When we arrived we were allocated a room which can only be described as basic. It was dark and not very clean. When I returned to reception to request a fridge and to pay for the air conditioning I mentioned my dissatisfaction and asked if another room was available. The owner made enquiries and we were moved to a much better room. I do wonder why we were given an inferior room to start with! Generally cleanliness at the hotel was okay. The beach was not too far away but the main resort was about half an hour walk away which was okay in the early evening but the walk back is along an unlit road. After a couple of nights we had a taxi back to the hotel every night. The hotel staff were extremely friendly to those holiday makers who ate at the hotel and drank at the bar. The rest of us were ignored. Fortunately we are not big breakfast eaters and juice was all we wanted (just as well because the rest looked pretty unappetising).

On arrival to the hotel we were greeted by the owners and staff with a warm welcome and given our keys to our room. We felt pressurised into having a meal cooked for us but declined because we had eaten on the plane only a few hours earlier. We were told that the chef had stayed behind to offer his services even though it was very late! We just had a coffee and then went to bed. The room was adequate.

We went for breakfast in the morning around the pool/cafe area and all I can say of it is it was very poor, consisting of coffee/tea bread cakes, a kind of solid yogurt and marmalade. Toast and cooked breakfasts were available to buy from the menu board and were expensive, and not cooked very well, but the chef did not cook breakfast, the waiting staff did! The service was terrible and very unprofessional to say the least. The "waiting staff" were casual workers who stayed on at the Olive Gardens after their holiday,

The location was not very good for people without a hire car or using the public transport, the beach at Lardos being about a kilometre walk and really not worth the effort. The village of Lardos is about the same distance but offered shops and a very good selection of restaurants, with better prices and selection. After saying that, the location is reasonable for sightseeing if you do have a hire car.

The room was reasonably clean , although a few days we
were missed. The towels were not changed unless you asked for clean ones. The light bulb stopped working, which took two days to fix by a very over worked gardener/odd job man. The shower head came off, we waited two days again for it to be fixed, by the same very hard worked odd job man. The pool filters were not working very well causing bugs,leaves etc to be floating for hours.

I think if you are the type of people who are going to stay at the hotel eating in their restaurant and drinking in the bar you will be well favoured and looked after, but if you are like us and want to go out and see the beautiful island of Rhodes and generally have a good holiday, you will get basic service, so just use the Olive Gardens as a base .

We went at the time of the world cup football and each night all the 3 TV's were tuned in to the different matches. A Greek night was organised which was to be free, but the artists did't turn up. The second week another Greek night was organised at a charge which we thought was a bit steep, when you could go into Lardos village and get better value, often with local artists playing in the various tavernas.

We didn't get the holiday at a budget price, but we definitely wouldn't go back here if it was half the price we paid.