We first stumbled across this hotel as refugees from another property. We were looking for somewhere to sunbathe as an alternative to our own hovel of a hotel. As you’ll see from the promotional pictures, the poolside area is lovely. It is an oasis of calm, set down and back from the main road, with a bar at one end of the pool, with sunbeds all around. Music – mainly chillout and dancy-pop tunes - is played throughout the day and the party carries on well into the night. Those sunning themselves by the pool are either hotel guests, or from hotels nearby, and on weekends they are joined by a sizable number of locals – a good sign.

We spent a few days sunbathing here, enjoying the music, the chic, modern surroundings and the fact that everything here was spotlessly clean. We also appreciated the waiters brining drinks to our table – friendly guys who were happy to help us with sunbeds or parasols.

We enquired with two days of our week away to go whether there were any rooms available at Villa de Mare. So we spent two days in a ground-floor room, which had ample space for four people. All the rooms were bright, modern and spotlessly clean. Everything worked, everything was modern. The decoration was minimalist, but the high ceilings and cool rooms were perfect for us. Being on the ground floor, we were screened by a wall from the pool area, but were only about 5 metres from poolside.

Special mention has to go to the ladies on front desk who were incredibly welcoming in every way, genuinely pleased to welcome us and getting to know us during our short stay there. I cannot speak highly enough of the welcome and help we received from these lovely people.

The bar itself is complimented by a restaurant which I can honestly say served us one of the best evening meals I have eaten all year – it was simply fantastic and not pricy at all. We shared a wonderful meal over a bottle of wine just after sunset by the beach – it was simply amazing. The breakfasts in the morning were also good and the variety of food on offer was excellent. Superb coffee too.

The only small problem I’d see if you stayed here would be if you had a problem with the fact that this place is a magnet for the cool kids and the bar stays open until late most nights – if you’re not a night owl this may disturb you. The set-up of our suite however would mean that any children would be in the side of the building away from the bar so this might not be a massive problem if you had kids with you.

That aside, this is a clean, modern and well-run place to stay which I would recommend in a heartbeat and which I will seriously consider staying in again if and when I next visit Rhodes.

We came across Villa di Mare when staying at a nearby hotel which we didn't like so we started to use the public pool facilities in Villa di Mare. After a few days (two of which we spent at a different hotel in Rhodes Town) we decided to check in to Villa di Mare for our final two nights. The room rate was very reasonable. The hospitality was excellent, the staff went over and above what was expected to accomodate all of our needs. The rooms were basically decorated but perfectly functional and very clean. The restaurant was fantastic, the best souffle and cheesecake we've ever tasted. The pool bar also served good snacks and was very reasonably priced. The hotel is central in Ixia but this is the best place to be. A lot of the resort is based around all inclusive resort hotels so this stylish, chilled and modern place was a breath of fresh area. The poolbar music was very good too although it did go on until 2am and could get fairly noisy, which is fine if you want to make the most of the facilities and join the party anyway.