2 months before arriving at the Aldemar Olympian Village, I contacted the guest relation service to get a firsthand recommendation on which room category we should book. We were traveling as two families with three children: one, three years and four years old, I immediately indicated that we wanted to settle exclusively in a bungalow so that the children could go outside at any time, and in no case access to the pool for security reasons (I think there is no need to comment here).
The representative of the hotel, Sofia, advised a bungalow with access to the garden, which I immediately requested from the tour operator (I thought that the hotel would not advise bad). We went for 12 days and later for 7 days two of our grandmothers came to us with accommodation in a standard room, but more on that later. I specifically chose this chain as a 5 star hotel, one of the most popular in Greece.
What was my disappointment when we were settled in rooms that were found in the 90s, more like a cave or catacombs ...I was shocked ...understand that everything is decided by the price of the issue, and I paid in full, for the full value of a 5 star hotel. Attention! It turns out that the hotel has old bungalows, but there are renovated (renovated), and so the hotel populates guests in bungalows as lucky, that is, for the same money, guests receive either “comfort and elegance”, as stated on the hotel website, or prehistoric cave.
From the set in the bathroom, only shampoo and gel (this is regardless of whether the bungalow is renovated or not), no conditioner, no body lotion - nothing! There is no iron, only for an additional fee they will look at your clothes.
The arrogant lady at the reception arrogantly said that the iron is only as an ironing service, because they are a 5 star hotel, my question is why a 5 star hotel allows itself a bathroom set of only shampoo and gel remained open, nevertheless on the same day I was in my room kindly provided air conditioning, one for the whole stay.
I spent the first 4 days of rest in the hotel lobby at the reception, explaining that I paid for a 5-star bungalow, not 2, asking us to change rooms. I want to pay tribute to the hotel - we were offered 3 different rooms, but all categories of suites - that is, we, two families, should move into one room with two bedrooms, one of which is a walk-through. The updated bungalow was never offered to us.
The day the grandmothers arrived, by this time I was depressed, because I understood that I would live in a cave until the end of my vacation, because the hotel ignores the request to provide us with updated bungalows, boasting that it offers expensive suites that we ourselves do not want, but we really don't want to, because it's uncomfortable for us. So we were already on our way to meet the grandmothers, when they called us and said that they were being taken to another hotel for 3 days, because ours was full. There were already women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We explained to the guest relation service, specifically Sophia, that we are waiting for grandmothers like manna from heaven, that we already live in the catacombs, that by resettling them for 3 days in another hotel, they leave us only 4 days of joint rest.
Sophia said that in 2 days the hotel would be full, but for some reason they could not resettle those guests who arrived in 2 days to another hotel. Then I thought, why are those guests better than us?!
Sophia said that since we don’t like their hotel (apparently, she meant their old bungalows), the hotel suggests that we go pack 5 suitcases for two families, a stroller, children and go to another hotel with grandmothers, and return after 3 days and then get three updated bungalows nearby, numbers 500+ (we lived in the six hundredth, if that).
Of course, we refused to go to another hotel, we called a representative of the travel agency (Tez Tour). Pavel (representative of Tez Tour) resolved the issue with the grandmothers, the hotel kindly provided them with not even a standard, but a bungalow-cave, next to our two. We asked Pavel to confirm that in 3 days we will be moved to the five hundredth bungalow, as we were promised. Enlisting his word and mobile phone number, we lived our 3 days in the hope of coming out into the world. And what happened next? And then we packed our things, a porter came and said that we were being moved to seven hundredth bungalows with access to the pool ...
Sofia started calling, I asked why they were with us, what we did to them, she said that the five hundredth numbers were only valid if we left their hotel, and so ...sorry, as they say, and in general five hundredths too would be with access to the pool, like this for you)
I also wrote to Pavel, who washed his hands, saying that he couldn’t help anything else, spoke with Sofia again, as a result, we were offered five hundred rooms, but without a garden, a bungalow on a hill, there were five of them in total, where a balcony without a railing and a small cliff - two of them, and grandmothers on the other side of the hotel (the hotel, by the way, is divided into olympian village and olympian royal), without access to the services of the other part, that is, they had to go to us or to the restaurant through the entire territory. The second option is on the ground floor of the main building.
Maybe it was worth agreeing, but everyone was already so emotionally depressed, quarreled among themselves, that the grandmothers and our second family with the child remained in the catacombs, and we moved to the restored room. It is, of course, heaven and earth.
What a hotel does by selling junk and passing it off as 5 star rooms is a shame! The attitude towards guests is a disgrace! They didn’t give a damn about me, they wanted to evict me, and no one even once apologized for the inconvenience. What I want to say is that the food is delicious, the territory is large, but if you are not 100% sure that you will not get this shameful junk, if you do not want to experience such neglect that we experienced, if you do not want to be offered another hotel on a few days, shared with the family, frayed your nerves for your own money - choose another hotel chain!
I travel a lot, this is the first time for me, before I only read similar negative reviews and never thought that I would ever write something like this. I wish no one to experience such negative emotions on vacation! This is not what we work all year for, honestly!
We got to the opening of the new Symposio restaurant. Now you can go to Olympia and Symposio for dinner. Their cuisine is the same, the Olympia restaurant has been shipped off from a large flow and it has become much better. From a la carte restaurants, we go only to the Greek tavern Abeliona. I fell in love with it from the first year and still go to this day.
Upon leaving the hotel, we fell in love with Andreas' meat tavern. Very tasty grilled food.
The hotel has a very chic beach, which makes you come back here again and again. It is sandy, clean, with a long entrance to the depth. This is the best for kids. There are always free sunbeds on the beach.
There are two children's mini-clubs on site. The mini-club for Russian kids is closer to the shopping center. Children really like it there, they make crafts, play, swim.
Very good animation team. Very cheerful and lively. Excellent daytime animation (fitness, aerobics by the pool) and evening animation in the amphetheater.
In the evening, a children's disco takes place in the amphitheater, the children are delighted with it and simply pull us there by the hand. After that, the evening animation begins. There are excellent acoustic concerts and Greek evenings.
We went on excursions to the island of Zakynthos. We visited the chic Navajo Bay, where the water is simply unearthly in color. We went on a sea photo-hunt for turtles carriage-carriage. They are very large, swim up to take a breath and then dive into the water. We saw three turtles, left a lot of impressions and gorgeous pictures.
We also went to the Ipokamilos Zoo.
The zoo is contact, the children really liked to feed the kids, horses, ponies. Our son went into a cage with lemurs and they jumped on his shoulder. The zoo also has a cafe, trampolines and pools with slides. We had a great time.
The holiday was amazing and we will definitely be back!
Food organized at the highest level! The buffet is luxurious! There was absolutely everything and there was simply nothing more to wish for. By the way, we had half board and we absolutely did not experience any inconvenience in connection with this.
Cleaning in the rooms was carried out daily (a couple think how they only manage to do this?! ).
We had a bungalow overlooking the garden and that was just right too as it's like our own house and both we and the baby loved it there.
In general, there are all the conditions to enjoy life every second! So do not waste time whining, but enjoy more! Have a good rest everyone!
As soon as we arrived at the hotel, we were warmly welcomed and seated immediately.
After our rains, the Greek sun became a real salvation from depression. And we spent the whole next day on the beach, a little burnt though, but that always happens when we see the sea.
We were told that the hotel was 100% full, but you can’t say that at all, people walk around the huge territory of the hotel, there are always free sunbeds on the beach, you don’t have to take them early in the morning. We ate breakfast and went for a swim.
At first we were embarrassed that there were a lot of Austrian pensioners in the hotel, but they left almost immediately, we were even glad for them that it turned out that they were given free vouchers.
As I said, we rested with the whole family, together with the children, the children's mini-club came in very handy. There are so dedicated people working there, some animators speak Russian, for example, Emily, she is really not afraid to entrust her kids. Therefore, we and the children managed to relax. I even went to the spa-center, by the way, very reasonable prices - I recommend it to everyone ! ! The main thing for me was that they speak Russian in the spa, because to my shame I do not know English. And in Russian, I asked everything that was interesting to me, and I knew what I was paying for.
Unfortunately, we have been at home for a long time, and the vacation that arrived so quickly pops up in my memory.
The only regret was that we went on only one excursion to Athens. Mouzenidis has a large selection of excursions, but somehow we put everything off, and then all the places were sold out.
I also liked the spa treatments - there is a very good spa on site. There are also shops and a salon with fur coats. The beach is large, we usually occupied the gazepa in the morning. In the evenings after dinner, we walked around the territory, since it is very large. And next to the hotel is a field of watermelons, olive trees, a couple of taverns, a church. Internet here is free, by the way, it is best to catch in the lobby. On the last evening we soaked up in the hammam. I really liked it here. In the middle of summer I will definitely come back here with my husband!