Ekati Mare Lifestyle Resort — Hotel in Municipality of Southern Corfu

Overall, nice hotel with lovely new swim-up rooms but still lacking what you'd expect from some staff communications in a 4star hotel.

Pros: Superbly clean Very engaging entertainment team, pleasant staff New swim up rooms are just gorgeous Different pool areas were lovely Wide (albeit somewhat bland) buffet spread

Cons: Communication from reception/ management that directs them covers the next 3 issues; a) Unfinished room... Our swim-up room seemed brand new but slightly unfinished. Upon check-in it was clearly missing items but it didn't bother us on that firat night & we had a laugh about it. What did bother us was the constant traipsing in & out on day 2 of ppl fitting these items in the room while we were there (so many differnt ppl ....for sofa base, sofa cushions, bin, mattress topper, fridge, to tune in tv, to clean room). NOT their fault - they had a job to do. But it felt very invasive because obviously you are present alot more in your room when you have a swim-up one, to avail of the facilities. Reception really should have communicated this at check-in rather than just proceed as though it's perfectly normal and acceptable for your room to be assembled while you are there wothout any notice given of this!

b) Late check-out/transfer arrangement; As instructed on the guide given to us, we went to reception the evening before checkout to organise late checkout (12pm instead of 11am) and 12.30 pm transfer to the airport. We were told to call back in the morning to arrange the late check out and that the transfer cost was 88euro which was to be paid in the morning. While I understand now the reason for this was because usually late checkout suggests a half day and 50euro charge, they did want to speak to their manager about it being for just 1hr and in fairness it was given to us gratis in the end which I acknowledge and appreciate, but this was just not communicated. Ideally a late checkout is facilitating a relaxing last morning/lie in... not having to get up to arrange it! On going to reception in the morning, my husband was told the taxi had to be paid for in cash - look, that's grand but that had NOT been stated the previous night, just the price so that involved an extra trip to the atm. The guy at reception was very quick to say we had been told this. He was there on that previous night, his colleague give the info and cash wasn't mentioned. Secondly my husband wanted to confirm the 12.30 taxi pick up and we were told it was for 12 and it could not be changed. Not much of a difference I know, but a half an hour in the lovely sun at the hotel, rather than stuck in the airport is clearly preferable, especially when paying 88 euro for the privilege. Again, advice would be to really clarify these points with reception so that there are no misunderstandings as the information isn't forthcoming on the initial interaction.

c) Drilling work; This was happening by our apartment on 1 of the mornings. Very loud and not ideal for sleeping. Again, no issue with the workmen.. .it's their job. The very least I would have expected from a 4star hotel is communication about this in advance from reception so that you could just plan your sleep accordingly.

No 'do not disturb' sign. I thought the hotel maybe just didn't do them, but it transpires that friends of ours in a different room had one. This would have eliminated alot of issues with multuple entries while we were in the room. On the (relaxing late checkout, ha!) morning, like other mornings cleaning are knocking and opening the door while we are still in bed. This happened twice between 9.45 to 11am. They didn't seem to know about the arranged late checkout.

No safe in room; A 4star hotel would usually have this and considering all of the entries by multiple personnel at many times throughout our stay it just would give peace of mind.

Shortage of sunbeds; And the usual "reservation" of chairs by towels with nobody on them Not unique of course to this hotel, but an issue...

We got to the hotel at midnight and were greeted by a young woman working on the front desk (the only polite member of staff at the hotel, did not get a name unfortunately), she showed us to our room. First of all, we were on the second floor and there was no lift in the hotel, only a very narrow and dirty staircase, which I had to carry our luggage up. This is very poor, especially for people with disabilities, the elderly, and families with prams and kids. We noticed the public areas, landings etc were very dirty with an old toilet brush and dirty table outside our room. When we walked into our room, we were hit with an extremely strong smell of sewage, I have seen this on a few other reviews but after having other guests come into our room, they were shocked by how much stronger it was in our room. Our room not only had an awful smell, but was also half decorated with light fixtures hanging out the ceilings, half painted walls, no duvet cover on our bed, mosquitos everywhere, dead mosquitoes smears along the wall, and nails hanging out the wall. Looking out to the balcony, we also had a DEAD BIRD on the balcony, covered in maggots, along with an extremely dirty balcony too. Myself and my partner could not quite believe how disgusting this room was, I went down to reception to inform them of how disgusted we were. I spoke to a lady, different from the one who initially checked us in, who replied saying “that’s the room you booked”… what an awful service to receive when complaining about the hotel’s cleanliness and demonstrated the lack of care from this hotel. The receptionist came up and offered to spray our room (which made the smell worse) and refused to move us for the night, despite later finding out there were rooms available. After a sleepless night, especially for my partner who slept not even two hours as she was looking for other hotels or flights home, we woke up to an extremely poor breakfast, no options, cold food and dirty tables. After all this disappointment we walked into Kavos where there was only more disappointment. Kavos is extremely run down, with very little open and nothing to offer for families, only for people going on a party weekend and I think even they would be disappointed. Ekati also offers a “private luxury beach” which had its opening day on the day we were there. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. It was like a mud bath with overgrown grass, rubbish everywhere, construction work still ongoing. When we got back to the hotel around 10am we went straight to the TUI rep, we were ready to fly home and this point and lose the money we had spent on this holiday as we were so disappointed and quite frankly upset. We still heard nothing from the hotel despite them knowing of our complaints. Our TUI rep informed his manager Jake who turned up to the hotel within an hour. Jake and Tomas, who we found out was the owner of the hotel went to inspect our room, where the owner Tomas was exceptionally rude to my partner saying we just need to air the room to get rid of the smell. How dare you as a hotel owner be so rude and dismissive to your guests. Have some pride in your work and take ownership of your hotel. Your treatment of guests is horrible and you should be ashamed! Jake (TUI manager) was visibly horrified by our room and was happy to move us and was extremely apologetic for what we had gone through. Tomas, the owner, on the other hand, did not even look at us let alone apologise. Jake gave us three options to resolve the issue, we fly home, we get a room upgrade at Ekati, or we move to Sandy Beach Resort which is 20 minutes from Kavos. We chose to move to Sandy Beach where we had an amazing time. Ekati Mare looks fancy on the pictures but it is the complete opposite in reality. The place is filthy, falling apart, disorganised with poor service, and the owners lack of care and respect for his customer is...

I wish that I'd have read more of the reviews in the lower rating before booking this 2 week holiday for me and my Mum. This hotel is advertised as a 4* and is absolutely not, the image that the photos portray on all the websites including Tui (which is who we booked through) is very far from the reality, myself and others that we met whilst staying here experienced a very different and lower standard than we expected. The plus points are that the staff were very good, helpful and friendly and genuinely wanted to make sure that our staff was comfortable. The location, although on a very busy road and a 5 minute walk from the party place of Kavos was actually good as there were more places to walk to for food, drinks and entertainment should you want it. The FREE Wifi was great. The air conditioning was also really good and FREE unlike some Greek resorts. I booked this hotel as I thought the hotel looked amazing, how wrong could I have been! The food buffet display area is in a very small area of the dining room, the temperatures of the food are nowhere near as high as they should be and I would say are dangerous, the hottest will be at the start of the dining session. The hot food is kept warm using insufficient heat hobs, the staff are constantly checking that the gas is still lit. The cold meats and cheeses are left out for the whole duration of the food service (at least 3 hrs) on plates/ platters, nothing is on ice or kept chilled! The quality of the food was also not good, the themed nights were almost like a half hearted attempt! I wondered where the advertised A'la Carte new for 2024 was, the season ends in 2 weeks time! The options for drinks were very limited and nothing to shout about even when paying double the price compared with other bars. I paid 10 Euros for a Gin & Tonic! Oh and a little slice of lime to spruce it up! Again not a 4* standard. The low-key entertainment, advertising 'including live music twice-a-week' is the only, actual entertainment. The sun loungers were crammed in a very small space around the pool, which is hardly the luxurious, tranquil atmosphere that you would expect and to sit so close to other guests and able to hear everyone else's conversations. I didn't use the pool as it looked awful, I've never seen green water in a swimming pool either as there is here. The Jacuzzi that I thought was in the photos is actually a kids' pool however it seems to be where the cats go for a drink of water and there's now a palm tree stuck on the centre of it. It has been a Jacuzzi at some point as you can tell from the layout of it, It also has the green water in it! The rooms are very basic and our shower head was disgusting, they're clean enough but again not outstanding, the balcony wasn't very clean. You're given a handful of coat-hangers for 2 of you for 2 weeks, so maybe think about taking some of your own too. The dividing wall between the bathroom and bedroom had obviously got a damp problem which needed sorting, so we didn't use the plug socket on the wall as it looked dangerous!

Safety Deposit boxes weren't fixed to anything so once your valuables are in someone could just walk off with the box! I did take some of the issues up with the Manager, however he was very dismissive and didn't really want to know and was quite argumentative when it was clear how upset we were. The photos that you see are very misleading and actually not as the hotel looks now, it's a great shame that The Ekati Mare hasn't lived up to our expectations as it could be so much more with some care...