Elea Beach Hotel

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My wife, children (15 & 18 yrs) & I found the Elea Beach Hotel to be generally a very good place for a family holiday base. It is a family run (one of a group of 3 along that part of the coast), with all staff friendly, polite & professional. Most staff spoke English well. The hotel itself is modern, clean & quite well equipped. Of particular note is the quality of the food in the huge restaurant, which is exceptional, & well worth paying extra for the all-inclusive deal. Care here must be taken regarding board status. Items such as red & white wine (from the restaurant), are free to all "inclusive" guests, but not to half board and below.
We all agreed that "inclusive" was the way to go here, not least on account of the unlimited beer, ( the most adequate Greek "Mythos" ), house cocktails, ouzo, wine, toasted sandwiches & ice cream available 11.00 to 23.00 daily from the outside bar.
The bar staff are amazing & very friendly. Yannis is able to chat in an incredible number of languages, including Russian. He can speak good English, and also English with a cockney accent if asked!
The hotel is quiet and well away from any busy road. Stepping out from under the large veranda at the rear (over comfy lounge type chairs & tables), you walk past the large swimming pool, then the small kiddies pool, (about 1' deep). I found the large pool too warm, too salty with too much chlorine, plus I felt that for a hotel that size it could have been a hell of a lot larger. It is however, immaculately kept & very clean. Past the pools there is a grassy area with much tree shade, followed by the beach-side path & then the beach. There is no road or even track between the hotel grounds & the sea, just the path. The distance between the hotel building & the sea is about 120 yards.
The beach is small pebbles, followed by large stones (hard on bare feet), just below the water line. After about 6' of this your feet find soft sand & the soft sand stays. The "beach" is only about 20' deep, but once in the water away from the stones the water depth is very good for small children, deepening only very gradually. I am 6'2'' tall and I finally ran out of footing after perhaps 200 yards.
The sea here is very calm (most of the time), with no swell at all. It is very warm, clear & very clean, as is the beach. There are no currents and the tidal variation is minimal, about 2'. We took to having midnight swims in the sea after the evening show. Warm & surreal!
Sun loungers & parasols are free to inclusive guests (again), there is a small charge to all else. There are plenty of quality water sports off the beach, with 20 - 25% off of Elea guests.
The hotel guests are mainly German, with about 20% Italians and Greeks, 5% Russians & 5% British. Everybody (especially the Germans), were polite, well behaved & very friendly. I did not see or hear of any problems whatsoever. There were quite a few families with young children. These were delightful, and added a warm atmosphere to the hotel.
There are many lateral & front facing (towards Dassia, and beyond, the hills), balconies. Before departure call the hotel and request a sea (rear), facing room. You can then watch the sun rise in the morning over the Aegean and the mountains of the Greek mainland. Spectacular.
We are in agreement with a previous reviewer who felt that the Elea was more 3* than 4. I would down-grade it to 3 and a 1/2*, but only because of the slightly in-adequate big pool, and a somewhat over-busy (& slightly lacking in atmosphere), restaurant. The food however, makes up a lot for this.
Despite this the overall friendly atmosphere, service, facilities, food and the quality of the surrounding area were excellent. We will be staying at the Elea again.