Notes

Hi,

My husband and I returned last night from our holiday to Rhodes at the
'Kresten Royal Villas' hotel. Although we've had a reasonable holiday,
there were several issues that we felt we should bring to your attention.

Firstly, TLT were arranging our transfer from the airport to our hotel. We
were directed to the minibus only to find there was no driver around.
After five mins, a taxi driver said he would tell our driver to come. We
waited at least another five mins before he appeared. He let us onto the
bus and then disappeared again. Another gentleman joined us. The driver did
not reappear and we must have sat there for 30 mins. We then went back into
the terminus to ask what was happening and were told they were waiting for
some other passengers who had been held up. Four other people eventually
joined us and we set off approx.ONE hour after boarding the minibus!
Apparently, there had been some hold up with luggage. This is
understandable but the reality is that these passengers were from another
flight which was scheduled after ours arrived. As you can imagine, this was
not a good start to our holiday as we thought we would be arriving at our
hotel at a reasonable time.

Secondly, we booked in at Reception only to be told that the hotel was
overbooked and that we did not have a room!! We were asked to stay at the
'Kresten Palace Hotel' with a promise that we would be upgraded to a room
with a private pool the next day. Our room at the hotel was pretty poor
and we didn't particularly enjoy the buffet. Also, really loud music was
blaring everywhere - we hadn't booked to come to a hotel like this so it
was really annoying. Also, it wasn't possible to unpack etc. as we knew we
were moving the next morning so all very frustrating.

Thirdly, we asked for our luggage to be collected the following day and to
be taken to the Kresten Villas. This was very efficient but we were told
that our room wasn't ready when we got there about lunchtime. Eventually,
we were told it was ready for us and we were taken there by golf buggy -
the room was still being cleaned! Eventually, we started to unpack only to
find that there were mosquitoes everywhere - especially flying around in
the walk-in closet. We spent the next hour killing as many as we could. I
also noticed that the corners of the room etc. had not been cleaned
properly - the floor had had a quick mop.Also, the huge mirror in the
bathroom had not been cleaned at all which was really off putting - neither
had the shower screen etc. At this point, I felt really upset and we went
back to Reception to ask for a superior sea view room instead. We were
persuaded to stay and a head of Housekeeping came to see us and sent a
cleaner in. Things were marginally better after that and they also said
they had sprayed the room

I then went to take a shower which meant climbing into the bath - only to
find that we hadn't been left a bath mat either to put in the bath or to
stand on when getting out! The marble floor was really slippy and I was
furious that a simple thing like this had not been provided. While I was
in the bathroom, my husband found that the doors to the patio could not be
locked as they were broken! We then had to wait for a workman to fix
these. All in all, my husband went up to Reception three times to
complain. I honestly did not feel like staying there at all after all
this. Yes, we were upgraded to a much better room but it was the lack of
basics which was the issue. We were given bath mats about three days out
of our stay. Another day, we found we had been left two bath towels and no
hand towels for the day! We complained again and eventually got them but
not before we had got ready to go for dinner. There were no face cloths,
paper tissues etc. to be seen and the bath towels were sometimes good but
at least fifty per cent of the time were really thin, worn and grey -
definitely not what we had expected from a hotel of this class.

The Restaurant had it's problems too. The food was good, basic Greek fare
which was enjoyable but empty dishes were not replaced immediately so
people often had to go to their table minus the food they wanted to have!
Clearing of plates was slow too - it was the luck of the draw as to where
you were sitting!

All in all - the hotel public spaces were impressive, the Reception team
very efficient, the bars professionally run but it was the basic things
that you expect to find in a hotel such as this which really let it down.

On top of that, we felt we had wasted one full day of our holiday just
waiting to unpack etc. and upgrading us did not make up for that. The day
we left, we spoke to some other people and discovered that we weren't the
only ones sent to the other hotel! It had its good points but we certainly
won't be going there again and neither will the other people we spoke to.

We have holidayed in Rhodes on lots of occasions, usually staying in the
hotels in Ixia, and have never encountered such poor service in the rooms
etc.

I'm not in the habit of complaining usually but we kept wondering what on
earth would happen next!!

Louise Davies