What a fantastic holiday! None of us wanted to come home. The family village is one of three complexes owned by Mitsis (the Norida and Summer Palace being the other two)and is the one highest up the mountain. This meant some major walking down and up from the beach but some fantastic views across to Nisiros and Kardamena. The hotel is well-cared for with cleaners and gardeners on the go all day. The rooms, the grounds and all the hotel facilities (including the restaurant and toilets) are excellent, with friendly and helpful staff that responded quickly to any requests (I asked at reception for an extra pillow for our bed, and it was there by the time I got bak to the room five minutes later). We stayed in room 532 which we found to be clean, spacious and comfortable. It was cleaned, with towels and bed-linen being replaced everyday of our holiday. The air-conditioning did its job and none of us experienced any sleepless nights.

The hotel food was well-prepared, with enough choice to keep us happy for the two weeks we were there. Both myself and my wife are vegetarian but did not struggle to find enough to eat. As with most all inclusives, what is on offer tends to be unvaried but we didn't find this to be an issue as the amount of choice more than made up for that. We did eat out a couple of times (We would certainly recommend the Fat Olive and Thea's on Kardamena beach front for good reasonably priced food served by friendly staff), but that does not detract from the hotels food served in a clean hygenic restaurant by friendly and helpful staff (No signs of any flies on this holiday and not one tummy bug for the whole of the duration). Because the restaurant is indoors it did become very hot in there at busy times and, on those days it would have been nice to have the air-conditioning turned up, or at least some windows opened. Still, if you time your meals correctly, this can be avoided. Snacks at the bar tended to consist of sandwiches and cakes with limitless coffee and ice cream if you wanted it. The beach bars and the water-slide bar(part of the all-inclusive) also offered the same with the addition of hot-dogs. The drinks on offer were all good. The beer nice and cold, the cocktails strong and tasty and the wine (red and white)very drinkable. The queue for the bar sometimes built up but hey! we were relaxed and it didn't really bother us that we had to wait an extra five minutes or so to get our drinks.

As stated earlier, the hotel is half way up the side of a mountain which means some steep inclines to negotiate, so I would not recommend this hotel for people with mobility difficulties. There is a fantastic, clean beach at the bottom of the hill however, that is well worth the effort of visiting (free sunbeds, beach bars, pedalos, canoes and animation teams)and there is a lift down and up from the beach at the side of the Summer Palace for those who feel they need it. We spent a few days down at the beach which meant an early start to bag sunbeds (I used to go down there at about 8ish and had no problem) and a hefty trek if you wanted to eat lunch at the restaurant. This can be avoided however by ordering lunch boxes the evening before or, as we did, having a lunch-time rota (in collaboration with another family we met) where one of us would go up to the restaurant where the staff were happy to prepare and plate up pizzas and other food which we would take down to the beach (If you do this, please remember to take your plates and cutlery back - its officially against the hotel rules and is solely through the goodwill of the staff). The hotel is about 5 miles from Kardamena town but there is a free bus shuttle at various times during the day for which you have to book seats at reception on the day you wish to use them. We used this service a few times and had no problems with it. There is also taxis and a bus service available if the timings of the shuttle bus do not suit you (we didn't use either of these). Because of its location there is not a lot happening in the immediate vicinity of the hotel and so you will have to travel into Kardamena if you want to experience something other than the hotel complex. There is a go-cart track 5 minutes walk away but the prices are extortionate, and a beach side taverna which I cannot really comment on as we did not use it.

The thing that made this holiday really special for us was the staff and by that, I mean all the staff - cleaners, maintenance, reception, bar, restaurant, managers and animation - everyone was so friendly and helpful and gave the impression (in the main) that they enjoyed what they did. There is an old man serving at one of the beach bars that seemed to have a chip on his shoulder and avoided, whenever possible, serving women and children, but we won't let one bad apple spoil the barrel.

The entertainment and facilities (pools and waterslides) are great. We didn't know it when we prepared to go on holiday but the hotel will provide free beach/pool towels for a small deposit which you get back on return of the towels at the end of your stay (don't worry! You can change your towels for fresh ones every couple of days). This bit of knowledge would have saved us some baggage weight. The main pool is salt water and does take a bit of getting used to, but the waterslide and other pools are fresh water. A short message for sunbed baggers - This hotel has got it right. Any towels left on sunbeds before 8.30 in the morning are removed which means that,although you still have to be fairly quick after 8.30, you don't have to be up at some Godawful hour. To be honest we never had any problem getting sunbeds at all during the holiday - by the pool or on the beach.

During the day, a tireless animation team offer various activities (darts, stretching, aquagym, water polo, boules,volley ball, shooting, games and competions)without being pushy about it (This also happens at the beach), and the girls that run the kids club make every effort to get to know all the kids and include them in their activities (No First Choice Chocolate parties and video nights at extra cost - just fun and games. They do have t-shirt painting for the cost of a t-shirt and Henna tattooing, but everything else is free). The evening entertainment is some of the best I've seen at a holiday resort and is provided with great enthusiasm and pride by all those involved.

To conclude, I would say that this is one of the best family all-inclusive holidays I have ever been on. The staff at the Family Village have created an environment which is friendly, relaxed and happy. We will definitely be visiting again next year.

Fantastic holiday at a great price. The staff are excellent, fantastic food, much more than I expected. Everywhere is kept clean at all times, the entertainment is second to none and they make for a great atmosphere.

The rooms are spacious and very well kept with maid service everyday, then there is the aqua park. Even if you go to the beach your AI package is still in effect. All in all I would definatly go again. They even throw in a free bus to go to Kardamena Town also there is go kart just down the road.

We have just returned from one of the best holiday

I'm 17 and I visited this hotel with my mum and dad in the middle of July 2007.
I have to say I had been to 2 Mitsis chain hotels before so I knew what I was expecting. We arrived at night so we couldn't really see the actual size of the hotel until the following morning, all we knew was that we had traveled up a hill.

After we had finally unpacked we went for our morning meal, the walk to the actual hotel was 10mins. The killer was walking back up to our room, the steepness of the hill was just horrid.

But they make up for it. Outside our room there was a small swimming pool for the 5 rooms closest to us, so if we needed quiet from all the other people at the hotel we would just laze about in our own pool.

As for the entertainment it was amazing!! where our hotel was situated there were 2 Mitsis hotels next to us making a mini Mitsis town!
The beach was again a long walk but was worth it as the games you could get involved in were going on all the time and the beach bar was amazing with all different drinks and the bar staff were nice aswell always a smile on there faces.

As for entertainment at night, there was a large theatre between the hotels that everyone could go and sit in and watch the nightly shows. They consisted of a mini disco first followed by bingo then the nightly shows, comedy's, musicals, and karaoke which was my fave I got to dress up and sing in front of everyone it was so much fun.

The food, well Mitsis is just always out of this world!
Breakfast would always be the same but a selection of food you would never get bored, cooked freshly in front of your own eyes!!

Lunch had a great selection of food also and dinner, well there was a female cook who made fresh pizza in front of us, she would make the pizza base and throw it up in the air... then put the toppings on and place in the kiln.

I would say this is the Hilton of Greece. All the staff were nice and always happy, even some of the staff flirted a little but that's always nice. There's this little pub down the hill of the hotel where u have to pay for the drink (very cheap) and then you can watch the sports in the room chill out on the computers or once you've brought your drink go into the cinema room which was just amazing fully air conditioned and you could watch movies for free, most that hadn't even come out in the cinema yet.

Many nights after the entertainment finished at like 11ish I would then go up to the pub with the mates I made and go into the disco club, which was nice, just like being at a club in England cost 3 euros to go in (the cost was brought in on the second week because to many foreigners were causing havoc in there) the drinks were cheap and almost everyday when around the pool or on the beach you would get a pub worker giving you a voucher for buy one drink get one free or buy a drink get a free cocktail. The music was up to date and they also had dancing poles, I got up on them a couple of times all good fun.

One last thing the only problem we had which you will get at any all inclusive hotel sunbed, we would have to wake up early to get them but its ok you're always going to have this problem.

Stayed here for a week and can honestly say would never go back. Food was awful as well as being cold.

Enterainment was only water polo which was annoying. Everyday staff were pleasant enough. Location was out of the way of anything interesting.

All inclusive in this hotel does not cater as all inclusive hotels should - 3 bottles of wine that was it.

The hotel overall was very clean with maids visiting your room everyday to mop up and switch towels etc.

The food was very nice, although some people said that it was repetitive. There was a large selection of different pizzas and so on. At the waterslide bar they served hot dogs as snacks as well for the kids!

The location was not suitable for people with walking disabilities or drunkards! We were at the top of the hill which was the highest we could get. Although we had a decent sized pool on our doorstep, it was a 5 minute walk down to the bar if you wanted a drink or snacks. The view from these hills are spectacular though because on one side is a huge mountain with goats running around and on the other side is the sea over looking many different islands and turkey as well.

The staff overall were very polite. There was a chubby man working on the main pool bar during the day who was ignorant though but the evening staff were fantastic to talk to and loved the kids. Many of the staff came from Albania and each and every one of them were pleasant.

The entertainment was quite poor really for an all inclusive hotel. The stage is trapped in a small open aired place wit walls and can not accommodate half the people in the hotel. The entertainment in the evenings was poor but if a hotel guest who has a good sense of humour then it changes the show for you as it is a good laugh. The entertainment during the day was not bad. Volleyball on the beach, water polo etc and you could join in the sister hotels activities as well.

I LOVED this Hotel!!!!

Lovely views from basically all the rooms. Good pool with a smaller pool for babies and young children.

Entertainment was great especially for the kids. Thanks to Lucy and Lisa who ran childrens entertainment and all the kids loved them! There was good entertainment for adults too. There was games of darts every day which was a funny thing to watch as the players who got 0 got a cold shower!

Food was nice but not much for the kids.
Evening Entertainment was very funny. The animation team put on a great show each night. Before the entertainment started there was always the mini-disco for kids which they couldn't bear to miss!!

Overall I would visit here again because it was extremely good fun and it was the best holiday I have ever been on!