Eftalia Aqua Resort

Just got back from a ten-day break. This was my fourth visit, and I still can’t find a bad thing to say about the hotel. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner had loads of choices, and even my fussy kids managed to fill up. The staff are friendly and always happy to help. The cleaning staff are polite and pleasant, and their professionalism is why I leave them a very generous tip.

The hotel looked lovely, but it was too big to maintain properly. My family and I had a bad experience, and I’d tell other families not to go. People were ill every day, ambulances came out daily while we were there, and the families we spoke to were very unwell. My children got sick too, and one family member had food poisoning. The food was terrible. Neither my children nor we could eat it. Staff were rude and didn’t seem interested in helping. The pool chlorine was being pumped in far too heavily. All-inclusive covered only certain drinks, and the rest cost extra. This was a terrible place for a family visit, and I’ll never return. Please read the reviews before considering a booking.

We spent ten days at Eftalia Aqua Hotel as three people on an all-inclusive booking, and it was a nightmare from the start. After a long overnight journey, we arrived in the morning and asked to check in. The receptionist said our room wouldn’t be ready until 2 PM unless we paid another €200. We said no and waited. It felt like they were trying to get money from us at every turn. When we finally got a ground-floor room at 2 PM, the balcony door wouldn’t lock, there were two separate single beds, and the sofa bed was broken and impossible to sleep on. We reported the problems and were moved, but the next room had a badly kept bathroom, broken fittings, and a huge gap beneath the entrance door. Cleaning was barely happening. The room stayed dusty and dirty, and at the end the cleaner even asked us for a tip. The food was poor quality, repetitive, and tasteless. All three of us had severe diarrhea and vomiting. Drinks came in cheap plastic cups that weren’t properly washed, and once there was a cigarette butt floating in one. Restaurant tables were filthy if you arrived after 7:30. The “island” was another letdown: drinks there weren’t included, despite the all-inclusive booking. Around the pool, the mats were dirty and smelled bad. People brought food and chocolate there, leaving everything sticky and slippery, and some people got hurt. Sunbeds were “reserved” early each morning. The main pool was shut twice after someone defecated in it. Drunk, noisy English tourists shouted and fought all day, and people smoked everywhere without any control. The gym was tiny and old, with broken equipment. Staff weren’t helpful unless you tipped them. Overall, hygiene was poor, facilities were dirty, organization was terrible, staff were unfriendly, and the place felt unsafe. It wasn’t worth the money. Never again.

The spa was fantastic, the bar staff were great, the people looking after the sunbeds were lovely, and the lifeguards were generally very good. Even so, we were extremely disappointed and wouldn’t go back. Three of the seven of us ended up in hospital with different bugs confirmed by blood tests. We saw people vomiting and having stomach trouble in shared toilets, and there were children vomiting in the pools. The pools kept closing, but children getting sick in them seemed to bring no response. There was no sanitiser gel anywhere and no hot water in the communal bathrooms. Our rooms and the surrounding areas were filthy, with no mopping, sweeping, or wiping. The same marks stayed on the mirror and elsewhere the whole time, even when we tipped. Towels were dirty, and everything felt sticky. The bathroom was wet, damp, mouldy, and smelly, with a screw sticking up from the floor. The pools smelled like wee, and the toilets smelled of sewage. At dinner, the place was always busy and nobody helped us find a table, whether we tipped or not. Plates, cups, and cutlery were dirty. Kids picked food up with their hands and put it back if they didn’t want it. People wore swimwear in the restaurant despite signs asking them not to, with no enforcement. I saw a chef handle meat, touch his phone with the same gloved hand, then touch the meat again. Some adults casually used cannabis at the kids’ mini disco. We were told it’s illegal there, but the manager or security didn’t care. There was vaping indoors too. Kids were left unsupervised around the pool. One hit their head and no one was around for several minutes, so I helped, as did the lifeguard. Some parents got drunk while their kids ran wild; there were fights, and someone was arrested. The mini disco was the same every day, and my child was bored after a few days, which was a shame because she’d been looking forward to it and usually loves it. I can’t comment on the rest of the entertainment because it was too late for little ones. We couldn’t eat much because we were sick, so I can’t say much about the food. The beach was dirty, and water sports cost extortionate prices. It was unclear what was included and what cost extra. The tours were misleading. The rep seemed uninterested and uninformed, and casually said everyone would rip us off, which put us off going out. They gave us incomplete information about getting to hospital, leaving out important details I had to ask about. They seemed so used to sending people there, but it was a big deal for us since we’d never had to go before.