone else had eaten, I actually tried to cancel after 20 minutes and my server was instant that it was due any minute. What arrived looked nothing like the dish on display, half the elements were missing and the portion was very small, but it tasted ok, really not worth the wait. As a guest staying for a week we could also try the burger restaurant for free, this was a set menu with a few options and generally the food tasted quite nice, although there was a massive selection of starters that came the quality was lacking, I'd have rather had half the amount of a better quality as a a good amount went back. The burgers and desert was nice, but the experience was spoiled by ants which were all over the table, we had to move when we first say down due to this, the second table was better, but still had ants and the staff were reluctant to do anything about them.||Apart from that he hotel was very clean and the grounds kept well, we enjoyed the lazy river which swept around a green garden and was nicely done, some of the rocks and trees in the garden had small lizards in them which was a fun game, try to spot them as you floated around the river. The chequered pool was also nice but the activity pool seemed to have a lot of green algae around the edge which when disturbed floated into the pool. This was off putting and needs to be addressed. ||There lots of sunbeds and they were available most of the day and very few people needed to come down very early to reserve sunbeds, although some were there at 7am putting their towels down and not reappearing until after lunch, the hotel could have been more proactive in managing this, unoccupied sun beds should have been freed up for people to use. There were a good choice of sunbeds and loungers and free sunbeds on the beach. This was straight out of the hotel grounds next to the pool and the beach felt part of the complex. The sea was very nice, but navigating in and out was not easy the first time, lots of rocks and what appeared to be concrete which you had to climb over, you are advised to take swimming shoes.||The air conditioning in the rooms was very good and we never felt too hot although our party had 2 rooms and one had much noisier aircon than the other on the same settings. The rooms were cleaned efficiently and thoroughly every day. Each room had a safe and mini fridge, were were also given a bottle of water and a bottle of win in the room on arrival which was nice. Ideally a free bottle of water could have been provided each day, but there was a shop on floor -1 where you could get 1.5l of water for 1euro, so it wasn't too much of a big deal. The rooms had TVs with approx 30 channels but only one was in English that actually worked, this was not a problem as we could stream on the free wifi which was generally quite good until later in the evening as people returned to their rooms, at which point it became much slower.||Overall we had a nice relaxing stay, the hotel could really take this to the next level with a few adjustments and needs to be careful that the cost of additional items doesn't put people off. We asked for a late checkout room which was accommodated but a 6pm checkout was another 90euro, the most I have paid for similar elsewhere is around 60euro, so this was expensive, as were the drinks with dinner. The staff work very hard on the whole and are a credit to the hotel, but the management of the restaurants needs to be looked at, there are lots of people being busy but it seems little...
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