Grecotel Astir Alexandroupolis

We visited the hotel in the first week of September 2024. Nice place, with well-maintained green areas and pools. Our package included breakfast and dinner, and we found out on the spot that children up to the age of 12 can eat for free at lunch as well. Each meal is served at a buffet table. A few dietary recommendations. You can't have paid for a vacation in a 5-star hotel and not even have a glass of water for dinner or lunch. That's not dopostumi. There is no water anywhere in the hotel even for the children. Naturally, you have to buy it yourself, and a bottle of water costs 4 Euros, which is insanely expensive. This is not found anywhere in Greece and not only - in the whole world. We are talking about water, not any other drink. Not for alcohol, but for water. This is unacceptable, to not provide your guests with WATER, but to charge them 4 Euros per bottle!!! The food at dinner is monotonous and slightly tasteless. It's not bad, but it's pretty much the same. No matter what you eat, the taste is the same. Again, no drinks of any kind. Even for the kids.
About the beach, I can say that I have never been to a worse beach anywhere, not only in Greece. The entire beach is littered with coals, ashes and soot. Your feet and whole body turn black and there is no washing. I guess it's because of the fires they had, but the hotel needs to do something. Maybe clean, or fill with new sand, but the beach and the sea are dirty with these coals, which are countless and everywhere. There is a 3-4 meter strip in the sea that is rocky and a bit difficult to get in, but after that the sand is nice and fine. Maybe that's why a lot of people preferred swimming pools, but it's still not very OK to have gone to Greece because of the nice sea and beach, but to sit at a pool because the beach is terribly dirty. This is the place to say that the pools are salt water.
Another thing that is missing is a shower on the beach so that when you get out of the water you can shower in seconds with fresh water. This is absolutely everywhere in every hotel in Greece, but here there is no shower on the beach. It's inconvenient and if you want to take a shower you have to go to the pool.
The rooms are normal and the women who clean and fix the rooms are very kind. Towels and sheets were changed almost every day. We have no objections to the cleanliness.
In general, the hotel is nice because it is 200-300 meters from the seaside street, where there are many bars, taverns, restaurants and shops. Every evening this street is closed to cars and everyone can walk in peace, all the way to the lighthouse and the harbor, where there is also a small amusement park for the children.
Until the beach is cleaned up we certainly won't be going to this place again. I also hope that the policy will be changed, at least for children to have drinking water at 35 degrees. If you take out your own bottle in the restaurant or on the beach, people come and make a remark. You are not allowed to drink your own beer or water, and you have to pay insanely high prices, and the quality of both the beer and the water you buy is super low! Not acceptable for a 5 star hotel.
Keep working and listen to people's feedback. If you have to raise the price by 50 or 100 euros, but let there be regular drinks!
The sunbeds on the beach are very old and need replacing.
We will see each other maybe in a few years when the beach and the sea and all the filth, coals, ashes and soot are cleared.