Margarita Hotel — Hotel in Zakynthos Municipality

I really feel like I "want" to write a better review but the truth as we see it should always be told.||Our 1st time to Zante, and even though we were in Laganas it totally reminded me of my 1st ever Greek holiday in Corfu back in late 80s. The Hotel too, we enjoyed and appreciated the lovely hospitality that I have always experienced when Greece is the destination. Panos on reception, Nikos and Hope at the hotel Drinks counter shall we say, and Visi I think ha at pool side bar. They really make trips pleasant, fun and just what they should be. The staff are a credit to this place.||Yes its had some modernisation, luxury rooms with own luxury pool allowed for those guests only, and we had a room above the rooms below which had the private room only pools, looked nice, clean, well designed, but no views at all. Of the other 2 main pools we used the adults only, it was tranquil and relaxing, no towels on beds wars, we would have used the other pool too but when you get that one family, 5 kids, balls being belted, shouting from one side to other, no thanks. Was fair to say the luxury pool was entirely within earshot of the kids pool too, great design on that I have to say.|We were All inclusive m, and have to say I'm not really a fan of this anymore but it serves its purpose, if its done well. Having cruised a few times your bench mark shifts somewhat. But I have to say at this Hotel the food was poor, very poor in fact. When the breakfast selection is of similar size to lunch and dinner options, the choices are always limited. In 4 days, I had one breakfast, 1 lunch and 1 evening meal not all in the same day. The beer they gave Zorbas, you could drink all day long and never know it. In fairness, we were provided Absolut Vodka by one server a few times not sure why, but others just used cheaper stuff. Has to be said we didnt hear any complaints from the few people we chatted too, the hotel even has a pretty cheap mini market at front. So just bought €2 cans from here. ROOMS were pretty good and spacious, nice stone wall effects inside, shower was probably most powerful i can ever recall, but the leakage in bathroom was horrendous hahha, they try and get you to use less towels for environment issues but there wasn't enough to mop the floor haha. Maid came daily to tidy up replace towels and bedding, but would open both balcony doors and front door to air room out, so yes we had pleasure of killing Mosquitos every day usually about 5 each day.||Im a true believer of posting as you see it. Read plenty reviews before thinking what are they talking about they must be so difficult to please, and maybe some would say that about us too. But food 1/5, drinks 1/5 hotel itself 3/5 at best for us, staff 5/5.||We did have a lovely relaxing, fantastic weather, short break away. Very easy walk to plenty of lovely restaurants and bars to suit all generations. We have travelled enough all around world to understand its not all about servicing your own needs. Relaxation and comfort was all we sought and we got that. Luckily they had a shop and nearby restaurants for us to pretend we were B&B is my absolute take on...

Firstly, I have to say that this should really not be a 2* review, as the Margarita hotel is a genuinely lovely hotel with a lot to like. Unfortunately however, there are several areas that need to be seriously improved.

I will start with the positives: The location is fantastic, it is a short walk from the Laganas strip, but far enough away to not really hear any of the noise coming from there. The food was in a classic buffet style, and there was a decent enough rotation for the majority of it. The poolside bar was also very handy to have, and served great snacks. I would also like to say thank you to the staff that worked by the poolside bar as they were always friendly, helpful and attentive. A shout out will also have to go to Daisy in the kids club/entertainment, who also performed in a great ABBA tribute which happened to be the highlight of all the entertainment there.

Unfortunately there are several aspects of this hotel that were not up to scratch. Straight from check-in, we were not given wristbands despite being all inclusive. This didn’t have any problems on the first night, but the second day the staff then started to refuse us service, even though we were never told about the wristbands originally. When we had a shower in the mornings, there was no hot water at all, and on two of our seven days we stayed our room was not cleaned by the cleaners. The sports equipment on site is in need of renovation, the Table tennis paddles were barely held together by tape and with missing pads. The “darts” provided were so bent even Michael van Gerwin would struggle to hit the board. Whilst not expecting Wi-fi to be a priority when relaxing abroad, The Wi-fi had very poor coverage and you would not be able to sufficiently work using this if it was required. The pools themselves were alright, however the main pool showers were also freezing cold, and had no working lights in a room with no windows, effectively meaning we had to shower with the door cracked open on the final day. They could also do with changing up the poolside playlist as it seemed to be the same every single day. When going to check out, the luggage room was not guarded and had no CCTC. Whilst it is within the hotel grounds, it did not feel completely safe there and we had to go back to check up on our luggage. Lastly the most disappoint part of the holiday was the man on the night time reception. As others have said in other reviews, this is certainly not a “party” hotel, however this man would not make you feel comfortable at all, and would watch and follow people back to the rooms, almost looking for an excuse to moan. On the nights when we did return, even when being silent he was very unwelcoming and would be the main reason we would not recommend people to go back to this hotel. Minus the man on reception, this hotel would be a genuinely lovely place to go with...

we booked the hotel and were a little concerned about reviews that said there were steps everywhere. We both suffer with mobility issues and contacted the hotel to ensure we had ground floor room near to pool and restaurant. When we arrived we were faced with a lot of steps to reception, however we were given a room overlooking the superior room pool, a short walk to that pool and the family pool next to the pool snack bar. Ideal spot. With a little exploring we could avoid all the steps as there was a path with a short walk to the front and a ramp up to the main building. |We found all the staff friendly and helpful particularly Hope in the main bar, Visi in the pool bar and the lady that made the snacks. |Best hotel we.ve been to for sun beds as the pools were closed until 8:30and there wasn.t a single day that we had to worry about finding a sun bed as there was always some available. |The hotel grows a lot of its own fruit and veg and the food was always fresh and well cooked and presented, the owner being the chef took pride in his food (and the hotel as he was always about making sure everything was ok). There was enough choice for us as plentiful fresh salads, cheeses, cold meat as well as veggie and meat options. Breakfast was good, selection of cereals, continental options as well as eggs, bacon, hash brown and sausages. We had no complaint about the food, in fact we enjoyed it every day.|A couple of quirks with the hotel in that spirits and cocktails were not available until 4pm, for a family hotel that seemed a great idea as the last thing you need is drunken people around the pools, in the evening the entertainment was by the pool bar and started c 9pm but the bar wasn't open until 9:30pm.. this seemed a little odd and to get people outside an earlier opening would have been better. |Like most all inclusive hotels the drinks options are local beers and spirits with a limited cocktail list, unusually they did not offer premium drinks to be purchased nor to sell drinks after 11pm (we took a drink back to our room and sat on the balcony) when the all inclusive stopped, this kept the hotel quiet at night, in fact they did not tolerate people coming back from the strip ( a few hundred metres away) making a noise. This kept the hotel peaceful for the families and us oldies that need are sleep.|The only two things we would have liked was tea and coffee making facilities in the room and bottles of water to be freely available.|But all in all we enjoyed a two week chilled out holiday. Thank you to everybody...