Hotel Continental Mare

The pools were really well kept and both a lovely temperature. They were just about the best thing at the hotel, and the little jetty which allows you to take a dip in the sea was quite nice too. Just don't expect access to a sandy beach, you'll have to use one of the other crowded beaches on the island if you want sand. Staff were relatively friendly, but I think even they are tired and underwhelmed by the state of the hotel, so it's probably understandably hard for them to put too much effort into service when the rest of the place is just meh.

Rooms and facilities were very dated, as with the rest of the island it feels a bit like they're frozen in the 80s. The room was at leastclean though. They put us in a room (303) which is underneath the terrace where guests tend to have after dinner drinks until about midnight. This means there is a lot of chair scraping and dragging late into the night and made it very difficult to sleep on nights where we were quite tired from travelling. When I explained this to the staff their solution was that if it keeps me awake I should get up out of bed, walk upstairs to the reception and let them know... Sure, thanks. We also booked a room 'with a sea view' which costs extra, assuming that means we would get a balcony (the photos on the website show a room with a double bed and balcony). We got a dark and dingy twin room, underneath the terrace and directly opposite one of the pools. There were two chairs and a table outside our room which I presume was were we were supposed to take advantage of the 'sea view'. However, being right next to the pool, there was little point, as there would be no privacy with all the people sitting around the pool, and you might as well grab a sun lounger (if there's one free) and sit on that. So I guess the advice is, don't pay extra for the sea view, it's a bit of a scam. The location of the hotel isn't really ideal. It's at least a 10-15 minute walk to any restaurants and a further 15mins to the main town. That said, the walk was quite pleasant as it's mainly up and down steep winding side alleys and is quite picturesque. Breakfast left a lot to be desired. It was continental, which is to be expected, but with stale bread and nothing very special or unique. Eating cornflakes every morning with lukewarm milk is not really how you want to start each day of your holiday.