Having recently returned from the Caravel Hotel, Tsivili on the beautiful island of Zakynthos I decided to add my comments to those already made. My husband and I travelled with two 16 year olds and we stayed half-board at the Caravel.

Positive points: Hotel accommodation is generally good with an excellent maid service including clean bedding and towels every day. The location is ideal for access to Tsivili town with many bars and tavernas and the beach. Reception staff are very helpful and most of the staff speak very good English.

Negative points: The restaurant. I was hoping for fresh fish, fresh vegetables, fresh seasonal fruit and a variety of cheeses, but I was very disappointed. The chef is obviously very experienced and some of the dishes were very nice. Unfortunately this was spoilt by the fact that all vegetables were frozen, the fresh fruit was non-existent (with the exception of melon served every day) and the cheese was limited to two varieties. The fish was not freshly caught and was obviously the frozen variety. There was also an absence of dried fruit.

The restaurant turnaround was very slow with some tables not being cleared at all. Service was very slow and quite often we were half way through our meal before drinks were served. The choice of wine was also very limited with huge differences in price range. The restaurant staff, with notable exceptions, seemed unhappy and morale appeared to be low, this showed in their service. Only one knife and fork was provided, so we had to use the same set for each course (spoons were available for soup and dessert).

Sunbeds were plentiful alas the free beds were taken 24/7 by customers leaving towels on the beds for the duration of their stay. This forced us to pay for beds on the beach at 3E each. Other hotels we have frequented collected sunbeds each evening and distributed them at 7:30 the following morning to ensure fairness.

The rooms were comfortable although varied in size and décor. We stayed in the ‘Apollo’ building on the 2nd floor and the room was comfortable. The balcony view however was of a car-park and supermarket with view of the hillside. The two girls however stayed in the ‘Hermes’ building on the ground floor. This room was much smaller, the interior drab and the view from the balcony was of the Apollo building. (We did request rooms together or adjoining when booking the holiday).

Our thoughts are that this used to be a 4* hotel when Zakynthos was a traditional Greek island with a smaller number. This has changed and Zakynthos has become an island for geared purely towards tourism, standards dropping and lowering quality in order to make money. We felt the Caravel should be a 3* hotel. It is very difficult to cater for ‘all-inclusive’ options as well as half-board and bed and breakfast and this shows in the quality of the services. The hotel would benefit from a refurb.

TWO warnings:
One of the girls took a walk alone on the beach just outside the hotel leaving all belongings back in the hotel room at 9:00am in the morning. Someone attempted to mug her at knife-point but ran away when he realised she was carrying nothing worth taking. She was shaken, but unhurt.

The Second warning is IMPORTANT for anyone who is using a card in an Autobank to draw cash in Europe this year.
My husband had no problems using his Switch card, however, my current account card AND my Master card (from a different bank) were both rejected (both worked in Barcelona earlier this year).
On return from holiday, we were informed that their new security policies AUTOMATICALLY blocked all transactions from outside the UK because of the level of fraud.
We were told that in future we inform them of our travel arrangements to enable account access from the destination (so telling an unknown call centre operative somewhere on the planet with access to our address details that our house would be empty. Soooo…our security is compromised but theirs isn’t….. that’s ok then,,, not).


Conclusion: After ten years of travelling to Greece and its islands on a half-board 4* only basis, the Caravel did not rate anywhere near the top. We enjoyed a nice, relaxing family holiday. Did we get value for money? – NO. Would we choose to return to Zakynthos and the Caravel Hotel? – NO

When i first came on trip advisor i thought no!!!! these people must just be very fussy!!! well i found out they were right!!
Upon arriving at the hotel , you think great it looks much nicer than all the others i've passed on my way in!!!
Brilliant!!!
I travelled with a party of 25 people for the occasion of my sister getting married.... You know the nomal delays that hold you up on holiday? Well we arrived at the hotel late.. When we got there they had actually saved us some food and ushered us into the restaurant, how nice of them.....
Well it didn't last long..............................
We were left standing at the reception with keys in hand wondering which building our room was in... No help what so ever...
When we got to the room we found 4 beds crammed into the smallest room you've ever seen in your life... We actually booked 2 twin rooms.... We never got it... I hasten to add , another family that we travelled with got exactly the same and had to pay 700 euros to upgrade even though they had already paid for this in the price of their holiday...
We went all inclusive................What a big mistake.
The priority of the staff at this hotel is to serve visitors and self catering before the " prisoners with the bands".
breakfast lunch and evening meal times were far to short. 2 hours for each, the food got very tiresome, ( always the same), you got refused certain snacks from the pool bar, then 2 minutes later you would see them serving the non all inclusives just what you had asked for..
The pool.......................... Never got cleaned in the whole two week we were there, a member of our party saw them sprinkling something in it first thing in the morning, scum all round the edges, not child friendly, and to top it off when the water aerobics was on ( twice a day) she dragged an extention cable from behind the bar and plugged her boogie box in at the pool edge!!!
It beggers belief!!! Can i just say all our children were out of the pool and on the beach when we saw her arriving.
They do have a childrens pool, however you have to trek across wasteland to get to it and all inclusives have to pay for their drinks.
The wasps round the sunbeds was phenomenal.... Probably because the floor never got washed down from all the juice and food spilt. we asked for it to be done... We got told tomorrow.. Tomorrow never came!!!
The owner of the hotel very very rude and arrogant to his guests.. and staff.
He actually raised his fist to a german man...
On the whole a good holiday had we not stopped at this hotel!!!
Greece was a lovely place however i don't think we will be returning in the near future!!

I booked this hotel a year in advance as i was getting married in Alykanas and wanted a little luxury they were advised i was getting married and that we had our two children with who are 11 and 2. Family and friends also booked this hotel as it was 4 star what a joke. We got there you are basically given your keys and left to your own devices no one to help with bags or to show you to your room. When we got to our room i nearly cried i could not believe it 4 beds side by side so basically my children are at side of mum and dad it was like something out of a comedy sketch but this also happened to other members of my party with their children one couple who have a 19 year old daughter and 10 year old daughter very uncomfy for parents. so after complaining this was not acceptable my friends who had already paid £3,600 for the fortnighht was then requested to pay another 700 euros for an upgrade no customer service in this hotel at all. i was offered another room only for it to be exactly the same as before but instead of painted wood i had natural wood.
My party that i had taken out there in total had paid just short of 20,000 we were treat like second class citizens because we were AI the hotel was full of Germans who thought they were better than everybody else.
The staff especially the managers were rude at one point they shouted at one member of party as he was upset about his room there was Peter the restaurant manager who thought he was above everybody nobody smiled and was very rude.
in my room the sockets were hanging out of the walls my daughters had to sleep on a camp bed and a pull out chair the cleaning of the hotel left a lot to be desired the pool caused several ear infections and the pool was surrounded by wasps.
There was daily aqua aerobics on but only if you did not value your life would you do it the stereo was plugged in with extension lead and stereo left at side of pool with cables going through water it would only take one child to kick it in accidentaly then we would all of fried.
thisis def not a four star hotel i beleive it used to be the best hotel on the island but i presume they are going back to when it was first built as i have stayed in better Self Catering.
I usually love zante but this hotel has really put me off i have never stayed anywhere like this.
Also dont expect room service i rang through on my wedding day requesting some glasses of champagne as i was getting ready and was very rudely told that there was no one on bar and if i needed them i would have to go myself.
being a big group of us i suppose we could have been a little loud when having discussions but we were told to be quiet all the time.
Five children out of my party were watching english cartoons one morning then one greek child came along they turned over the tv for leaving five children quite upset.
Before i went i looked on this site and thought people were just whining but i realise now they were right after our experience i will take heed whenever i read reviews again. The food was ok not great they served english sausages twice it was all geared around the greeks and germans.
i have since found out that i should of had champagne and fruit on arrival but nothing until i complained and it was in the room after that but i should of been given a free upgrade but no again do not stay at this hotel it is awful.
i would go to zante again but stick to Self Catering.
It got so bad how my party was being treat that we ate out almost all the time and kept away from the hotel as much as possible.
they also have no idea of Health and Safety and the only time the reps can carry out Health and Safety checks is on Sundays when no activities are on. Surprisesurprise.
There is also nothing for children so def not family place all my two year old ate for a fortnight was Spaghetti Bolognese the childrens pool is at Caravel Land where you have to pay for drinks and snacks i cannot stress enough how awful this hotel is i was very upset it was happen a good job that i went with family and friends as in the end we kept each other entertained the bars in the area were great and the restaurants were fantastic.
The hotel was on the beach but not a sandy one as stated in brochure it is all seaweed and rocks so very misleading.

Bennett family,4 adults, 2 children
Just spent a week in the Caravel,what is there to winge about ?
The rooms were cleaned daily and the staff were all friendly,food was excellent and even our 2 children, who are
a little picky,tried all sorts.Ok the hotel is ready for an update in decor,but we were there on holiday not moving in forever.Location was excellent and tsilivi had plenty for the kids to do. Love Zante,Tsilivi and thanks to the Caravel for a great holiday.