Aegean Aparthotel

Picked up a great deal through TUI. The hotel was lovely and clean and all staff were very friendly. Pool was spotless although cold when you first got in but ok once swimming. Plenty of choice for breakfast and evening meal but sometimes in an evening everything was put on your plare as unable to serve yourself. If I had a little moan it would be because there was no kettle in room which we would liked for a cuppa when we first woke. But all in all a fantastic week away in these trying times

When we go on holiday, we normally like to stay in 4-star adults-only hotels, as we like hotels with plenty of facilities where we can really relax. Thanks to Coronavirus, the holidays that we had booked had all been cancelled and so we had decided to book a cheap last-minute holiday and hope for the best, which is why we ended up booking the Aegean. The Tui website didn’t have much information about the different room options, or many photos of the rooms, so we booked a Preferred Studio with Mountain View and Balcony or Terrace on a Half Board basis 6 days before departure and kept our fingers crossed! Our arrival at the hotel was rather chaotic due to the large number of guests who were checking in at the same time. Once we had been given our key, we struggled with our bags down the spiral staircase in reception and headed towards the pool/bar area where we could hear music blaring out. At this point, Valentine appeared from the bar area and pointed us in the direction of our room (number 103), which was on the first floor. Once we had dragged our suitcases up the stairs and into our room, we were pleasantly surprised by what we saw. The room was a good size with a double bed and separate single bed and a decent size balcony overlooking the bar and pool. It was very nicely decorated, and we were really pleased to see that it had a fridge. The bathroom was also nicely decorated and, as we soon discovered, the shower was very good. We didn't have any problems with the towels, but it's worth noting that pool towels are not provided here. We’re not 100% certain, but we think that we were upgraded and that this room was a Studio with Sea View (although the sea view was mainly hidden by trees). We didn't make use of the air conditioning as the room was cool enough at night for us and we didn't make use of the safe either. Due to Coronavirus, the housekeeping service had been reduced, but the bathroom bin was emptied daily, and the sheets and towels were changed once during our stay which was fine by us. We would agree with some of the previous reviews that suggested that the pillows were not very good quality. As mentioned above, our room was directly opposite the bar and pool area which meant that the music from the bar was audible from 10am to midnight. This meant that we had to sleep with the windows closed and even then, the music was fairly audible, so we were glad that we had taken ear plugs. The bar really is the heart of the hotel and Valentine is certainly the heart of the bar. It was really nice to be able to chat to him while he was working and, of course, to have a drink or two while we were sunbathing, relaxing or having dinner, or at any time of day to be honest! The bar turned out to be one of our favourite bits of the holiday as there was always such a nice atmosphere there and it was good to see the owners relaxing down there as well. Drinks prices were reasonable too – beer was 4 euros for a 500ml bottle, a glass of wine was 3 euros, a litre of water was 1.5 euros and cocktails were 7.50 euros. There were various different sitting areas and plenty of sunbeds too. As we were staying at the Aegean on a Half Board basis, we had breakfast and dinner in the restaurant part of the bar every day. The normal breakfast and dinner times were shortened during our stay as the hotel was only 20% full, but this wasn’t a problem for us. Because of Coronavirus, it wasn’t possible to serve buffet style meals and therefore the staff would serve us the food themselves. Due to language differences there was an awful lot of pointing and gesturing going on, but we felt like this added to the fun! At dinner there wasn't very much choice, but the food that was available was very nice and we had no problems finding something to eat every evening. In fact, our main problem was stopping the buffet lady over-stuffing us with food! Breakfast was served in a similar way, but we didn't enjoy this as much as we found that the food choice was basic and rather repetitive, even though the food itself was of good quality. It wouldn't take much to tweak things slightly to add some variety, for example by swapping plain Greek yoghurt for a fruit yoghurt or by having some pastries instead of the marble cake that was there every morning. This wasn't a big issue though as we were usually full from dinner the night before anyway. A previous review mentioned that there is a dog in the hotel that likes to hang around the bar area and beg for food. Based on that review we were expecting to be harassed by very large and aggressive dog. It turned out that the hotel dog was a very small and overweight pug who was rarely seen around the bar and restaurant area and when you did see him, he only seemed to be interested in some fuss. A number of previous reviews have mentioned that this hotel is likely to be unsuitable for people with mobility issues. We would definitely agree with this - the hotel has no lifts and is on a steep hill (5 mins up to the main road where the shops, bars and restaurants are and 15 minutes down to the beach). If you are in poor health, or if level access is a necessity then I wouldn’t recommend this hotel. There have also been comments regarding the hotel’s suitability for families. This is a bit less clearer cut as there is no reason why families couldn’t stay here, but the small and shady toddler pool and the very deep main pool (min depth 1.5m, max depth 2.5m) might not be suitable for some families. There was only one family at the hotel during our stay and they, and their toddler, had a great time. Finally, another recent review suggested that smoking is a problem at this hotel. This was rather worrying to us before we arrived as neither of us smoke and I have asthma. During our stay, and in common with many other hotels, guests were able to smoke on their balconies, by the pool and in the outdoor part of the bar/restaurant. In practice, we only saw a handful of people smoking and it didn’t impact on our holiday at all. After all of the stress leading up to our stay at the Aegean, things really couldn’t have gone much better and we did have a really relaxing and fun holiday there. We don’t often revisit hotels, but I certainly wouldn’t rule out a future visit to the Aegean. Hopefully this review will allow you to decide whether it’s the right hotel for you!