Ocean Blue Hotel

We got there late at night. First reactions was lovely hotel. Woken up the next morning to breakfast which was a poor standard. By 3 days in to the holiday we refused to eat breakfast.
The rest of the food we just ate to survive the rest of the week. We were going to the local shop for pot noodles and ham and cheese to make our own sandwiches.
Also the hotel is situated in the middle of nowhere. So if you have kids please don’t bother wasting your money like us.
The hotel said there was entertainment every night but there was none at all. It was that boring at night every couple had a pack of cards to occupy there mind. That's Rhodes for ya.

1 reader found this review helpful

I booked this holiday purely on the looks of the hotel itself on the website and the offer of a private pool seemed brilliant. I was going with my boyfriend and it seemed perfect for the type of trip we were after!
On reading reviews after booking the trip I was a bit worried as people were stating the hotel did not live up to expectation and I started to panic! We arrived at the hotel at around 5am in the morning to be greeted by a friendly man who gave us the all inclusive wrist bands and showed us to our room.
The room was lovely, fair enough there was a few holes, I could pick for example it looked like the main light for the room was yet to be fitted but apart from that I think that was it, it was modern, spacious, the bathroom was big enough for what we wanted, jacuzzi bath and shower, cd player and fridge all in good working order.
The only thing I would say is arriving at that time and no-one being around we were unsure of the arrangements for breakfast and what we needed to do, as it turns out we slept past breakfast anyway but were still unsure about lunch. Being hungry though we just helped ourselves at lunch time and turns out this was all we needed to do.
I'd give the food about 7/10, the main thing being that the temperature wasn't always as hot as you'd expect but the selection was fine and the bread was nice and fresh. It is true though that they do a lot of recycling and snacks throughout the day would be leftovers from breakfast or lunch.
Being a young couple the entertainment wasn't really our sort of thing but wasn't too bad, and we had a few nights out in Faleraki (along with a few games of bingo!).
The low flying planes were not a bother to us at all, the main pool was lovely and clean but it was nice to go back to our room put the cd player on and spend some time by our private pool!
Overall our holiday was excellent 9/10 the only thing I didn't enjoy was the late flight home! But that is nothing to do with the hotel itself! I would definitely return to the Ocean Blue it was fantastic!

1 reader found this review helpful

We read all of the current reviews and thought it would be completed by the peak period of last week of July and first week of August. Arrived at midnight expecting a family room for 3 adults and one 7year old but none available, just a double room with 2 extra single beds (all had seen better days).
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The room and ensuite had been refitted but due to the extra furniture you could not navigate room unless you stood on beds. The wardrobe had 5 hangers and the shelving only 150mm deep and insufficient for 2 people, but we were 4. The ensuite was refitted with jacuzzi bath which is not fixed to floor or walls and not sealed so flooded floor on first attempt. It is unsuitable for showering as you have sit down in order to ensure you do not flood room.
The hotel has only basic fire instruction notices and no designated fire assembly points in or local to the buildings. I am sure that should an incident occur due to the nature of the complex that tragedy could be on the cards as noone would know what to do in the event of - have yet to see evidence of emergency lighting and fire signage is limited hardly right for those in sleeping accommodation a fire officer would have a field day in Britain.

We complained about the accommodation on 1st morning and were still waiting 4 days later as I write this. People from other countries who arrived after us were given family rooms as they booked in, but however polite you are being British means you are treated less favourable than those who arrive from a similar country as the origins of the staff.
Speaking of staff a number of them were very polite but some of the female bar staff are ignorant and turn their back on the holiday makers as soon as they approach the bar, however if you are known to be from the eastern block, as some of the staff are, you get served in front of those who are waiting.
Did I mention the fact that the hotel is under the flight path of all incoming flights from Europe and Greece and Turkey mainland - they have their landing gear down and headlights during night time landings perhaps the guides also forgot this?
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On exploring the complex you realise this is not a family friendly site if you have or are expecting a pool room this means you step out onto a verandah and then the canal of water is immediately in front of you with no barriers and the depth ranges from 1 metre deep to 1.6 metres deep - scary for those with young children or persons who have enjoyed a little to much drink.
The food is reasonable but nothing special. Salad being the main ingredient and same fish or meat with desserts ranging from fruit that has been in frozen store rather then cold store, fresh cakes and ice creams which are popular and not replenished once all taken.
In short if you planning on staying here look elsewhere first, if you have already booked do not expect to find 5 star facilities or a perfect stay as sadly it will not be .
July 27th 2007

1 reader found this review helpful

My friend and I visited the Ocean Blue in June 07. It is a wonderful hotel with excellent food and surroundings. We had a room with its own pool, and this is to be recommended. There was sometimes a shortage of sunbeds, but never a major problem. We would visit this hotel any time. If you want a relaxing week, try it.

We had a room on second floor overlooking the sea and Kos, stunning. As previous comments, the bathroom did get wet but it is a wet room and the maid service was excellent.
Food in the main restaurant is average but edible unlike the A'la carte restaurant -"pieces of eight" don't bother. The pool was a great escape we were there during the heatwave.
Now the downside, nothing to do with the hotel but the residence and there compulsion to get up at 5am every morning to mark there territory with a towel on the sunbeds. I like to say it was "Jonny foreigner" but no, it was mainly the English. When a Italian lady, after sitting on the floor for hours, moved some towels and the towel owners turned up 4 hours later, well you can imagine.
My partner and myself had a great stay, try the day trip to Lindos stunning. Take a walk along the beach to Kesamasti and eat outside Yannis.

I had never been AI on holiday before and was really looking forward to this holiday.
My boyfriend and I arrived at 3pm and were told our room wasn't ready so we left our luggage in reception and walked around for an hour or so. We were then given a room which had only a shower not a jacuzzi bath (their website states all rooms have jacuzzi bath but we found this was incorrect).
We were placed with no problems into a better room which was very modern and spotlessly clean. Fixtures and fittings were as stated 4/5* but the rest of the complex unfortunately didn't live up to the same standards.
The food was very much the same each & every day. It was edible but was only warm not hot. You couldn't make a proper meal off what there was, it was a bit mismatched. It was all cooked properly so no poorly tummies. We were not informed of the times for meals, snacks or drinks and an a couple of occasions we missed breakfast and just made lunch as the staff were already clearing away the food!!
The pool area was nice, just busy. Unless you are up at the crack of dawn you won't be getting a bed by the pool! The beach was sandy & pebbly, take jellies with you as it hurts your feet when getting in & out of the water.
Evening entertainment was horrendous, if you like agga do, hey baby, follow the leader, the birdie song and head shoulders knees & toes repeated every night then you will fit right in and love it!!!!! We did not!
You are able to eat in the A la Carte restaurant once during your stay, this was gorgeous, about 6 courses in total, we were gut busted afterwards! Note though that you cannot take drinks in and have to pay for them once inside the restaurant. Water is provided free of charge.
One thing we were unaware of was that the hotel is directly underneath the flight path of ALL landing planes.... very loud and very low but you get used to them after a while!
All in all, I wouldn't go back there and wouldn't recommend others to do so. It was disappointing and does not hit the 4/5* rating other than fixtures & fittings. Staff were also rude, when asking for a drink at one of the bars we were told there were not cups and to ask elsewhere for one! Not exactly 4/5* service. Maids cleaned rooms everyday though which was spot on.
Don't be deluded by the way the hotel looks as you will be as disappointed as we were during your stay there. Maybe in another couple of years when the hotel has been running a little longer it may have improved?

The hotel had just been refurbished, so all furnishings were good.
The bathroom had a jacuzzi, and no shower, every time it was used the bathroom flooded, they would do better by fitting a shower cubicle only. The bathroom itself had a large window facing into the room, which if the room door was open every one could see in.
We had a room with a private pool which was shared by another 5 couples, the pool was excellent.
The dining room although spacious and airy only had the tablecloths changed once in the 7 days we visited, and by that time they were really dirty.
The food was varied and just about passable, although they kept running out of cutlery and clean plates etc.
The entertainment was poor unless you like bingo almost every night. Although they did try, the drinks for all inclusive were horrible, I think the beer was watered down.
The beach although pebbly was clean. Hope you like aeroplanes as the hotel is right under the flight path and they come in at about 500 ft above your head.
The surrounding area isn’t to bad with enough to see if you hire a car, I would think if you visit this hotel in high season it would be very noisy.
All in all the hotel wasn’t to bad but they could improve certain areas quite a lot.

We stayed in a superior room with private pool, the rooms were very modern. However the Jacuzzi bath leaked & there was nowhere to hang the shower head, therefore you had to kneel to have a shower.
The food was ok but very repetitive; they did tend to recycle leftovers. For example, the previous evenings leftover sprouts were recycled with rice & mayo for the next day’s lunch!
The dining room looked very nice but on closer inspection the tablecloths were filthy, they were only changed twice in the week we were there!! When they hadn't run out of plates, cutlery, and cups & glasses it was quite difficult trying to find clean ones.
The tea, coffee, juices, & soft drinks were undrinkable for the 1st 6 days we were there due to a problem with a water filter, which was corrected on our last day! We were not offered alternatives & had to buy our own.
The public areas were very nice, but you had to be careful when wet as they were very slippery, guests & staff were falling over on a regular basis.
The entertainment was ok however the team were very annoying if you did not want to join in. & bingo, if you like bingo, great, if you don't, its bingo for 6 nights & 5 euro per ticket!
The private pool was lovely. However we did have to share this with 5 other rooms!
The island of Rhodes was great, we recommend you see Rhodes old town & Lindos, & hire a car to get the best from the island.
You are entitled to free champagne & fruit on arrival, we did not know about this until our last day when we were told you had to phone reception to receive it, so if you are going there don't miss out like we did!

I was very dubious about booking this hotel with On the Beach, as I couldn’t find many reviews. However, I decided to take the chance and bore in mind that we were paying under £25 per person per day for all inclusive, and therefore did not expect too much.
Our booking was for a standard room and we were kept waiting for over 30 mins on arrival at 3.30pm as the room was not ready. We asked if we could upgrade to the superior rooms, which I knew had their own pool and were told that they had allocated us a superior room, as all the standards were full.
After another 10 mins we were shown to our room which faced the tradesmen’s entrance of the main hotel in one of the new blocks.
On first impression the room was OK but not to the 5 star standards the hotel is expecting. The rooms had not been open long and already the furniture was showing signs of wear and drawers would not open properly. Room was cleaned daily and towels and sheets changed regularly.
The jacuzzi bath was a nice feature, although there were no instructions on its use and once we did figured out how to switch it on, the water sprayed everywhere and the bathroom flooded.
The shower hose was much too short and you had to sit in the bath to shower and as there was no shower curtain the spray went all over the bathroom. No hook for the spray either, so it was hand held shower attachment, typical in Greece but not what you would expect in a 5 star hotel. (The shower hose was replaced towards the end of our holiday and the plumber mentioned that longer hoses had been on order for four months!).
There were very few sun beds around the main pool area and in fact the terrace around the pool is quite small. There are small garden areas below this going towards the pebbly beach and the grass could be utilised as sun bathing areas if more sun beds were brought in.
We complained on the first day to the manager about the lack of sun beds and he said that he had 100 on order. In fact every day we asked him when they were arriving and he shrugged his shoulders.
About 50 arrived at 5.30pm the evening before our departure home and these quickly disappeared. If the hotel had order 250 beds in March then they probably would have arrived in time and there would have been enough for all the guests.
The sun beds that are around the pool are reserved by the "towel brigade" as early as 1.30am. Other guests actually threw the towels in the pool and quite a commotion followed the next day when the reserves arrived to claim their beds which had been occupied by other guests.
We gave up trying to get beds by the pool and spent the day by the pool close to our room sitting on director style chairs. After a lot of fuss the manager did bring a couple of sun beds round to our block.
Food, well I suppose this is typical All Inclusive fare, but do not expect 5 star cuisine. Breakfast was the usual continental plus fried eggs, bacon (of sorts) chipolatas, beans and mushrooms, some sort of omelette, cheese pies, cakes and biscuits, cereal, fruit salad and Greek yoghurt.
There is only one hot drink dispenser in the dining room (I can’t describe it as a restaurant) and there was sometimes a queue for coffee. Daily there were at different times no cups, saucers, cutlery, fried eggs, and bread for toast.
The hot food was cold more often than not and since there was no one supervising the servery or keeping check on what required replenishing some dishes ran out quickly. I never saw any chef/kitchen person stirring the dishes to keep the food hot.
When the dishes were removed from the Bain maries there was no steam underneath and therefore the water keeping the food hot was cold. No temperature checks appeared to be taken by the kitchen staff.
Lunch was infinitely better than the evening meal, however, food was recycled, and whilst I will eat fresh brussel sprouts in winter, I don’t find frozen brussels very appetising in June for dinner and definitely do not like them in some sort of salad for lunch. Left over rice and various veg from dinner was recycled with mayo for lunch, along with the breakfast chipolatas and cold meats.
Plenty of salad, pasta with a bolognaise type sauce every day or pizza slices, chips. A couple of meat dishes in sauce and usually a fish dish and sometimes a Greek dish, the Gyros was quite tasty. Few of the dishes were described so you were never sure what you were eating. Dinner was more or less the same.
I am not at all a fussy eater and want to try new things. I usually go to town on a buffet but some days I looked at the food served and didn’t think it was particularly appetising. We had two meals out at a restaurant across the road (cant remember the name but it was to the right as you left the hotel).
The restaurant was run by a Dutch couple. The food was excellent and they were very friendly.
Surprisingly, there was no dress code in the dining room and some guests went to dinner in swim wear and shorts which lowered the tone somewhat. The majority of the guests appeared to be from Eastern Europe, Belgium and Holland with few British.
The white wine and beer was drinkable and though they state "local" drinks are included, do not expect Metaxa as the brandy you might get. We thought that all spirits were the same alcohol base with maybe brandy, gin, or whisky essence.
We enjoyed our holiday but based on my experience of working in the travel industry, this is not a 5 star hotel. I would give it a rating of 4 star max. The staff were all very friendly and helpful; however they were definitely under staffed for the number of guests in the hotel.
Those we spoke to, especially in reception, were struggling to keep on top of the complaints. In my opinion, the hotel which had been refurbished and new superior rooms added in separate blocks from the main hotel, was not ready to fully open by the time of our holiday on 13/6/07.
I wouldn’t say - don’t go there - but bear in mind that you are not going to a 5 star hotel. Most hotels with a 5 star rating in Greece offer bed and breakfast as a standard room rate, with dinner as extra.
Check the cost of those hotels compared with the Ocean Blue and basically you get what you pay for. If you go and don’t expect too much, you won’t be disappointed.
PS I forgot to mention the smell of sewerage at the rear corner of the hotel but then that is quite common in Greece!