Belvedere Gerakas Luxury Suites

We booked this hotel as we had been the previous year and it was a lovely family run hotel so we booked for this year. When we arrived we could see there had been some renovations done which were a positive. However it was clear that it was no longer a family run hotel, Villa Rossa bar had gone which was a highlight last year with George the barman. When we arrived, only two of the three rooms were available due to a computer error. Two of our older children had to stay in a villa down the road for the first night. The villa was a 10 minute walk which they expected them to do with cases. We complained and eventually they drove them there to be told they had to vacate the next morning by 9am! I had emailed ahead asking for our rooms to be together as we had four children with us. Two rooms were but the third was on the other side of the hotel when the older two returned from the villa the next day. The other two rooms were located by the back of the hotel by the closed down Villa Rossa bar. There was a rocky old path and we discovered that this was staff quarters turned into hotel rooms and staff were staying next door to us. There was mess on the staff balconies. The wall between the rooms was falling off the wall, the shower flooded, at night it was pitch black and difficult to get back to our room. We did not feel Safe especially the fact the younger two children were in their own room. We tried to complain to reception staff but kept getting told the manager was not available. In the end we gave up. The staff were unhelpful and unfriendly. What was a lovely quiet family hotel last year was a nightmare this year.

We decided on this hotel after reading some really negative rooms but thought we would give it a chance, unfortunately what people have said turned out to be exactly true and not exaggerated in anyway. The hotel setting and grounds is really nice when viewed externally. It’s set on the hills, over 4 levels with nice sea views in the background. That really is the only positive I’m afraid. We were given a sea view room on level 3 which was a decent size with a private terrace. The bathroom had a walk in shower and was fully tiled and clean. The bed was a disaster, the mattress was like a hammock sinking in the middle, my wife and I had to sleep right on both ends to stop sinking into the middle. We are both fit and active, but woke up with back ache and stiffness everyday. The swimming pool is a decent size, however we were disgusted at how dirty the pool beds were!! Absolutely disgusting in fact! Like they had never been cleaned for years and years, people spend all day sitting on them, sleeping, sweating, eating, drinking. We refused to use them the whole holiday!! See pictures! The pool areas itself was NEVER cleaned whilst there, not even once, beer bottles, left over food etc were there for days after and never picked up. The tiles around the pool water level were green, meaning the pool never gets cleaned either. Ants were everywhere around the pool too. It’s called LUXURY suites apparently. (Laugh) The pool bar is extremely limited selling local beer, soft drinks and coffee. That’s it! If you are looking for a wine, cocktail or strawberry daiquiri forgot it!!! The person serving was miserable every day and to top it off the pool bar closed at 5pm even though the pool stays open until 8pm!! What a joke!! The only other bar which was three levels up opened at 6pm!!
Basically there is nowhere to get a drink!! The hotel seems unstaffed everywhere apart from the reception and cleaners who came knocking at 9am to clean the rooms. It’s basically like a self catering apartment complex. The bar in the evening was ok but was like a ghost town every night. People just don’t stay in the hotel. The best part of the hotel is the fact there are 5/6 amazing locally run tavernas within 10 minutes walk, all serving great food at reasonable prices and excellent cocktails. Although we walk a lot it really is impossible to get anywhere without a car. We did try for first 3 days visiting NOE beach club, Gerakas Beach and local restaurants but after that we had a car for 6 days. Apparently there is a bus service, however I never saw a bus in 10 days!

Cars or Quads are cheap to hire and easy roads to drive on. I would definitely recommend car hire, unless you want to seat in bed bug infested pool beds.
Breakfast was average at best, again just a complete lack of care and attention, tasteless hot options, boiling hot room with no air conditioning and staff sweating everywhere with sweat stained polo shirts! Nice! The coffee machine is a joke, warm mud and something resembling milk! I ended up bringing Nescafé and cartoon of milk from the shop to breakfast each morning. The hot water was salty like it was pipped from the sea. Undrinkable! Same from the fruit juice which was like drinking a bag of sugar.
The so called fitness centre consisted of one multi gym which looked about 100 years old and was extremely dangerous in fact as pulleys and cables were all dismounted. The tread mill and bike were miniature versions for 5 year old and the weight bar had plates in but no pins. It should be shut down basically, not sure who your operators who most inspect these hotels allow them to use such terms so freely like Fitness Center and Luxury.
It’s a nice remote area but I would never recommend this hotel. 2 star at best. Feel like we have been conned basically. The thing is everything in this hotel could be fixed pretty easily by management who give a damn! It’s a sh*t show basically. TUI, First Choice and other tour operators need to take some responsibility for how they sell and describe this hotel because it’s extremely misleading.