Eliros Mare

Our stay in this hotel was amazing, we felt good during the whole stay, food was delicious, and the staff was extremely helpful and attentive. I can only recommend this hotel.

We loved our stay at Eliros Mare and definitely did not want to leave! The few areas to improve/negatives didn’t really detract from how much we enjoyed our holiday. Overall a really beautifully designed and clean hotel with great staff, food and drink. We go into detail below so you can understand the hotel better - but bear in mind despite any small criticisms we would recommend the hotel as on the whole we thought our stay was amazing. FYI The typical guests seem to be young families and couples also majority German speaking guests but all staff speak English too. FOOD The buffet was extremely varied but also had options (fresh pizza, salad, bread, cheeses and cured meats) available everyday. There was also always pasta but the type changed each day. The grill option changed everyday - the only thing we did not enjoy is the bao buns, as found the bun was dry. We really enjoyed the food and lunch time was excellent too, our favourite being the Gyros and Souvlaki. The range of sauces and dips is amazing too - the tzatziki was delicious. Breakfast has great choice although unlike lunch/dinner is mostly the same each day - it’s continental and American style. Omelettes cooked to order are available everyday but would have been nice to see this varied a bit (however we don’t like omelettes so others may disagree). They advertise a champagne breakfast on Sundays but I noticed this was put on a couple of times during our 7 day stay which was nice. We didn’t eat at the buffet at the beach restaurant, it had less choice and the food was not labelled. To improve, I think for lunch the beach restaurant should just be a grill instead of a buffet with eg gyros, souvlaki and some chips made available, this would be better than two buffets. As this sort of thing is available at the beach restaurant for half board guests to purchase, I think it should be available everyday to all inclusive guests to some extent at least. Also the beach buffet is not as good as the main buffet (way less options, no grill and not labelled) so to us it became redundant - why not do something different at the beach restaurant if that buffet can’t compete with the main buffet? It’s only a short walk between. The beach restaurant lunch offering was our one main criticism of the food but as the main buffet was great it didn’t really impact our stay but could be improved. Snacks are available throughout the day at the beach bar. We ate once at the a la carte restaurant. It is a set menu where every dish is served. We felt the salad and bean dish was slightly out of place and would work better in much smaller portions alongside the meats - maybe this is just personal preference, but eating them on their own was a bit odd. The meat course was really tasty but as there are 5 courses, smaller portions of each course would be better. The appetisers and desserts were lovely. Overall we preferred the buffet (we liked selecting our own food) and as it was so varied it didn’t become repetitive eating there for lunch/dinner every day. I’ve included a picture of one lunch and one dinner meal. The dress code is relaxed at lunch so you can just put a beach cover up on and some sliders and there is no issue. It would be helpful to know what the theme was each night ahead of time - perhaps a sign outside of the restaurant so that for example on the fish night (we are not a fan of seafood) we could book the a la carte instead of resorting to the pizza/pasta/salad. You can book the a la carte as many times as you like during your stay. The cocktails are lovely, there is also a big selection of wines - even though not all are included in the all inclusive there is more than enough. Not all cocktails are included in all inclusive, just the ones with two asterisks on the menu - there are also 3 specials not included. There is enough choice for this not to matter, but ideally for all inclusive all cocktails on the main menu at least would be available. Also the quality of alcohol is good - it’s absolut vodka and there’s traditional Greek alcohol available too. So you really do have plenty of choices. We really enjoyed the food and drink here and the dining environment was nice too. STAFF All of the team here are brilliant. The staff at the main bar particularly stood out to us and we spent most of our evenings here. Cocktails were consistently great as was the service. They really made our stay. In the restaurant both managers are very friendly and help with seating, always greeting us with a smile and asking us about our stay. All of the staff are smiley and welcoming. Plates are always cleared quickly and the dishes at the buffet are regularly topped up. The animation team is friendly and informs you of the events but never intrusive. They are also just generally chatty. It would be ideal if you have young children, we don’t, but even we noticed how great the staff were with them. FACILITIES The room was clean and spacious. We did notice the toilet roll was slightly poor quality. Refillable water bottles provided and a bottle of sparking wine on arrival. The bed and pillows were super comfy and soft. Pool kept immaculately clean. We also observed the sun bed rule (no reserving) being enforced twice when it was necessary to do so. There are beds available until around 9:30 typically sometimes until later. After this time, any beds that had been reserved without anyone present had towels removed which was good to see. The beach is kept clean too and is very pretty. There were beds available all day. It’s sandy but gets pebbly near the water. The sea stays shallow until far out. There are jet skis available to rent for €60 an hour. The gym has some cardio machines, dumbbells up to 20kg a bench and a cable machine. It could do with a smith machine/squat rack as it is quite limited in terms of weights. You have to reserve the gym which works fine. There is also an on site shop with inflatables, essentials, snacks and books etc. There is also a shop directly over the road, it is a busy single carriage road but people are always crossing so it was no worry to us. The snacks were slightly cheaper there than at the on site shop as to be expected. The evening entertainment has more good nights than bad, the acrobatics show, and the two performances at the main bar (saxophone night and night with 2 singers) were definitely the best, closely followed by the fire show. All of those were great to watch and the entertainment by the main bar felt 5 star. The Greek night would be good if you are willing to participate on stage, otherwise not much happening. We didn’t attend the others (bingo, a band) as it didn’t interest us. There is also a day trip to Lake Kournas offered, it’s a 40 minute hike and the lake is beautiful. We went on our own accord as didn’t fancy it the day it was organised by the animation team, but I recommend going at some point. We booked a taxi with reception and it was €10 one way (a short 5-10 minute drive away). You can also pay €6 to go on a train (it’s not a proper train it goes on the road), you can get on this from just outside the hotel. It is then €10 for a pedalo for the hour. One issue we had was that the power to the room cuts off after 10 minutes if you are out of the room. This meant we could not leave our aircon on in the evening to cool our room before we slept. We spoke to reception about this issue. They cleverly resolved the problem by providing us a fan and extension cable to plug into the fridge socket - the one socket that will never cut out. Therefore we could keep a fan on. It was never a big deal as it was thankfully resolved by the wonderful staff, however it is a design flaw - there should be an option to keep power on.

Thank you very much for the wonderful holiday! Great facilities, pool, beach, delicious food and extremely warm staff who get out of their way to make your stay perfect.

Top Location right at the sandy Beach. Always enough sun chairs. Service was outstanding. Pleasant food at restaurant and sea star beach bar. Yummy cocktails. Lovely decoration at breakfast table for his 80th birthday and they presented him a delicious birthday cake accompanied by Greek birthday songs from restaurant staff. Reception crew very helpful with organizing special outings and car rentals for our family. Thank you Maria.

Nice hotel looks wise- also the beach is very pretty. However having been to many 5* Hotels this wouldn’t classify- its rather 3* due to the following: - our room was very dark and smelled moist the whole time- beds are also very soft and 2 separate single beds - food is very average and feels sometimes more like a child menu not 5* level, the beach restaurant menu was great tough and would recommend to eat there several times for dinner if you can - service was very good and friendly from the bar , restaurant and animation stuff - however reception is rather unfriendly as well as we were surprised to not have been asked even at check out how our experience was - all inclusive is ok- but there are certain things not included Overall an OK stay, but would have expected more. Would recommend for the beach.