I have just returned today from the worst holiday of my life. Unfortunately there are no other words for it. The feeling of relief when we touched back down in the UK brought a smile to our faces.
These are our views and I will try to be diplomatic, I am telling you about our experience's at the Oceania Club which I'm sure will differ from other peoples but this is based on our two weeks and the complaint form(s) we submitted to First choice while in resort, which resulted in ourselves (and about 10 other families from first choice that I know of) getting 30% back. Med Hotels and Thomas cook held there own customer meetings.
The hotel is built into the side of the cliff with the reception at road level on floor Six. Very bland decor 2 bars (1 function), Bars very rarely staffed usual guest relations desk etc but No library, Games room, Internet room or jewellery shop, normal shop still getting sorted although did have good stock by the time we left. There is a shoe shop!
Floor 5 is just toilets, yes a whole floor just for toilets!
Floor 4 is the restaurant (all meals buffet) free for all when we first arrived but now they actually take you to the seats and have a dress code and rules etc. The Italian was rubbish, 1 choice of fish, steak or veggie option that's it! Did not try the Asian. These are just segregated areas of the main restaurant.
Floor 3 to block 2 rooms
Floor 2 to Crèche/kiddies club/night club/Cinema
Floor 1 ?? Maintenance I think
Floor 0 Pool/Spa/Block 3 & 4 rooms/Beach/Greek taverna
What's still not open - Greek Taverna, Crèche, Spa (half done) Beach bar, Kids play area inside and play area outside not safe. There are also parts of the building not accessible due to being boarding up so don't know what they will be if anything. They were still trying to get alot of the rooms finished as late as last Friday, painting etc.
The Hotel rooms are separate from the main complex, they are divided into 5 blocks with 3 floors in each block. You have a good sea view if you are in Block 1 (but not floor one) Block 2 all floors, Block 3 one and two look directly to block 4 so Rubbish unless you are on floor three and block 4 all floors good. Block 5 is the deluxe rooms and all have a good sea view over the private pool area.
The Double Rooms are very very small, we had to move to a junior suite which I considered to be a normal hotel room as we could not move in the double room with a cot in there as well. (and the noisy air conditioning kept us awake for two nights running)
The deluxe suites looked impressive.
This Hotel will never be a 4* plus, I have stayed in Hotels all over the world and at best when complete I would say this is a 3* it is not child or disabled friendly and never will be purely by design.
The town of Nea Moudania is a 15-20 min walk along the front away and is a small local working port/town and not geared up for tourists. You will walk round once for a morning then that's it, it's done. There's a good Wednesday market in the town but that's it, there's nothing else to do and I really mean nothing!!
Ultimately this Hotel is not finished and by Andreas's own admission (Sani marketing director) They have failed the customers expectations big time!!. The problem is the Hotel Owner's are vertually bankrupt; the builders have been given alot of rubber cheques so are refusing to do any more work. Meanwhile Sani (who manage the operation they do not own the hotel) are trying to run it the best they can.
Most of the staff are fantastic in the face of adversity (apart from the reception staff who just don't seem to give a toss) The restaurant is the hotels saving grace all though the food did get very samey after two weeks.
Our problems, without boring you with to much detail I will list in bullet form with brief explanation, if you want further info please contact me.
1. Tiled area around pool dangerously slippy when wet, saw so many people slip over including me. Lots of kids slipping and bashing heads etc.
2. No fire evacuation procedures/ extinguishers evident any where in hotel including rooms, some did go up in 2nd week.
3. Very poor/non existent entertainment program for children
4. Drilling in Restaurant (core floor drill) to relieve flood water (restaurant flooded 3 nights running when storms hit)
5. My son cut foot on marble shards in pool area from restaurant balcony drilling mess not cleared up properly from night before.
6. Main pool floor dangerously slippy, one guy taken to hospital last week came back with a neck brace one lady had to have pain killing injections from a hip injury.
7. Paint peeling off children's pool base.
8. Fire alarm continually going off day and night, we counted 7 times on Wednesday.
9. This hotel is not child friendly at all.
10. Baby phones were personal home type so were useless.
11. No babysitting service, first nanny walked out after two days new one fell asleep while in charge of kids.
12. The lifts never work, 2 lifts in block four where we were, never worked always had to carry the pushchair and boy up and down the stairs, which restricted us immensely. The lifts in the hotel were always packing up as well mainly only 1 of the 3 was in operation caused alot of problems around dinner time etc. Also got stuck in the lifts twice when they broke down.
13. Fence near outside play area not complete, shear unguarded drop off cliff right next to swings etc.
14. Bare electrical wiring everywhere
15. Told workmen would be in restricted areas at restricted times they seemed to work as and when they pleased. Due to all the problems on site the hotel maintenance staff seemed to be everywhere all the time banging and drilling something.
16. Periodically no hot water
17. No air conditioning or very noisy when it did work.
These are some of our issues which basically spoilt the whole holiday for us, if I went on my own with the wife you could laugh most of this off, but not when you have a nine month old baby in what was supposed to be a child friendly hotel. It was very evident from the amount of under 5's there that's the impression that everyone else had too.
My advice is don't go to this hotel - Yet! Go next year when it's settled down a bit and don't take your kids (fit or disabled) or your granny in the wheelchair if you do you will be disappointed. They should re market this hotel for couples young and old who don't want to venture far and just want to sit by the pool and exercise their all inclusive card at the bar.
I think your expectations would then be met and they would not be dishing out refunds to alot of very p----d off customers.
If you have booked a holiday to this hotel its your choice what you do, these were our experience's with a 9 month old baby. I honestly wish I had not gone and got my money back. We are so disappointed read the website, look at the brochure you think it will be fantastic, its not. I will not get another holiday now this year that's it for us I wish I had stayed at home.
PJD.
My wife and I along with our 18 month old rug rat are thinking about going to either the Oceania hotel or the Sani Beach Club hotel both in Sani Halkidiki.
