We (husband and I and 2 daughters aged 10 and 5) just returned from the Kos Aqua Beach Club having spent a week there from 9th til 16th August having booked a 2 bed appartment 2 weeks prior with Lastminute.com

Having read all the reviews and knowing the background to First Choice pulling out we knew we were taking a risk, especially considering the price we paid.

All in all we had a fantastic holiday and our daughters didn

Food good and plentiful, better than expected as from previous A.I. in Greek resorts.

Staff very helpful as travelled with 2 wheelchair dependant family members. We seemed to have priority, they wouldn

Have uploaded pictures to my site http://www.abirdseyeviewof.com/kos-aqua-beach-club.html sorry it would not let me register for forum.

I am not surprised that First Choice pulled out of sending customers here. Please read my comments before deciding whether to stay or not. I read a few negative comments about this hotel and stupidly ignored them!!

To start. First impressions. This hotel is in the middle of nowhere...On a farm to be precise!!!! A taxi ride to find any source of life will cost you around 25 euros return. Beach is non existent. Think some builders have just dumped a few bags of sand near the sea...hey presto you have a beach?!!

On arrival to the hotel at 6am, naturally I was parched and so asked politely if I could purchase a bottle of water, only to be told nastily to go away and come back in 1 hour!!! Nice!!

Rooms, however are lovely. No complaints there and were cleaned every day. But who goes away to admire their rooms??!!

ALL INCLUSIVE???? Please!! Bar shuts at 11pm PROMPT!!! Then a vodka coke in a small plastic glass is charged at 5 euros!! Only 2 drinks per person. Surely that defeats the object of going all inc!! I mean, its funny that come 11 when drinks are purchased that it's not limited to 2 drinks per person!!!

There seemed to be ear/throat infections going round the hotel too. Beware....doc charges 150 euros to see him!!! I'll say no more about that one!

FOOD....not nice. It was edible but thats about it to be honest.

I know that this hotel is cheap but please it is not worth spending your hard earned cash to go here. I wish I would have put the money away towards a much better holiday next year.

Anyone else stayed here that thinks this resembled a prison camp???

After reading the terrible reviews about this place on other sites, I cried the day before we left. I needn't have. We had a great week and didn't want to come home.

My party consisted of myself, my husband and five kids aged 13, 12, 10, 8 and 7. We had two one-bedroomed apartments which interconnected, meaning we had four bedrooms and two bathrooms. This was great. The rooms are very well appointed, lovely and spacious and with amazing high ceilings if you are upstairs, which we were. Brilliant jet showers in the bathrooms, and friends of ours had a jacuzzi bath!

The pools are the best bit of the KABC. Lots of water slides and hours of fun for the kids. The bottoms of the pools are a bit scratchy and I think we all got a couple of grazes but nothing major. The pools and slides are cleaned morning and night and never looked dirty.
There are a few areas around the pools that are a bit boggy. They don't cause offence unless you happen to step in them, and then they're a bit squelchy! As long as you are careful they don't cause a problem. We thought they were probably caused by overflowing from the sprinklers or the beach showers. They are certainly not raw sewage as mentioned on previous reviews.

The "man-holes" were not the safety issue I was expecting. They were small maintenance holes clearly covered by bright green lids, and I only saw one open on one occasion whilst maintenance was being carried out. They do not pose a danger unless you cannot see bright green as you walk.

The beach is not too bad, nothing special but a beach none the less. Difficult to build sandcastles as the sand is so fine, much to my daughter's annoyance! It is man made and so not your typical beach, and it is rocky in places so shoes are needed to get into the water. The sea is fairly clean, a bit of seaweed but no litter or anything. The sunbeds are free and always available.

The food was fairly good, some meals were better than others but we all found something we liked at every meal. Yes there are chips available all the time, but that is to be expected. There were gorgeous salads, various meats, fish, rice, potato dishes, vegetables and traditional Greek foods too. Lots of fruit, ice-cream and scrummy cakes for dessert. We never had to wait to get tables, although we did see some people queueing when we were leaving the restaurant some evenings. 8.30pm seemed to be the busiest time.

One drawback to the all-inclusive programme was the fact that the pool bar was closed during the evening meal times of 7.30-9.30. This was a bit of a nuisance when we were watching the children's entertainment without a drink. The poolside bar also serves food during the day, mainly cake, pizza and burgers, but they didn't look particularly appetising and weren't available all day long. I think this was one of the main points we would pick up on. They also seemed to run out of ice-cream at around 5pm each day! But other than that, the drinks were good and readily available.

The staff work really hard. The housekeepers and waiters are very friendly, and those in reception always keen to help. The restaurant manager could do with learning to smile but nothing's perfect!

The entertainment was pretty good. For the first couple of days we were a bit disappointed with what was on offer, but it improved through the week. At first, there were 4 children's entertainers who run the children's club in the morning and then put on a kids disco at night. They were obviously tired and overworked. Halfway through the week four more entertainers from Corfu arrived to lighten the load. They put on some cabaret shows and spiced up the evenings a little. The children enjoyed the kids club and particularly the high energy dancing in the evenings. Adult entertainment was a bit hit and miss, there were some sports activities on during the day but these weren't really highlighted unless we had a look on the notice board. The evening entertainment for the adults involved quizzes like "Mr and Mrs", "Sprint it to win it" and "Battle of the Sexes", light-hearted fun. The majority of the entertainment was aimed at the British guests and very little was translated into other languages.

The hotel is fairly isolated and too far away from the resort centre to walk. We hired a car, not through the hotel as it was very expensive, but through a company in Kos town, where it worked out 50 euros cheaper.

There is a small shop on the complex selling newspapers, magazines, sweets, drinks, lilos, souvenirs and so on, and we didn't need to go out to buy anything else.

The hotel is marketed as a 4*. At the current time it isn't, but it has so much potential that when everything on offer is up and running it will be. We have no doubts that in a year or so this will be a very expensive holiday destination and that the minor problems there are will be ironed out and put down to teething problems. The comments we read before we left really put a dampener on what should have been an exciting time for our family, and seem to have been written by perfectionists expecting a 5* holiday at 3* prices.

All in all we had a great holiday and would definitely recommend this hotel to others.

This hotel is new and has alot to teething problems. The rooms were nice and clean. They were cleaned every day and were comfortable. Bathroom clean with bath and a modern shower.

The food was nothing special. The same day after day. You really get sick of it. No change to menu at all.

Receptionist I found to be very rude. Bar staff tried hard but just not enough of them.

All inclusive was a let down. The pool bar served rolls that were out in the open with burger and cheese. The cheese was hot and i would not have chanced eating it. The drinks were alright. Night time drinks were awful... plastic cups and standing for about 10 mins to be served. Not value for money.

Shop on site well stocked but young greek girl that runs it is down right rude.

Location is the biggest joke. there is nothing around the hotel but fields with a few poor cows chained to the ground. Costs about 20 euros round trip to kos town and you have to wait sometimes up to an hour for taxi to arrive.

If this hotel was on the edge of Tingaki or Kos town you would have a much better holiday. You go stir crazy with the hotel. During the day it was fine but nights were long and boring. entertainment team tried there best but nothing to write home about.

Would be interested to see the changes made by First Choice if they go with this next year. should have been a FREE bus running every hour to and from Kos town. You really can not believe how isolated you are.

The Kos Aqua Beach Club is a new hotel. When you first go into reception, the architecture is great. You go into your room and it is a heaven for creepy-crawlies such as huge crickets. Being all inclusive is a nice luxury but there are only two bars: an indoor and outdoor one. The only snacks they have are bread rolls and pizza. The ice cream runs out quickly. The pools are good but the floors are really rough. There is a pool with really good slides but when you come off a slide, you are greeted by a shallow rough floor. I got plenty of greases from it. There is something on every night but all inclusive finishes during the main shows. The childrens hour is annoying and there is bingo. The staff were very good. It isn't very far from the airport so the journey isn't that bad. There are two beaches.

We travelled to Kos Aqua club on the 12th August and returned on 27th. There was my husband and myself and my 2 children (age 8 & 10).

This is the first time we have been all inclusive, and I must say that I don't think id do it again - although the food is mostly edible, it did seem to be the same every day & night, kids lived on chips and meatballs, hubbys lived on pancakes (these were either plain in the morning, or vegetable fillings in the evening) - the salads were gorgeous, a wide variety with different sauces.

The drinks in the restauant were fine, you could help yourself to draught beer and wine and there was plenty of pop for the kids to choose from.

The room was fantastic - a very large main bedroom with gigantic bed, built in wardrobes, tv (although this only seemed to show the news in English - I think you could pay to view if you wanted to watch other channels). We had power shower and jacuzzi (this is fantastic if you have any undies or clothes to wash, i filled the bath, added some powder and switched on - just like the machine!!)

Cleanliness of the rooms was basic - although the towels were changed everyday, sheets, mopping and general wiping down of tables etc was a rare occurance.

The biggest problem we encountered were in the evening - the pool bar by the entertainment would close between 7 & 9.30.

As the entertainment started at 8.30 you would need to be in the entertainment area for around 8 oclock so that you could get a seat, so we had to carry our drinks down from the main reception area to the entertainment area - you were only allowed 2 drinks per person so this would mean constant trips up and down.

We found it easier to go to the onsite shop (cans of beer were 1 euro), rather than making the trek. The queues at the bar at these times were ridiculous too, and the bar staff at the main bar were very arrogant and sometimes downright rude. The staff at the pool bar though were really friendly and always smiling.

The entertainment team, pete, nicky & skcyopp tried really really hard, the kids would all be up and dancing in the kids hour, then there was cash bingo (prize of 150 euros for the full house) and then there would be a mr & mrs or battle of the sexes etc game for the adults afterwards.

All of the entertainment was set in the outdoor ampitheatre (stage, lots of chairs and tables on tiered levels), with gorgeous views over to Turkey and the other greek islands.

We arrived back yesterday and had a lovely time.

Yes there have been a few teething problems but it is a brand new hotel.

We stayed for 14 nights and saw a lot of improvements in that short time.

We found the hotel very clean. Saw staff out early in the morning hosing down areas and picking up rubbish etc. The grounds of the hotel were being seen to constantly with gardeners very busy.

Our room was kept tidy by 2 lovely girls. We had fresh towels daily. The toilets by the pool were dirty but that was down to people not using them properly not lack of cleaning.

The food was lovely with plenty of choice if you were prepared to try it. The salads were really good!!!! Plenty of choice in what to drink too.

The hotel is very isolated so hire a car if you can. The views however were out of this world. Hotel staff very good apart from the bar manager at the main bar - total sleaze!

Entertainment fun, the team worked so hard.

I would definitely visit this hotel again.

As with others reading these pages, we didn't quite know what to expect from this holiday. After following the threads in the forums for some time and then reading the few reviews that were available before we set off, we adopted the attitude: 'how bad can it be, it was cheap enough and you can put up with anything for a week' This approach got us through the week... but only just!

We arrived at 1:30 in the morning, with two very tired children (aged 11 and 9) to be told that we didn't have a room that night and there wouldn't be one available for us until lunchtime, another 12-ish hours. Even though our documentation confirmed arrival date as the 23rd, we were not booked into our room unitl the 24th - this meant (as a very un-helpful night manager told us) that we would not have to vacate our room on the 31st until 12 noon... not much good to us, as we would already have been home 6 hours by this time! My 9 year old daughter finally cried herself to sleep on the floor of the reception at about 4 o'clock in the morning.

This is something we are now taking up with the company we booked with. Others who arrived at the same time as us were aware that this would be happening and saw the late checkout on the final day as fair compensation for the inconvenience. We weren't made aware of this and feel we paid for 7 nights accommodation, not six nights and a long day. If we had wanted a late checkout on the final day, we could have paid the hotel 40 euros on the day for this. It's worth checking with your travel company that you are getting what you expect.

Having holidayed all inclusive for the last 7 years, I feel we're experienced enough to say that they haven't quite got it right with this hotel yet. I appreciate it was a rush to get it open for the late holiday season and allowances have been made for this fact in the prices paid, but if you're advertising a 4* hotel (what ever the cost), then that's what you expect.

The hotel itself was clean enough and the grounds were well looked after, plenty of staff mowing the grass, cleaning the pools and doing general maintainence work about the place.

We had a two bedroom apartment (eventually!)which was clean and tidy; towels were changed every other day and the beds made daily. We hired the safe in the apartment and didn't have a problem with items going missing from the rooms as in previous reports, nor did we encounter anyone else who had a problem with this.

We did have a few problems with the apartment thoughout the holiday: we reported the air conditioning faulty on the first day (and every day after this) but to no avail. This worked using sensors on all the doors and only functioned when all the doors were closed. When we arrived two of the sensors were on the floor so the wall units in either room didn't work at all. After day three, we got fed up of waiting and my husband managed to repair the sensors with two sticking plasters! The loo didn't have any water supply at all on one day, they fixed this within 24 hours.... but if this happens to you, if you unscrew the shower head, the water jet is powerful enough to 'flush' with. Oh, the shower head... we were only able to flush with this because it was balanced on the side of the bath, with no way of fixing it to the wall! We didn't bother reporting that one. I think there may be different grades of rooms eventually with this hotel, as we did hear of some people having televisions in both bedrooms, jacuzzi baths and even some with playstations and dvds - we certainly didn't have any of these luxuries, but there again we didn't go to spend time in the bath or on the playstation!

The food was pleasant enough, there was always plenty to choose from everyday, but it was more or less the same day in day out. Having said that, it was well cooked and we had no 'holiday tummy' problems. Drinks during meal times were fine... help yourself to lager, soft drinks, water, wine or tea / coffee.

Drinks away from the restaurant are a different matter. As with other guests, we found the fact that the all-inclusive stopped at 11pm to be very frustrating and expensive. A rum and coke cost 4 euros a minute after 11. We never had the 'only two drinks at a time' problem faced by others on this site, but I have never come accross such a poor selection of all-inclusive drinks before. The lager was fine, you could get wine and locally produced spirits, rum, vodka, whisky etc (as in the brochure) but if like me you're partial to the occasional Baileys - forget it, this will cost you 4 euros at whatever time of day you fancy one. The bar by the entertainment area being closed between 7.30 and 9.30 was also very inconvenient if you wanted to watch the kids during their entertainment hour. Although, when she was there, the blond girl named Val in the outside bar was without doubt the friendliest staff member in the whole hotel - the rest of them were just plain miserable! with no exceptions.

The bar staff inside the hotel seemed to be having a bet who could ignore the queue of waitng holiday makers the longest by busying themselves with cleaning ashtrays or washing coffee cups - I dared to ask to be served once after I had been standing there for at least 5 minutes and was told 'just a minute - I'm cleaning'!

The hotel's location was poor - a 9 euro taxi ride to Tigaki (not worth it when you got there) and a 15 euro ride in the opposite direction to Kos town. When the hotel up's the qualify of the entertainment and on site facilities this may not be such a problem, but at the moment the lack of these only emphasises it's remotness.

The entertainment team (3 in total) tried their best, I'm sure they must have been thrown in at the deep end too.

The pools were fantastic. The kids loved the slides, there were some cuts and bruises, but in my experience, this happens in most places where there are slides. The water level could do with being higher, as there were a few problems with the bigger kids hitting the bottom quite hard. The wave pool was great, and the quiet pool at the top was a little less populated.

There was never a problem getting a lounger and we didn't go down to the pool until 11 some mornings. The beach was quite rocky in places - but it was a beach and better to have it as it was than not at all.

Don't let small children go to the onsite shop on their own. My daughter went to buy a box of crisps and was told that she couldn't have change for a 2 euro coin but she could take some bubbly gum instead -a bit of a sneaky trick I thought.

Your kids will be happy if they are under 12 years of age (just!) the pools, three computers (payable for at reception)one pool table 2 hours per day kids club if they want it, are adequete entertainment for about a week. If you have teenagers, I would think again before booking this hotel - there is absolutly no on-site entertainment for them, no clubs etc - but they still seemed to be well enough behaved while we were there.

Was this hotel as bad as were were expecting?... No, but it was definitely 'average', no more than 3-ish stars at the moment, we were hoping to be pleasantly suprised, and we weren't. We wouldn't go back again and in all honesty, couldn't recommend it to anyone either; but as I said at the beginning of the review, you can put up with most things for a week.