Mitsis Selection Alila — Hotel in Municipality of Rhodes

The review I wish I had read befofe booking... This is just our honest opinion, plenty of others highly rate this hotel and seem to have no complaints (hence why we booked it!). We did overall have a lovely week away, just a few niggles we wish we knew before! ||Let's start off with the food. Its amazing! There is so much choice! The Al'Carte are so lovely, the Italian was our favourite! |You absolutely won't go hungry here! |Drink selection is also very good. The only negative we had was at the pancake cafe. They refused to serve us as we weren't sat at one of the 5 tables right outside it. We were sat just a few meters further away. Still inside the food court. It was very rediculous. Another staff member from the reasturant opposite heard and personally went and got ours waffles for us and apologised. There is literally only a few tables at the pancake place so this set up just seems so illogical if they will only serve you on these very few tables. We were literally right next to them. A few more meters! Saying that, the waffles were beautiful when we eventually got them! ||The buffet is quite small but the Al'Carte breaks it up. Its a shame there isnt a juice station at breakfast as you can be waiting ages to get a drink. It gets served in a very small glass and often not refilled. Only a small thing, but we found it a bit of a niggle! Self service juices and soft drinks for evening would be ideal. The "grab and go" tex-mex and wok & go arent grab and go like we thought or the name suggests. You have to order and wait. You have to scan a QR code with your phone for the menu. The menus arent huge so feel like they could just display them instead. ||The staff are absolutely lovely. Very friendly. Some particular staff really stood out for us during our week - especially down the beach! Help them out by returning your towels and glasses. They were so thankful when we did. Such a small gesture but helps them massively! ||Unfortunately the adult pool was just too cold for us. A shame it isnt warmed, especially as we now enter October. We also weren't a fan of the adult pool being right below the block of balconies. Sunbathing looking up at people balconies and people looking down on you wasnt our vibe - felt very ontop of eachother. There also isnt lock on the toilets - why!? Odd. They also dont open up the bar that's right next to the adult pool until the evening (after pool shuts). There is a bar inside the lobby which is also close, but feels a bit strange walking through in your swimwear when everyone else is sat there fully dressed. Be much nicer / more practical to have the outside pool bar open rather than this just be used as an evening bar. ||We therefore spent our time at the beach. The sea is lovely. Much warmer. Good for a bit of snorkeling too! We took swim shoes as the pebble beach is a bit harsh on your feet! There is a beach bar, american food truck and pizza oven down on the beach. ||Sunbed situation is bliss! There is of course the odd person that shoves towels down to reserve beds early, however majority of people just use the beds when they are actually using them which means there is always beds free even when going down in the afternoon after a morning out. We never struggled which was so refreshing! ||Rooms - I really dont know why they put rooms on level -1. They clearly know these rooms are not ideal for an expensive luxury resort. Either need to make them budget friendly, or get rid! We had emailed ahead and asked for a higher up / quiet room however this wasnt fulfilled as upon check in we were given level -1. They tried to say it was an upgrade for us to a bigger room... yeah, that old chestnut didnt work for us! Got moved to level 6 with a concrete balcony that really spoilt the view completely. Then moved to level 3 with a metal railing balcony- much better so we settled here finally! Wasnt an ideal start. We did appreciate how understanding the hotel was, but it would have been much nicer to avoid this whole situation to start with. Its clear they know there is issues, and feels like they just chance their luck of whether people will complain or not. ||The rooms are, however, spotlessly clean. Housekeeping clearly work very very hard. Even when we had signalled we didnt need fresh sheets or towels, everything was still made up like brand new. ||The adult entertainment is brilliant. It goes on to about 23:00 and is very loud but its not a super late finish if you're wanting an earlier night. I'd recomend getting a seat about 20:00 before it starts at 21:15 as unfortunately there is limited seating which is a shame! But as its so loud, you can hear it from a far! ||Take ear plugs if you are a light sleeper. We could hear the people above us early in the morning. I can only predict it was them moving sofa beds away as there was furniture scraping every morning at about 7am. Corridors can be noisy but people didnt seem to stay out much later than 11pm ish we found!||Kids - We are an adult couple. We chose not to go for an adult only resort as this was reviewed so highly. But for us, the screaming children at Al'Carte dinners throwing items on the floor, kids charging down corridors screaming, and seeing kids touch the food at the buffet and then place it back just ruined the atmosphere for us as a couple with no kids at times. Saying this, the majority of kids were well behaved and supervised appropriately. We found eating later after 20:00 made for a much better experience at the Al'Carte as 19:00 was filled with children and we stayed away from the main pool as this was filled with children playing and enjoying themselves. People need to supervise their children better at the buffets, this is the only way to stop children handling the food then placing it back for someone else to then eat! Grim. ||We went into Rhodes by local bus (€2.50pp per way) and Lindos (€5pp per way). Super simple to travel to both sites and much cheaper than booking excursions through the hotel. The hotel had advised us we couldn't get a direct local bus to Lindos and we would need to book one of their hotel excursions. This was disappointing when we found out the timetable for ourselves and did infact get a direct local bus. I can't imagine it was through lack of knowledge, I think it was more trying to sell a trip. We are glad we done our own research as we saved a lot of money. ||We found the hotel shop very reasonable and similar pricing to other shops in the towns. We did walk down the road to another tourist gift shop which was similar pricing. We were pleasantly surprised as usually hotel shops are expensive but not here! (Although avoid buying suncream, this is always cheaper back home!).||The hotel is very highly rated but for us, we spent the extra money thinking it would exceed expectations and unfortunately it didnt in all areas. I think maybe the style of hotel is just not for us. Its all in one tower block building, so felt quite cramped and enclosed for us. £3000 for 7 nights (plus the £105 tourist tax on arrival) felt a little too much for our personal experience compared to other holidays...

Re summer holiday 2024, Superior Sea View room 820.

The resort is nice looking and the food is good but the service is far away from 5 stars. The rooms are dirty, old and have no sound proofing. The housekeeping is lazy, the bed wasn't always fully prepared and the refill for toiletries and mini bar didn't happen on most days during our stay. The service in general is very cheap, the worst episode was during check-out. A few days before our departure, we asked for a courtesy room to get before departure (our flight was at 10:30pm). The room was booked but on that day we were instead given access to the doctor's office, where we were supposed to shower and change. The room was stinky, unhygienic, weird and the room had no lock; but the worst thing was that after 30 minutes the cleaner started coming in while we were dressing...

Check-in We were asked for our passports and to have a seat to wait for keys. We waited and waited on that coach and after roughly 45 minutes we decided to go and check at the reception. They forgot about us and our passports, so we had to check-in again. Once we finally arrived in our room, we found a birthday cake but it was nobody's birthday. That was fun, for sure, but definitely not expected from what pretends to be a 5 stars hotel.

Rooms The bathroom was dirty, yellowish, and generally the furniture required repairs, changing and/or maintenance. There's no soundproofing, so there's noise coming from outside. Power sockets were EU only, no international/universal sockets. Additionally, there was water leaking from the roof of the bathroom.

Service The service is very basic and the staff is incredibly not focused on the requests. Let's give a few examples: during lunch/dinner we were brought drinks of other people on different occasions; I left some requests written in the room for housekeeping but they didn't read or action them (I was used to this service in 5* hotels to be honest). I called reception and asked for a bottle of water in the room, someone came all the way up to our room but just to tell us they don't do this kind of thing...that was weird, but eventually they asked someone else to bring some water. Beach towels were not given on a daily basis, you have to explicitly ask every day. There are towel collection points spread across the hotel but constantly empty.

Beach Sunbeds were not very clean on the beach and not that comfortable either: there was no cushion on top, just a mattress. Good sunbeds were found in the adults only pool though. You can have beach towels but those are limited so you have to act quickly and catch a few for your day. Beach bar service is almost absent, in a whole day we were asked if I wanted any drink one or two times tops. We had to go to the beach bar ourselves, every day. That's not what I expect from a 5*.

Food and drinks The hotel is really all inclusive, literally everything is included. The food was very good in all restaurants. The drinks were fine as well, the wine unfortunately a bit disappointing, in fact you couldn't choose the wine but they only had some generic white/rose/red wine.

Hotel elevators In short, from the 8th floor to the reception took us on average 15 minutes. Lifts were constantly busy (only a few couples for 10 floors?)

Check-out A real nightmare. A few days before our departure, we asked for a courtesy room to get before departure (our flight was at 10:30pm). The room was booked but on that day we were instead given access to the doctor's office, where we were supposed to shower and change. The room was stinky, unhygienic, weird and the room had no lock. There was even a doctor's bed (the treatment one) in the room. It took us a while to accept what was happening but the worst happened after 30 minutes: the cleaner started coming in while we were dressing and even though we told them 3 times to wait this didn't stop them. According to the reception, they forgot to tell us that the doctor's office has a 30 minute timeout so you're supposed to shower and change in 30 minutes. Then people...

As frequent travellers to Greece and regular guests of the Mitsis chain, we spent two weeks at Mitsis Alila Resort & Spa in Rhodes (late August to early September 2025). This was our fourth trip to the island. After a really nice stay in this hotel in 2024, we expected another flawless holiday. Unfortunately, while Alila has strong points, our overall experience was mixed.

Positives

Sea-view rooms Spacious, modern, and elegantly designed, with quality bedding and excellent soundproofing. Espresso machine and minibar (restocked daily) add comfort.

Main restaurant Probably the best feature of the hotel. The quality of food was always good. Long opening hours are another big plus.

À la carte restaurants Good variety and consistently high quality, with the advantage of booking both lunch and dinner. Tip: book via the Mitsis app as soon as you receive your reservation number.

Beach Private and well equipped with comfortable loungers, large umbrellas, towel service, and drinks delivered to your chair. In the morning, finding a spot is easy, but competition intensifies. Unfortunately, no control over “towel reservations” means loungers are blocked for hours, unlike at Mitsis Blue Domes where staff enforced fair use.

Negatives

No air conditioning in common areas Neither the lobby nor the main restaurant are air-conditioned. With indoor temperatures up to 32°C, meals became uncomfortable and the first impression disappointing.

Noise and lack of space The vertical design and compact grounds create a crowded, noisy feel. À la carte lunches were unpleasant due to heat and weak fans. The lack of greenery reinforces the “concrete” atmosphere. Sea-view rooms are also affected by evening show noise.

Evening entertainment Compared to other Mitsis hotels, the shows were basic and repetitive. During a two-week stay, the lack of variety quickly became boring.

Management and staff Frontline staff are excellent – warm and attentive, with special thanks to Aris and Daria – but management was invisible. Unlike Blue Domes, where managers were proactive, here leaders avoided guest contact. The hotel felt like it ran on autopilot.

Infrastructure Only two elevators per block mean long waits at peak times. In-room air conditioning, dating from 2013, struggled to cool below 25°C. A technician advised leaving it on constantly – neither practical nor eco-friendly.

The spa Far from relaxing: surrounded by glass walls, visible from the crêperie and game room, it lacks privacy and tranquility.

Sunbed reservations The unregulated “towel wars” on the beach significantly reduce fairness and guest satisfaction.

Conclusion

Mitsis Alila Resort & Spa stands out for its exceptional food and well-equipped beach. Yet these strengths are overshadowed by serious weaknesses: no air conditioning in common areas, noise, lack of space, uninspired entertainment, absent management, aging infrastructure, and a poorly designed spa.

Compared to Mitsis Blue Domes, where attentive management created a memorable experience, Alila feels more like a “tourist factory”: efficient but impersonal.

As a couple seeking a romantic escape, we found the stay functional but lacking warmth. Despite polished social media, the reality did not match expectations.

With regret, we will not return to Mitsis Alila. If you value food and beach facilities above all, it may suit you. But for a truly balanced 5-star holiday with character and care, we recommend...