Lia Studios — Hotel in Municipality of Rhodes

We booked this property through TUI, paying for the newly refurbished Superior room in the newly renovated building — the one prominently featured in their marketing. The new accommodation reflects more of a typical 4-star classification, with pristine new rooms and accompanying brand-new swim-up pool; therefore, representing a great deal until the entire property is completed next year, and inevitably re-classified based on its significant investment and enhancements. ||||On arrival at 0400am, we were incorrectly allocated an old, unhygienic room in the non-renovated building - outdated, dirty, in extremely poor condition and with pest problems. It became evident why the new building had been completely gutted and started again from scratch, as everything had years of build-up and dirt, leaving completely insanitary conditions.||||We immediately raised the issue with TUI’s in-resort support, due to no staff being present on site. As this review is solely in relation to the accommodation, I will refrain from commenting of TUI’s disgraceful service in too much detail, however it spanned the entire duration of the trip, alongside their aftercare team upon our return and we have now raised a formal dispute against TUI with ABTA – highlighting how much accountability TUI are taking for the matter, and hopefully paints the picture.||||For context, this was also significantly down to the poor management at Lia Studios, as there are clear communication issues such as correctly allocating the new room type between theirs and TUI’s booking systems. Additionally, they did not wish to assist with the matter, and insisted they deal with us via the hotel cleaner and her translator app – ultimately telling us to go to TUI.||||We were unable to sleep, shower or unpack at the property due to the hygiene issues and cockroaches in the drains and shower area. We spent the first day between 0400hrs-2200hrs attempting to get a resolution, in which TUI eventually confirmed they would provide a complimentary accommodation change, though due to the 18 hours taken to confirm this from their now escalated Senior Support Team, the relevant team to perform the change were closed and would therefore have to action it the following day.||||We were then advised we could not move property at our own accord, as checking out would forfeit our right of a complimentary accommodation change.||||The above took us 13 calls to reach this outcome, and not only was the proposal unacceptable, TUI then retracted this offer the following morning without any explanation, leaving us to seek alternative accommodation at our own expense, where they believed a £100.00 apology was sufficient redress. For context: we are then left searching for new accommodation in high season, with high nightly rates.||||I wanted to share the above to confirm to anyone thinking that they can book this property and be looked after by TUI should any issues arise, as evidenced – they will not. If you try, it is likely that you will encounter issues across app and phone based support, no rep is on hand, and you’ll experience broken promises, phones being put down on you, and not even a basic level of service despite the very obvious breach of contract due to miss-selling and representation in our case.||||We returned to Lia Studios 24 hours later to leave our keys in the room and collect all grocery items that had been delivered from ABC supermarket prior to our arrival, much to our disbelief we entered the room to find all of our items cleared and new traveller’s possessions in the room. I feel this scenario sums up the management of the property.||||At the time of our stay, the owners/management had one member of staff cleaning the entire complex between both buildings. I do not feel the current conditions are any fault of hers, the issue is with management not staffing correctly and ultimately it would be impossible to clean the hygiene conditions we witnessed – where the only option is to completely renovate the place, which is what they’re evidently doing due to the poor prior maintenance over the years. ||||I feel genuinely sorry for the cleaning lady as she is having to do her job whilst answering all managerial issues such as this, due to no other staff or management being on-site, all whilst having an unfair workload. This being said, it was unacceptable that her child was freely using the small swimming pool for ball games to keep himself occupied, as per the other reviews.||||To the reviewers commenting on recent reviews from those who have similarly been incorrectly allocated the incorrect building, where they feel it is unjustified, I would add that this is a clear and simple breach of many of TUI's regulations as part of the Package and Travel Regulations 2018 - and I feel it would be a different narrative should they have been the ones who were forced to endure the conditions of the neighbouring building, and not rightfully received what they had booked.||||My advice: If you’re thinking about booking – do not take the risk. If you are yet to travel, switch accommodation immediately. In our case, we had the displeasure of taking return TUI flights only to endure incorrect and unfit for purpose accommodation, disgraceful management, service failures that TUI dragged across all days of the trip and collectively lead to distress that meant this was anything...

We stayed for 4 nights in July. I can totally understand people's disappointment if they were given the wrong room type, they are very different. We booked last minute and as much as we would have loved a refurbished room we didn't pay any extra for one and wasn't actually sure which we had booked. Tui certainly messed up on their web site when it came to making the room choice clear when we booked back in June, it seems to have changed now, showing they did not have it right previously.||However we arrived late at night, driver found it tricky to find, it does need the sign lighting up better of something closer to the road to help its pretty hidden. However when we arrived the whiteboard had our room number on it. We were allocated one of the old rooms, but it was clean, quite large and had everything we needed we were happy its a standard greek 2* apartment no problem as we didn't expect a new room. We had pre ordered our shopping from AB stores which was a game changer and shopping was there waiting for us. ||First morning we woke to an amazing sea view, we hadn't paid extra for expected this so it was a lovely surprise. The air con, safe and wifi were all included too, we have had to pay extra for these in the past. We were really happy.||The bathroom is dated but worked and was fine, our room was cleaned to a good standard every day and bed made - also above our expectations.We usually stay in large 5* resorts so self catering and 2* is new to us but we were truly surprised.||The location for us was great. We are in our 40's and in good fitness we enjoy walking. The studios themselves are on a hill up a little driveway off the road, it's about 10 mins walk down to the town where there are Two streets of bars & restaurants and about 15-20 mins walk to the main Lee beach, which is lovely. The bus stop is only 5 mins walk from the hotel and we found the buses to be great, very clean and easy to use (have to have cash to pay on the bus) We got to Lindos in no time from the bus stop near the hotel. ||One thing I think Lia can improve on is there isn't any storage for your cases on your last day after checkout. We have an evening flight and this worried me. The housekeeper kindly let us leave our cases in a cleaning cupboard which was appreciated. However I don't think this is ideal as a long term solution and if there was more than the two of us wanting to leave our cases until we were picked up i'm not sure how it would have worked. ||We have been to Rhodes 6-7 times in the past and didn't have any will to return until I saw this last minute deal and the looked into Pefkos. We hadn't ever been to Pefkos before and I don't know how we missed it. It is a gem of a place. The best atmosphere, so safe feeling, warm & welcoming with great food and drinks at reasonable prices with nice similar minded people wanting a relaxed lovely time. ||It's a special place, that much so after being back 3 weeks we have booked to return next month back at Lia again for a week this time in the refurbished rooms which I am really hoping Tui get correct! ||If you don't want to walk up a hill book an apartment without the beautiful view, it isn't the place if you want to be on the strip with the bars and restaurants on your doorstep but if you like a stroll to your evening meal and enjoy the lovely atmosphere i'm sure you wont be dissapointed as long as Tui give you the room you paid for.||Can't...

Updating my initial review following improvements during my stay. ||I stayed in a renovated room by the pool, which was nice - basic but modern.||I arrived at 15:30, apparently reception hours are until 16:00 but I didn't see anyone around. Had to look at the whiteboard and locate my room with the key on the door. The air con was on which was very welcome, plus 3 small bottles of water in the fridge. The room cleanliness was not good - there were bits of crumbs and long dark hair (I'm blonde so defo not mine!) on the floor and every single surface, sticky run marks down the cupboards, crockery with bits of food still stuck on it. That evening I ended up buying a broom and cleaning spray with a cloth.||The following day at 8:45 a young boy (I later found out is the housekeepers son), despite me setting the do not disturb light, knocked on my door asking if I wanted the room serviced - that might explain the state of the room when I arrived! The early housekeeping calls continued for my entire stay, so I never felt like I could lie in. Don't bother setting the light to do not disturb, no one will pay attention to it.||The first couple of days the same small boy played in the pool with his friends/family for the majority of the afternoon, jumping in and splashing everyone sitting on their terraces and running along the terraces. Several people asked them to stop but they didn't. I'd assumed these should be similar to balconies and only to be used by the people staying in the rooms by the pool. I've no objection to kids in the pool but at the very least I don't want other people's kids on my terrace squeezing past me. This stopped after day 2 and the rest of the stay was much more relaxing. If you do stay here try and get a swim up room - they get full sun after lunch until sunset.||Showers are good, plenty of hot water and good water pressure. And the bath towels were lovely and fluffy. On day 3 I was given pool towels as well, though it would have been useful to have these in the room when I arrived as I bought an extra one not knowing!||Although not major issues I think a few things need improvement - |there's no drawers or shelves in the room, only hanging space so nowhere to put your swimwear, underwear etc other than on the spare bed if you're not using it or leave in your case. The area where the sunbeds are is basically gravel covered wasteland with weeds and grass sprouting through it, the whole grounds could really do with some attention. Beds are singles, mattresses ok but pillows a bit flat and not the best. There's a green light above the front door to the room that's basically a giant night light and you can't turn it off, plus the bathroom light is on a sensor and takes about 20mins to turn itself off so take a sleep mask if you need it to be dark to get to sleep. You'll have the opposite problem outside - in block 2 there's absolutely no external lighting so you'll need your torch coming back on a night. I'd also avoid if you have any mobility issues, the hill up to the studios is a killer.||Overall it was an ok stay for the price,...