Pickalbatros Citadel Resort

This was our second visit to Citadel, and once again, it proved to be an extraordinary hotel that absolutely lives up to its 5-star rating. It truly feels like a second home.

Firstly, the staff truly amplify the experience at this hotel. We were treated like VIPs throughout our entire stay and cannot compliment the hands-on staff enough for the level of service they provide.

Ahmed Refaat at the Infinity Pool Bar, as well as during the evening waiter service, was a particular standout. He genuinely could not do enough for us. He has fantastic attention to detail, is extremely conscientious and consistently went above and beyond. He truly deserves to be recognised for his hard work and dedication.

Ali at Alfredo Restaurant is another standout employee, alongside Mohamed Abram at East & West Restaurant. Both waiters made our dining experience so memorable that we found ourselves returning to these two restaurants for the majority of our 2 week stay. The food at both is excellent quality, the chefs are clearly very talented, and everything is extremely clean and well maintained. There is also a fantastic variety of food, with plenty of options for everyone.

The pizza & pasta house are also amazing amenities to have available, with a beautiful view of the marina and great food available at different times in the day allowing for late afternoon or midnight snacks.

Turky at Rocks Lounge also really looked after us, he was a friendly face around the hotel during our stay and he also deserves recognition for his hard work.

The entertainment has also noticeably improved since our previous visit in September 2025. We enjoyed the entertainment last year, but it is clear that there has been further investment in this area. There were regular pool parties hosted by external companies, fruit festivals, frequent dance shows, circus performances, acrobats and fire shows. The frequency and quality of the entertainment has definitely increased, and there was something exciting happening almost every day.

Marley was the standout animator. He has so much energy and is naturally entertaining and funny. We noticed that he stepped in as Chief Animator during our stay and he did a fantastic job in that role.

The towel boys and lifeguards were also excellent at their jobs and regularly looked out for us around the pools and beach.

The spa is also worth a visit. We got a good deal on massages and found the staff to be incredibly friendly and welcoming.

Overall, the service and facilities were excellent and there was very little we could fault. We had a fantastic two-week stay and will certainly return.

The only area where I would offer some constructive feedback is reception, as the level of service there felt inconsistent compared with the warm and attentive service we received from the rest of the hotel.

The person who checked us in was great. However, on our final day we requested a late checkout, something we have done previously and were more than happy to pay the €80 fee for. We had discussed this with night reception the evening before departure and were advised that it was an available option.

I called reception at 8:30am on the morning of departure and was told to call back at 10:00am to check availability, as the hotel was supposedly fully booked. This also seemed to conflict with our observations and comments made by other staff. I called again at 10:00am and was told that someone would call me back in five minutes, but unfortunately nobody ever did.

As a result, we ended up rushing to pack and decided not to pursue the late checkout, which made our final morning more rushed and stressful than it needed to be. We were also let down by the lack of follow up and didn’t wish to ring a third time, it became laborious and it was clear the reception lacked customer care.

We were also surprised by how regimented the reception staff were regarding the towel cards. When checking out, we still had over 6 hours before our airport pickup, so we naturally still needed to use our towels, especially since we were declined late checkout so we needed to shower at the spa. We were spoken to as though we were intending not to return the cards and were warned that we would be charged a €10 fine. We are, of course, familiar with standard hotel procedures and had every intention of returning the towel cards and had the towels visibly with us.

When we later returned to the lobby to organise our cases, the receptionist left the desk to approach us for the cards again whilst we sorted our luggage. This felt quite unusual and was the first time during our stay that we had felt we were treated with little professionalism.

It was not the €10 fine itself or the process that bothered us but the level of emphasis placed on this process and that we were treated as though we planned to steal the towels. Given that this is a 5-star resort and we had spent several thousand pounds on our stay, the approach felt disproportionate and unnecessarily controlling. We appreciate that hotels need procedures, but we felt this could have been handled in a much more relaxed and professional manner as we did nothing wrong.

That said, these issues were isolated to reception and did not reflect our overall experience of the hotel. The guest relations also cannot be included in this feedback as they were always warm and regularly checked in on us during our stay. The overwhelming majority of the staff were exceptional, friendly and genuinely made our holiday special.

Citadel remains a beautiful, unique hotel with fantastic facilities, excellent food and some truly exceptional staff. We loved our second visit just as much as our first, if not more and will happily return again.

It was amaizing, everything perfect