Virginia Family Resort

We visited this hotel at the end of July, leaving at the beginning of August and were relatively disappointed.

Pool areas

These were unpleasant at best, dangerous at worst. There were no lifeguards on duty and the majority of parents appeared to be more interested in topping up their tan than supervising their children and monitoring their behaviour.

Members of our family were kicked by children coming down the slide immediately after them, children were pitting lilos on the slide and then having children climb on their backs to go down, children were stopping mid way on the slide etc …, it made for a nerve wracking experience. Some children would visit the quieter pool completely unsupervised, climb on top of the wall and flip/somersault off near people swimming below. I’m sure a nasty accident will occur if these issues are not addressed.

Sun loungers - these are reserved in the middle of the night. One party took to reserving 24 beds a time, presumably on their way back to their rooms at night (I looked out one morning before 6am). They were not alone…. The majority of beds were taken before 7.30am. I can only assume the people reporting there are no issues with beds are the ones reserving them in the middle of the night. It’s an easy fix ….. any towels on beds before breakfast opens should be removed.

Entertainment

The men on the entertainment team were absolutely brilliant and are a credit to the hotel. The circus act and singers were also brilliant.

Location /Public Transport

I booked this hotel as it was close to Rhodes town and had a beach.

In reality, getting to Rhodes Town (or anywhere else) felt almost impossible. The buses were often full at the peak times. We never saw a taxi at the taxi rank at the top of the road and none stopped whilst we were standing at the bus stop.

It appears a suspicious arrangement is in place at the hotel. There are no ‘standard taxis’ anywhere near the hotel. Those taxis have to charge a set fee to particular towns, ie €11 to town. The hotel however offer a ‘transfer service’ which literally costs more than double the amount - €25 to town! Moreover, the service offered is appalling.

We booked a taxi to collect us for a pre paid boat trip. Fortunately I had allowed time for error. The transfer cancelled! Then the next ‘taxi’ contacted cancelled. Eventually the transfer did actually end up being able to take us but after much panic that we would miss our trip!

The next trip we had, we took the 7am bus to ensure we could get to town in time for our boat. At that time, the service had space for us to get on.

My daughter unfortunately became unwell (as did other members of our family) during our stay and required medical attention. The was an extremely helpful lady on reception who called one of the hotel transfers … she left her shift unfortunately whist were waiting. Following her departure, there was no communication from the reception staff. My husband had to chase them and in total it was over an hour before my sick daughter and I were collected and taken to the hospital. Upon leaving the vehicle, I was handed a business card. The driver said it would be unlikely we would be able to get a taxi back from there (the hospital was quite remote)… after coming out of the hospital ( very impressed with the care given), I called the driver who said he would take 40 minutes to reach us, which I understood and accepted, only for him to cancel 10 minutes later! Someone at the hospital suggested I visit the security stand. Fortunately they were very helpful and provided me with an actual taxi company number. Whilst we had to wait some time, a taxi collected us an we eventually got home, no thanks to transfer company provided by the hotel. At one point I feared we would have a sleep on a bench outside.

Beach across the road isn’t connected to the hotel but is nice. Beach shoes recommend though.

Food / Drinks

Overall, they were ok however it felt that whilst the majority of the staff were working incredibly hard, there simply weren’t enough to keep up with demand, resulting in large queues at every turn.

Breakfast - plenty of choice. The omelettes from the station were good however the queues were normally too long and I opted to eat something else.

Lunch - Gyros option was excellent and we had these daily but again, not enough staff/large queues.

Dinner - there were a couple of occasions we had to wait to be seated at a table. The hotel struggles to cater for the volume of people it accommodates. Also, we noticed that items aren’t replenished, despite dinner being listed as open until 9.30pm.

Bar areas - The queues were too long, especially in an evening. There was a rule brought in of only 2 drinks per person which meant my husband had to take one our children with him when ordering drinks! I have never been to a bar and had to send 2 people for a family of 4. My husband always goes to get our drinks so this was, albeit minor, an irritation. If we were out in a bar, I wouldn’t expect this poor service. The root issue was lack of staff which was evident all around the hotel. We found a couple of the main bar staff unpleasant also. Jo at the pool bar however was amazing.

Rooms

Our room was clean, very spacious and had a great balcony.

There were issues with the air con however. It seemed to work intermittently and did not go below 21 degrees although seemed to vary in temperature- sometimes the room would be freezing and at other times we would be too hot, despite the temperature being set the same. We did ask reception to get someone to look at it, which apparently they did but nothing changed.

The bathroom was dated and the hairdryer was not fit for purpose. It would overheat after a very short time and then stop working until it had cooled down. I would recommend bringing your own hairdryer unless you want to embrace the ‘slick back’ look like i did all holiday.

Overall

What we still managed to have a nice holiday, I definitely wouldn’t return or recommend it to others. There are few quiet areas and the hotel in general is noisy. We found the pool areas to be dangerous due to the lack of lifeguards. The sun beds issue is a huge issue and needs addressing.

Our experience has made us reconsider the ‘all inclusive’ approach and we probably will revert to a quieter b and b option next time.

We really enjoyed our boat trips, especially the one to Symi and would highly recommend those.

Just spent 11 nights at this hotel and thought I would note the good and bad.

I will start with the negatives -

Both the pool and main bar requires more staff- queues can be pretty bad at times on an evening - i must however give a shout out to Jo who is an incredible member of staff, she is always smiling and making everyone feel welcome even though she must be exhausted.

I would advise not to choose the Greek a la carte meal - starters were nice, however the main course was not great. The kids pizzas also took over 50 minutes to come out and were so hard the kids couldnt eat them.

The hotel itself could do with a few upgrades - the white grates surrounding the pools were pretty gross and falling off in some areas, also a tile that had fallen off was in the pool. There was a leak in the ceiling by the main bar inside which constantly had a bucket under it. Some of the tiles in the pools surrounding areas were also slipery when wet. There was also an altercation between the cleaning staff one morning. However, all of these noted didnt affect our stay in any way.

Positives -

The restaurant - i had read some negative reviews around the food, however, me and my family always found something to eat and enjoyed it. There is a pretty wide selection for everyone. Breakfast you have fresh pancakes and omelettes being made. The pool snack bar serves Gyros, chips, pizza and hotdogs and these were always delicious and never much of a queue. The pool side restaurant again, was lovely- fresh pizzas being made constantly,  you do get the odd greedy person grabbing loads more pizza than they need which causes queues whilst you wait for the next pizza to be cooked, but thats not the hotels fault. The restaurant staff also work so hard and do an amazing job.

Towels- you can get hotel pool towels with a 10 euro per towel deposit, these can be requested and paid for at reception on arrival - you are given blue coins which you take to the side of the pool bar and hand them over to recieve towels - these can be changed daily. On your final pool day you return the towels to get your blue coins back and take to reception to get your deposit - keep your receipt though as they wont refund without this.

Cleaning- our rooms were cleaned daily - the cleaning team work so hard - the pool areas were hosed down and scrubbed everyday, the glass panels on the bridge crossing the main pool were cleaned daily. I cant fault the hard work they do.

Staff - Thought i would write a separate section on the staff as this has some highs and lows Jo - incredible member of bar staff who is just so lovely and happy to help Teo - restaurant manager- goes above and beyond to make sure you have a great experience Greg - entertainment, the first half of our holiday we had Greg and he was amazing, he would circulate and mingle making sure everyone was happy and felt included, he would be around most of the day doing aqua aerobics, water polo and water pong he actually got in the pool for both the aerobics and water polo. The same for the evening entertainment he was always around hyping everyone up- sadly he left and the replacement was what really let  the entertainment down- more on this further down. Mikey- entertainment, an absolute credit to this hotel. With the departure of Greg it was left to Mikey to cover all areas of entertainment - he did this and smashed it. We learnt this is his first season - he was made for entertainment, he really pulled his game out the bag and managed to do 2 people's job (how he accomplished this is beyond me) he also joined everyone in the pool for aqua aerobics and water polo. He ran around to make sure everyone had a great time morning, day and night. personal note to Mikey - keep up the incredible work, you are an amazing person with a great work ethic, you made our holiday so enjoyable and it genuinely wouldnt have been the same without you.

Now for the lows of the entertainment- following Greg leaving, his replacement (who i believe is also now entertainment manager) started. He covered aqua aerobics once - I cant say anything other than boring. Evening 'music quiz'  happened 4 nights in a row - boring. This person did not mingle, did not hype up the crowd and honestly I dont know what he was doing all day - it was all pretty awkward, it was like he doesnt know how to entertain (the irony). The 2 times I seen him do water polo, he stood on the side of the pool - blew a whistle and then disappeared. I'm pretty sure the thing i saw him do the most was eat. This really dampened the second half of our holiday.

Overall we had a wonderful time at this hotel and if I was the type of person to return to the same hotel I would 100% return.