Olea All Suite Hotel a Member of Design Hotels — Hotel in Zakynthos Municipality

We had a room with private pool, as I think most must be. I really wanted to love this hotel. Hope this is fair :||GOOD/BETTER : ||- rooms cleaned beautifully|- toiletries in room lovely|- beds comfy|- Good TV|- The Flow restaurant at the top of the complex is lovely (and was also the last time we used it)|- the private pool was clean||LESS GOOD -||- clearly there is a wasp issue at the moment. It is challenging. But rather than acknowledge it Management are actively arrogant about it. There were guests screaming as 20 to 30 wasps landed on their food. I hate them and have a very bad reaction to a bite but was moderate about them, asking to move inside. But the management had no control over table allocation. Many long standing guests just walked inside and took table that could have been reallocated and forcibly said 'No, I will not tolerate that'. Endless servers with endless aggressive clipboard tried their best to prevent the comfort of guests who followed the rules. It was like a scene from 'Benidorm' but without the good nature of the hosts.||- the Spa. Three marketing calls and a few visits at breakfast to encourage a vist. We turned up but due to low turnout they would not put the water on. So no shower, no rainforest and no steam. Just a roasting sauna. Long iPad form to complete with pressure for massage and preference for oil....but you couldn't have any as you weren't allowed to use any water. Bizarre.||- Coffee tea etc. After 3 days (of 7) nothing had been replaced or cleaned. We gently asked a lovely lady at reception who, without knowing our room number, said it was due to us having Do Not Disturb on. I am 54 years old and have never, ever, used a DND sign. I said we hadn't and she smirked. I don't mind the question 'did you' but the accusatorial nature of Blame is not appropriate. And in this case, wrong/lie. ||HORRID -||- when we checked out they attempted to overcharge us for someone else's drinks (bottles of wine or champagne I think). This happens and is not a big drama. What ensued was a fair length of time saying ''oh don't you remember it?' etc. Well we didn't, as we didn't. So I asked them to grab the receipts. They pulled all the receipts for the other 20 or so items (undisputed, and already agreed). The item that remained they said they ''didn't have access to right now''. So...every other receipt but not that one. I think that is quite clear. But rather than say 'sorry, our mistake' we kept with ''so you don't remember. It left a very unpleasant taste||- they asked for feedback at checkout and I said it was 'OK but not perfect'. While we waited for out taxi another pleasant but assertive receptionist came across and asked for more feedback. This was good, and I would do the same. When I explained about the chaos in the restaurant with the inside/outside I started by saying 'Please don't comment on the wasps, as that is just nature, but the administrative chaos that resulted....' caused a long lecture about ''ah... wasps are out of our control. Not down to us''. Was I unclear ? I have no issue with vast numbers of wasps (well, a bit!) but you don't need to create havoc for guests on the back of it. ||They were programmed to blame the guest at every step.||Lovely location, nice facilities, incredibly...

The hotel is a pure gem, professional and oh so beautiful. What we loved: fantastic rooms, very tastefully designed amazing food and drinks - those are spectacular, we ate at many places on the island but sometimes we wished we have eaten at the hotel the staff is so kind and nice, literally everyone. Sometimes people stop when they are driving to offer you a lift - feels like a family. They have also arranged our taxi to/from other places and they offered a possibility to charge the fee to the room which was very nice as taxis are usually cash only. The test before flying to the UK has also been arranged for us at the hotel, which was very convenient. feels very small, there are no crowds at breakfast (we did usually eat early but even when we ate at 9:30 it was still quite nice) transfer to/from the beach - wish they have mentioned that before because we almost didn’t choose the hotel because of that. Olea is located on a hill and there’s approximately 15min on foot to the beach, but coming back you need to walk uphill which might be challenging so the transfer is nice.

What we didn't love: wasps - there are tons of them, we usually love sitting outside when we eat our breakfast but unfortunately that was impossible here. I appreciate that’s not the hotel’s fault but it has affected our experience (the hotel will offer you burnt coffee so that the wasps will fly away but it sadly rarely works). Might be mostly annoying for me as I am terrified of wasps but still worth mentioning. the room we got initially wasn’t what we expected, the view was directly overlooking other people sitting by the pool and it was very loud. We were offered to move after one day so that wasn’t too much of an issue. But if we were not offered a replacement we would consider changing the hotel/room type as the room was really bad with no privacy at all. there was also some issue with picking up the ironing board from our room (we called twice and once someone came bringing another ironing board, so we were stuck with two and the second time no one came at all) the fridge has a quite warm temperature inside there’s no coffee machine in the room it is difficult to find the exact room you want, for instance, I wanted the swim-up room with a shared pool but precisely the one that has no room above it and it was quite a challenge to find which room should I book exactly (that's a superior water suite for anyone wondering and it's the best room if you consider the...

A spectacular resort, of unique design that has the potential to be receive multiple awards for the atmosphere it creates! There a lot of positive things to say about Olea, as well as suggestions for improvement.

Here are the positives: The design of the entire resort is carefully thought and very chic! The food was absolutely delicious! Shout out to the chefs! Both breakfast and dinner included a great variety of tasty food with the best Greek products! The staff was very kind to us. Especially the waiters at the restaurants were always happy to help even before we ask. The spa service was wonderful! I arranged a summer meadows massage with Dora, and I enjoyed it a lot! Our pool was cleaned regularly, which shows that they truly care about our hygiene!

Here are some suggestions for improvement: Although everyone from the staff was really kind and they seemed very motivated to do their job right, there were a few times when we requested something from the room service and there was a lot of delay, that we had to call again and ask for it. I think it's more a matter of staff coordination, which I'm sure can be improved in the future! :) however, I have to mention that after a long delay of getting my lunch, they apologised and didn't charge me for it. I appreciated that!

This might be more of a subjective view, but I would still like to express it: though extremely kind (as mentioned above) and always happy to help, I sometimes felt continuously interrupted by the waiters while I was enjoying my meals, as they came by my table to ask if I have finished my meal or if I want more orange juice (although I had already said no to two different waiters previously). I understand that they were told to provide this continuous service to the clients by the management, which is great, but I think a better coordination is needed to avoid situations like the one I mentioned above.

Though the rooms are of great design and simply beautiful, they need some maintainance, especially the wood at the terrace. There were spots where the wood planks were slightly misplaced and it was a bit squeaky when you walked.

During our stay at the sunset view room, there was no shade to relax at the pool for most of the daytime. Especially during the hot days of August, it was unbearable for us to be out at the terrace. Things were better at the seaview room, but if there was an umbrella, we would be able to stay outside and enjoy the pool all day, just...