Overall, we enjoyed our stay in Hotel Alisios in mid-August 2007.
Apart from one day-long thunderstorm with lots of rain, the weather was generally quite warm (30-32deg) and sunny. The A/C in the room was well-appreciated!
The room was simple with 2 single beds together constituting a double bed. This wouldn't have been so noticeable but for the difference in heights of the beds. We had a ‘sea-view’ room which is an over-statement as much of the view was taken over by the hotel terrace and outdoor restaurant. It was hard to ignore that we overlooked the balconies of rooms the other side of the garden also (slight fishbowl effect!). Most nights the hotel next door played very loud cabaret-type music on its terrace until about midnight. On the first night, tired from travelling, we tried to get to sleep early but were forced to endure the 'entertainment' until midnight. Even with the balcony door closed the music sounded like it was in our hotel as we originally thought it was. Perhaps the sea-view room wasn't worth the surcharge although we didn't see the standard rooms. The balcony was a good size, however, and the room came with A/C, TV, safe (subject to deposit and daily charge) and good storage. The en-suite was good but poorly ventilated leaving it very humid and feeling/smelling a little grimy from time to time.
The indoor pool was clean and nice to have when it got a little too hot outside. The hotel has private access to the public beach below which has lovely soft sand and the water is fairly shallow for a good distance from the shore. We didn't come across the cliff walks mentioned below. This maybe connected to the many warning signs about eroding cliff-faces.
The breakfasts were very tasty with the option to eat outdoors which was lovely. Lots of cereals, breads, cheeses, ham, salami, yoghurts, eggs, omellettes, tea, coffee.... We ate one dinner and one lunch in the terrace resaturant. The lunch was more suited to the price than the dinner but both meals were nice and the waitors were good if sometimes slightly cold.
We had mixed experiences with the hotel staff. The general reception attendants were courteous, friendly and facilitating (booking taxis, etc.). We had two run-ins with the reception manager. Firstly, when we first requested a room away from the noisy neighbours, she told us no other rooms would become available by the end of our stay. This was hard to believe at the time and sure enough we saw guests checking out all week long. In the second incident, we inadvertently stayed longer than we had been allowed to as per check-out time (12pm). She was adamant that the small print (printed in three languages on the same page, making it even more difficult to find) on a card we signed at check-in was enough to make us aware of the time. We had never been verbally informed. The same small-print was on the room's welcome card but another notice about room-service was stapled over it. Also, the people we saw checking out had been doing so at various different times of day. Eventually, after making a rather big deal of it, she begrudgingly 'let' us into the room so we could shower and collect our things before leaving. We ended up checking out a relatively minor 40mins late. I would expect hotels to be more understanding given the circumstances. We should not be made feel guilty over their lack of organisation when we would have no problem leaving before 12pm if we had been properly made aware of it. As with any other problems we had during our stay, the overall response was “It’s August!”.
The Old-Town is about a fifteen minute walk from the hotel and has some nice, average-priced restaurants, the nicer ones appear to be along the beach front. Very good quality and good prices can be found by looking a little harder along the side streets too. The Strip along Montechero is about ffiteen to twenty minutes walk in the other direction. This is aimed more towards the Irish/English/German/Dutch revellers at night and looks pretty tacky during the day. Nothing by way of culture to be found there. You get what you see.
