Golden Star Beach Hotel

The location is fantastic, just a five minute walk from the Protaras Strip and Vrissy Beach. For what we paid, especially the very low April price, it was a good choice and I'd recommend staying here. The beds were fairly comfortable, and we only found two little pests over the whole week, so pest control seemed good. Staff were polite, available around the clock and willing to help. The housekeepers worked efficiently, though they moved our things around to make the bed, mopped, ushered us onto the balcony and locked it. I'm not sure if that's normal practice. The hotel Wi-Fi was poor, slow through the day and cutting out often, with speeds sometimes around 1 Mbps. We paid €75 for a late room checkout because our coach back was very late at night and we didn't want to spend 7-8 hours in the lobby. That let us keep the room until 6 pm instead of noon. We had the one bedroom apartment on the second floor, room 223, at the far end. It was a bit old-fashioned and didn't have an oven, which made cooking meals difficult. There were plenty of plugs, but some were in odd spots on walls with no tables. Anyone sleeping on the sofa bed would have to put it by the dining table or unplug the TV each night. The room's balcony looked onto the hotel exit and only got sun for about two hours in the late afternoon before it went behind next door Tsokkos Protaras Hotel. The south-facing bedroom got sun for most of the afternoon, but looked over the pools at Tsokkos Protaras. They weren't open, so the pool stayed green all week. Noise from the room above was a problem all week. They kept scraping furniture around, morning and evening into the night, with the occasional stomp. It was so loud we thought they might be rearranging the bedroom and living room. Two local cats often came to say hello too: a grumpy, big, fluffy older one that let us pet it if it trusted us, and a very talkative but skittish calico.

The other guests were the worst part of our two week stay. Children were left unattended, running around, shouting and swearing, playing in the lifts and banging on corridor doors. I wish the staff had done more to deal with it; it really spoiled the hotel for me, and we spent as much time away as possible. Most of the staff were friendly, but when we asked for a brush to clean up broken glass in our room, nobody helped. That wasn't great with a toddler there. We paid to upgrade to half board because the self-catering facilities weren't good, and regretted it. Breakfast had very little choice and was the same daily. The adults' menu was decent and the food was okay, but the children's menu had only four items and didn't change.

The location is great, and the pools are nice, with an area for kids. It's clean and pleasant for the price, but don't expect luxury. The rooms are clean, though done in an older style.

It's a three-star hotel and, for what you pay, that's exactly what you get. The basic rooms are clean and tidy, though we don't spend much time in them. The pools were tidy and clean too, all as expected. Wi-Fi was 10/10, fast and with great coverage.