If the Aquis Blue Marine Hotel in Amoudara, Crete, is a five star hotel [other than their own star ratings] by international standards, then I’m a banana.
One point I must raise immediately to everyone who is considering a visit, and also the hotel’s management [Owner - Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Saeed Al Nahayan of UAE] is the choice of tiling for the swimming pool area is a disgrace. On our visit a lady slipped and returned to UK in a wheelchair, and numerous other trips and slips occurred due to the tiles being the wrong ones for a high slippage area. If this was a pool in UK, I have absolutely no doubt that the Health & Safety would close the pool immediately and order a recovering of the whole area.
And just a small point before the next major dissapointment, they still advertise tennis courts. There is a wooden stage and seating where the animation team do kids disco's every night, which our child found to be boring after going to three of them as it was the same every night. So is that false advertising?
My next point is the standard of the food, which was incredibly poor for all three sittings. If you’re not a basic salad fan, then you’re likely to be going to Agios Nikolaos and spending money feeding yourself; the job the hotel is supposed to be doing.
There was a high turnover of food from one sitting, being packaged differently and reserved at the next sitting e.g. pork slices become pork snitzel, beef becomes calf casserole etc.
I cannot say anything more than the food served was ‘Canteen’ grub, and people at a large workplace would be reporting the standard of food to the management and unions with the chef/manager being fired.
Then there is a third point about this hotel which should be addressed by the management, and that is the high volumes of mosquitoes which are in the rooms, hotel and surrounding areas. We were bitten on many occasions, with one of us having more than thirty bites all over their body. They sell a fly spray in their shop for E3.8, which in Netto will cost you less than 50p. Maybe it’s the money element that they don’t bother spraying the rooms, and leave you to buy their products?
The shop is extremely dear, with most sun creams being sold for between E14.50 and E20. Just make sure that you go to the supermarket/cut-price discounter before you go and buy more than you need, as you will burn very easily in the sun and it’s also helped by the salt water pool.
WiFi connection can be very temperamental; there are areas which you will have little to no connection. The outside areas e.g. pool, they will pick up the lobby connection, and the rooms one called desktop. The mobile telephone connections are also different at the front and the back of the hotel e.g. Cosmote and Wind.
The Animation team was headed by an Italian lady called Erica, who is a very outgoing and likable person. One young lady called Gooner was very rude to us and said, ‘Don’t think putting your child to the kids playtime is an invitation for you to have a good time you are still the parent you know’. I told her we were very aware of our responsibilities, and decided not to bother putting our child again if that’s what she thought of the parents. But as the Jackson 5 sung, ‘One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch’. The rest, two Italian guys, a Slovak lady and a Polish lady were fantastic, and made up for Gooner; who also caused a couple to have a blazing row with an off-the-cuff comment she made to a wife which turned out to be her making a joke…..the couple did find out and I believe they were making a complaint about the incident that should have never happened.
If there was one thing I would personally change, the format of the games become monotonous and would be better changed to a fortnight program with varying events. Basically it starts with boules, then later darts, cocktail game, volleyball, football, table tennis etc.
One shining feature to the hotel are the bar staff, Aria and the Barman upstairs in particular. Always polite and smiling, they are a credit to the hotel.
We found that most of the waiting, cleaning and general staff were Polish or other Eastern European if they weren’t from Greece. Many were starting to have worries about their next job, as they are all to be laid off on 31st Oct without any contract for next year.
The Al-a-Carte [Olive Tree] wasn’t up to much, the lamb chops were mainly bones with fat …. and a little meat. The fish wasn’t anything great, and the chicken was just passable. The prices they were advertising for this were just not realistic, as you could have got the same in any major UK city for about the same but really enjoyed it. The best part about our meal was Alex [Romanian], who was funning with our child everytime he passed which she absolutely loved.
Yes the hotel was clean, but on a couple of occasions we had to ask the cleaner if she was doing our room. On one occasion we had to ask her to come to our room, to see that we didn’t have a towel to have a shower. She must have been in a rush, and decided she would miss us out that day; so it’s a good job we came to wash before dinner otherwise we would have had no beds made or clean towels to wash.
And one more thing for the management, did you know people just turn up order drinks and have a good time at your expense? It happened a couple of times that we know, when a big Albanian guy who calls himself Bruno Sergio and his five pals just strolled in and ordered drinks. That’s why other hotels have the armbands, why don’t you make use of the room card and give out one for every adult who must swipe, show or produce before they get drinks?
