Kresten Palace Hotel

Avoid Avoid Avoid!

Overall I was really disappointed with the hotel. Not sure how they are a 4 star hotel, but for the price they charge, you can easily get a better hotel elsewhere in Rhodes.
Lets start with the room. The fact that its 2 single beds pushed together was annoying and an oversight by myself when booking, but when I asked about getting a room with a double bed, I was told the only that’s have double beds are the ones with the swim up pool, which would be an extra £100 a night. The other option would be to have a mattress topper, which we went for. What was really annoying about this was that, turns out there were rooms with double beds that were next to us, not with swim up pools. This found out when discussing this with a few other guests….

Anyway, the rooms are dated, the lighting is awful and the bathroom shower water goes everywhere when its being used. The towels they give you are terrible, hard and smell strange. The pillows are terrible and I know this shouldn’t matter, but the TV, as usual is full of German and Italian channels, we get Sky and Bloomberg news. Now I don’t go on holiday to watch TV, but to have something on while getting changed or in the evening when coming back from a night out would have been nice.

Right, next onto the hotel food. Please, whatever you do, do not upgrade or book half board. As we got to the hotel and checked in a bit late, we decided to have dinner with them as it was just the first night, oh what a mistake that was. 20 euros each to eat food that tasted like it was frozen and came out of a can (how that is possible, I have no idea). How a hotel, on a Greek island, cant get flavor right is astonishing, but hey, they can do it. Breakfast is no better, fruit from a can, food that has no flavor best is just having some toast with a cup of tea, that’s if you don’t have to wait for 30 mins to get a small mug as they always run out.
The pool is a really good size and we had no issues in getting a sunbed. The downside of the pool, is that it isn’t clean. You can clearly see black dirt on the grouting that starts floating off and then around the pool.

Again, don’t eat at the pool snack bar, best place to eat would be walking down to the beach, then the 2nd restaurant along, is amazing food and is very well priced.
If you are going to go into town, you’ll either have to take the bus, or get a cab from reception. If you are getting a cab from reception, this can take up to 45 minutes.
The bus to Lindos that the hotel offers, isn’t great, our one was 45 minutes late, but still picked us up at the advertised time, didn’t get any money back. Id suggest booking a trip via trip advisor, stay clear of the hotel bus.

Lastly, my wife cut herself in the shower in the evening, so I went down to reception to ask for a plaster. The guy on the front desk, wasn’t quite sure what I meant, which is understandable as English wasn’t his first language. After we got to bottom of what I wanted, he opened the first aid kit and all they had were some tissues and a syringe. He told me to take the tissues and then use my shoe lace to tie it up until the morning when I could buy some platers from the shop.

a few last things to add:

1) make sure you bring a towel for the pool, if you don't, you'll have to pay £10 to rent one.
2) if you are unlucky to not be on 02, and you need the hotel WIFI, you'll have to pay for it. which is insane!
3) we called reception to get an iron sent to to the room, and guess what....nope you didn't have to pay, as they don't have them! What kind of 4* hotel doesn't have an iron, premier inns even have them!
4) the rooms don't seem to be cleaned, more like they come in and re do the bed.
5) the beach isnt a beach and as you can guess, pay and get an old broken bed or don't pay and you'll have to sit on the concrete slabs or stones on the floor.

Overall not great, wont be going back.

The reception staff and the bell boy were friendly. These are the only positives.
Hotel is old and cheap
Food is poor
The corridors to the rooms are simply awful and scruffy and getting around isn't straightforward.
Room AC isn't cold enough
Evening service in the only bar was really slow and the only food item was Pizza.

There is no way this property is a 4*
3* at best but a 2* for me