Lindos Royal Resort

Just to state, the hotel was nice, and this is not a moan about the negatives. This is just honest and helpful info. We chose this hotel as its stated as 5*, but it’s nowhere near. It doesn’t even try to be, by customer service and condition of facilities. All it does it set a high bar and then fail. Its struggling to be a 4*, probably nearer to 3.5*. Let me take you through it... THE ROOM We had a family room in block 1, in the main building (room 1404). We can't comment about any other room, such as the swim up rooms or superior rooms. Spacious and reasonably clean, the room isn't tired, but they were also not as modern *as you'd expect from a 5*. There were only two chairs on the balcony even though the family room slept four people. The walk-in shower was nice though. The aircon controls in each room are pretty pointless as setting a different temperature makes no difference - they cool the room a bit, but not a lot. We asked reception 3 times to check ours, as our children’s room was noticeably cooler - they didn't come, and when we chased it they admitted the maintenance team were closing the jobs down without even looking. We gave up asking. We had ants in the room and a can of mosquito spray was sent up to the room for us to use. This was after we were accused of taking food into our room which we hadn't. An observation about the swim up rooms – they are not very exclusive – many are next to public areas, so there is little privacy, and the pools are shared, with little per-room space. Think of it like staying in a terraced house compared to a detached house. FOOD One main restaurant with indoor and outdoor dining areas. Busier inside due to aircon cooling. There is also a few stray cats hanging around at meal times under the tables. Large cold salad area and hot meals - all pretty good, although can be a bit samey after a week. Live cooking stations for pizza and pasta are always popular, often with a long queue. Always good dessert and fruit area. Some things are randomly placed, although you get used to it atter a few days. *Tip - butter is usually hidden at the back of the salads near the bread. Breakfasts are pretty good - seem to pride themselves on their American breakfast although you can make a good full English out of what’s available. The staff will serve drinks to your table, the only place they use glass - everywhere else is plastic and paper cups. *Tip - keep your glass and decant your plastic cup bar drinks into it. Snack bar at the pool bar serves different snacks on different days - pizza, gyros, hot dogs etc. GETTING AROUND It can be confusing where to go in the hotel - particularly as the lifts use different level numbers for the same floor. If you explore the corridors you will find routes to where you want to go, with lifts appearing in random places. *Tip - the quickest route from the pool bar area to the main pair of lifts, is to walk through the restaurant, towards the right, past the single lift

On first arrival the Lindos Royal Hotel was very nice, clean and tidy as you would expect from a 5* hotel, please note as a 5* you will need to pay €10 room tax per night on arrival or when you leave. We were there for 10 nights so ended up having to pay €100. We checked in with a friendly reception, who even kept the restaurant open as our flight from BHX had been delayed. A lovely porter took our luggage to our room for us. On arrival our room was looked spotless but it was 2am after a full day of travelling. The next day we unpacked, found we had 2 broken drawers in the bedroom that we didn’t use as the bottoms had fallen out, but there was plenty of other storage. The curtain that went across the patio door did not fully cover the door, and as we looked up from the main pool area we had to resort to putting a chair up against the wall to make sure people could not see us in the room. The hotel complex was lovely with around 5 different pools from kids pools to an adult only area. There was food served all day from the restaurant or the pool bar. But I did find that some of the food in the restaurant was cold or not very warm. This may have been the reason myself and my partner ended up with gastroenteritis for 48 hours each, along with a few more guests we spoke too. If you are going with children who don’t eat much there is not a lot food wise they would eat. On a night time there was not a lot to do, unless you ventured out on the local bus or got a taxi, to Lindos, as within the resort you had around 3-4 hotels, 3 supermarkets and that was it. Entertainment was poor, and seating was lacking, with a lot of people stood up or sat on a wall. Overall Rhodes a lovely place to visit, but the Lindos Royal is somewhere I probably won’t go to again, as needed more to do, if I was to go again for the same price try one of the 5* hotels in Falaraki, where there is more to do on an evening. Also if you don’t like cats don’t go.