Chalikounas Holidays from £573

Free breakfast was great, nice selection of foods and coffee

A wonderful boutique hotel with incredible staff in the heart of the amazing old town.

Good: pool bar and restaurant Room for improvement: buffet restaurant, no topper or fitted sheet on the bed

At times it's difficult to fault parts of the experience at this hotel, but we couldn't help feeling that it is overall disappointing. We did not go all inclusive because we only stayed for three days and that may have some bearing on this review. Let's start with the good things. The food is very good, the breakfast is excellent, as are the Vertigo, beach bar and restaurant. Taverna Maria (not part of the hotel) is highly recommended. The beach is brilliant (and managed by a friendly chap). The facilities are good too - pool, sunloungers and extras like the tennis courts. The staff are very polite and speak excellent English too. They are very welcoming and helpful at all stages. But overall, it did feel underwhelming. The rooms and the bathrooms in particular have a sewage smell and there's no shifting it. I couldn't help feeling the drinks are watered down (not great if you're not all inclusive) and perhaps the overall feeling with this type of resort (catering for the masses) is that you don't get the small touches that make a 5 star holiday really memorable. This hotel is great (especially the beach) if you're a person who's happy with a traditional package holiday, but for anyone who likes to explore, due to the remoteness, it probably isn't for you.

We stayed in a private Sandy Villa with its own pool, and it was amazing – our son even learned to swim within hours, and swimming at night was magical for the kids. The villa itself was spotless and spacious, and the housekeeping team and buggy drivers were brilliant. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the reception staff, who were very rude. Sadly, the rest of the resort didn’t live up to the same standard. Part of our villa had a strong sewage smell which took four days to “fix”, and even then the problem never fully went away. The food in the main restaurant was average at best, and the dining experience was stressful, with constant noise and crowds. The drinks were another major disappointment – no branded soft drinks, which feels like such a simple fix. The dining areas, pools (other than the Sandy Villas’ pool), and the beach were all overcrowded, with far too many guests for the facilities available. As for the à la carte restaurants – good luck getting a booking! The Sandy Villas themselves are 5-star quality, but being tied to the sister hotel drags the whole experience down. If food and drinks were available on the villa side, we would return in a heartbeat. Until then, it remains a holiday of two halves – 5-star villa, 2-star resort