Roda Beach Resort and Spa

Great family holiday – would happily return

We had a really enjoyable stay at Roda Beach Resort & Spa with my wife and our 5-year-old, and overall we had a great family holiday.

There is plenty to do around the resort, especially for families. Our little one absolutely loved the pools and particularly the new water park, which was definitely one of the highlights of the holiday. The beach and the overall setting of the resort are also lovely, and there was always something going on throughout the day.

The food was good with plenty of choice, and having different places around the resort for snacks, drinks, ice cream, crepes etc. made the all-inclusive experience very convenient, especially when travelling with a young child.

A big positive for us was the staff. We received good service from all the teams, including reception, catering and the entertainment team. A special mention to Nino, Stan and the rest of the entertainment guys who worked hard to keep everyone entertained and created a really enjoyable atmosphere.

The only real negative for us was the situation around our final day. Our flight home was at 4:45am on Saturday, but we had to check out of our room at 11am on Friday. From the first day of our holiday I had been asking reception whether we could extend the room for the final day, and I made it clear that I was happy to pay for the extension. Each time I was told to come back and ask the day before departure.

Unfortunately, when I did exactly that, I was then told there was no availability. I completely understand that rooms cannot be extended when the hotel is full, but I wish this had been made clearer earlier rather than being asked to wait until the day before. Had I known from the beginning, I could have planned our final day properly.

As we had our 5-year-old with us, I didn’t want us spending the whole final day and evening sitting around the hotel lobby waiting for an early-morning flight, so we ended up booking an Airbnb for the final day.

I do want to give a special mention to Daniel from TUI, who was excellent. Once we explained the situation, he was extremely helpful and arranged for our airport transfer to pick us up from the Airbnb instead of the hotel. That made things much easier for us and was really appreciated.

Apart from the checkout situation, we had a very positive experience. It’s a great resort for families, our son had a brilliant time, the staff work incredibly hard, and there is plenty to keep both children and adults entertained.

Overall, we really enjoyed our holiday and would definitely consider visiting Roda Beach Resort & Spa again.

We’ve just returned from our holiday at Roda Beach Resort and, overall, there was a lot we really enjoyed about this hotel.

I’ve seen quite a few reviews saying that the hotel “isn’t 5 star”, but personally I don’t think that’s particularly helpful. I’ve stayed in 5 star Greek hotels many times and I appreciate that 5 star in Greece isn’t necessarily the same as 5 star elsewhere. That isn’t an issue for us at all, in fact, we much prefer the relaxed Greek holiday vibe to the more flashy 5 star experience you get in places like Turkey.

There were lots of things we loved about Roda Beach Resort. The food was a real highlight, with plenty of availability throughout the day and a really good standard. The crepes, gyros and pizza being available during the day were amazing and meant there was always something easy to grab without having to plan your day around mealtimes. The coffees from the lobby bar were amazing!

The staff were brilliant, friendly, helpful and always pleasant.

We particularly loved the beach bar. Sitting down there in the afternoon, especially when the DJ was playing, was one of the highlights of our holiday. It had such a lovely atmosphere and really added to the experience.

The location is also great. Roda itself is only a short walk away, with some lovely bars and restaurants, so there’s the option to get out of the resort without needing transport.

We don’t personally bother with evening entertainment, so I can’t really comment on the quality of it, but there was something happening every night for those who do enjoy it.

Unfortunately, though, there is one major issue which means we wouldn’t return.

We booked a shared pool room and paid around £900 extra at the time of booking compared with a standard room. The room itself was lovely and the pool was gorgeous, but unfortunately the pool wasn’t exclusive to guests staying in these rooms.

Guests from all over the hotel were reserving sunbeds around this pool, which meant that what we had paid a significant amount extra for as a quieter, more private experience, became very busy and noisy.

On one occasion, we went for lunch and returned to find that other guests had actually removed our towels from our sunbeds and taken the beds themselves. Another, I looked up from my book to find a family had helped themselves to our pool inflatables from the terrace outside of our room.

This was particularly disappointing because I’ve booked this type of room at different hotels every year for around 10 years. The whole reason we pay extra for a swim up/shared pool room is to have access to a quieter pool directly outside our room. We’ve never experienced a situation where the pool associated with those rooms effectively becomes a free for all for the entire hotel.

As a result, I honestly feel that the £900 upgrade was a complete waste of money. Had we known beforehand that anyone staying at the hotel could use the pool and reserve the sunbeds around it, we possibly wouldn’t have chosen this hotel at all, as having a quiet pool directly outside our room is a really important part of our holiday and one of the main reasons we choose this type of room.

It’s a real shame because this hotel ticked a lot of boxes for our family holiday, great food, lovely staff, a fantastic beach bar and a brilliant location.

But for us, the shared pool situation was a major disappointment and unfortunately the reason we wouldn’t return.