Cooks Club Corfu

On the surface, this hotel is very appealing; the decor, the atmosphere and the food/drinks. However, it is simply a 3* hotel, in our opinion.

On arrival, we were delighted to have had a free upgrade to a swim up room which was lovely (thank you!). The rooms are nice but lack any form of privacy inside; I am seeing comments on here suggesting that is okay for a couple, but a glass toilet door in quite a compact room lacks that personal privacy someone may wish for.

The food is basic at best. The concept of ordering through the app, again on the surface, feels like a nice movement away from the stereotypical all inclusive buffet style, but all food came at different times and you don’t feel like you have a full meal due to the nature of the plate sizes. As someone who loves a gyros and a pizza, this slowly changes on a 10 day break there! The drinks selection is average and to have to pay for further drinks away from the standard ‘list’ is a catch I have not experienced before at an all inclusive. You commonly had to queue for outdoor day drinks at the bar and there was no table drinks service on the evenings in the Cantina restaurant which you would probably expect at a 5* hotel.

As we were staying for 10 nights, you are eligible for both à la carte restaurants; we opted for the Smokehouse. Again, on the surface, this looks amazing, a great set up and a nice experience. On arrival to the restaurant we thought we would opt for a bottle of wine away from the all inclusive wine we had been drinking, it was brought over and opened for us to try, only then for the waitress to note the fridges are broke and it was warm! She said she would put it on ice for us - which we had to decline! The food selection was good but when waiting for our food, we noticed people being attacked by wasps whilst eating their dinner. Our food arrived and we experienced the same - the hotel has a big issues with wasps around outdoor eating which needs addressing. Food was left on a tray by another table which was also swarmed by the wasps.

Pool beds go quickly throughout the morning so in line with how us Brits work(!), get down early to secure your beds. The beds lacked comfort and their material and design made for uncomfortable sunbathing throughout the day. The towel quality provided by the hotel on the whole was good but some days the towels had holes in them.

Every other day there appeared to be someone unhappy at reception, particularly a man and his wife with a bust eye socket both after free upgrades consistently after he injured himself due to be completely intoxicated and falling in his room.

The staff on the whole were nice and amicable but didn’t provide a 5* experience. Some eye rolls here and there but arguably understandable whilst working in the Greek heat at the height of summer which must be tough if working in the outdoor bar areas!

The hotel entertainment was poor. Nothing else to say on that as that’s what it is.

Gouvia itself is run down. There is a nice beach bar on the front but the beach itself is quite dirty and beds feel on top of each other. We booked a boat through Billy’s Boats for the day which was amazing - prepare yourself to be stopped by the coastguard when out at sea as it is really close to the Albanian border! We paid €110 for 6 hours after some bartering.

Overall, the hotel is aesthetically lovely but meeting the 5* experience they advertise doesn’t hit the mark.

Truly one of the worst hotel experiences I have ever had, especially considering that this is supposed to be a five-star hotel. From the very beginning, the disappointment was enormous. The bed sheets were dirty, and the cleanliness of the room was completely unacceptable. It was obvious that the housekeeping had not done its job properly, which is simply unacceptable for a hotel of this category. What was even worse, however, was the attitude of the staff. Extremely rude, unprofessional, and clearly irritated by even the simplest requests. When we asked for a small change to our food order, their reaction made us feel as though we were asking for something completely unreasonable. The same happened when we requested an extra drink. Throughout our stay, we constantly felt as though we were bothering them simply by asking to be served. Honestly, I have not encountered such rudeness and such poor customer service in years. It is truly unbelievable that a hotel presenting itself as a five-star property can have such a huge gap between what it promises and what it actually delivers. The most disappointing part is that I genuinely struggle to find anything positive to say about our stay. The entire experience was disappointing from beginning to end. A five-star hotel should represent cleanliness, professionalism, hospitality, and exceptional service. Unfortunately, this hotel delivered none of those. I would certainly not recommend it, and I sincerely hope the management takes this feedback seriously, because the level of service we experienced was far below any acceptable standard.

We stayed two weeks at Cooks club Corfu and we honestly had a really good stay. The hotel is in beautiful gardens and surroundings, we found the room a good size and clean, we had space for all our belongings. We moved rooms after one night due to an issue with the shower door and I think this made a huge difference to our holiday we had a very good view of the main pool and the bay ahead. The rooms at the back, some face other balconies and I would not have wanted this for two weeks. The food for an all inclusive as very good and there was lots of choice through the day. I enjoyed the two A La carte because they were outside. Some negatives although it says people cannot reserve beds for longer than 30 mins they do and some are reserved but empty all day !!! The main pool gets very busy and noisy but there is the option of the second quieter pool. I have to agree with previous reviews that the level of service and friendliness from staff doesn’t exist. The reception staff are very polite and helpful and so are the customer service staff, but those serving food and drink are not !!! You do feel like they feel they are doing you a favour !! Sometimes you had to queue ages for drinks, in half empty cups, cocktails made in bulk to save time and very slow service. You feel you can’t ask for anything as they look annoyed and because I do speak and understand Greek they were annoyed most of the time. A 5 star hotel whether all inclusive or not needs to have 5 star service. Looking at other reviews this seems to be a common theme. I spent a lot on this holiday and I expected a better level of service. We had a wonderful time in Corfu and overall a good time here. The area around the hotel is not very good, small town nearby is ok but there is a bus stop that takes you into town at a reasonable cost and takes 20 mins. We hired a car and did some exploring. Corfu is beautiful, this hotel is overall good value.