Ikos Olivia

We stayed at Ikos Olivia recently and were genuinely amazed by the level of hospitality, generosity and attention to detail throughout our entire stay. It is one of those rare hotels where you quickly get the feeling that almost anything is possible and that the staff will do everything they can to make your holiday perfect.

The service is truly outstanding. Everyone – from the waiters to the restaurant staff and the people around the resort – was incredibly friendly, warm and helpful. Nothing ever seemed to be too much trouble. If you are dining in one restaurant and would like something from another restaurant, they will simply arrange it for you. If you would like a cocktail while having dinner, they bring it. Your wine and water glasses are constantly refilled, yet the service never feels intrusive. You are simply looked after exceptionally well.

The food deserves a special mention. We have stayed at many all-inclusive hotels, and the quality here is on a completely different level. The buffet is extraordinary: beautifully presented, incredibly varied, fresh and extremely well maintained. The staff constantly clean and replace the serving utensils, and everything looks immaculate.

Most importantly, the food actually tastes as good as it looks. At many all-inclusive buffets, dishes can sometimes feel mass-produced or lose their quality after sitting for a while. At Ikos Olivia, the food felt much more like what you would expect from a very good à la carte restaurant. Everything we tried was beautifully cooked, full of flavour and carefully presented – a pleasure both for the eyes and for the palate.

The à la carte restaurants are equally impressive. There are several different restaurants that can be booked during the stay, and every dinner felt like a proper fine-dining experience. The combination of excellent food, attentive service and such a relaxed atmosphere made every evening special.

Of course, Ikos Olivia is not an inexpensive holiday. But for us, the important point is that we never felt disappointed by what we received for the price we paid. On the contrary, the overall experience, service, food and generosity of the concept made us feel wonderfully spoiled.

This is a hotel that makes you feel almost like royalty – completely relaxed, cared for and surrounded by people who genuinely want you to enjoy yourself.

An absolutely deserved five stars from us. We left already looking forward to the moment when we can return.

A lovely family friendly resort with all of the signature Ikos charm. A lot of extremely friendly and hard working staff who are prepared to do whatever they can to put a smile on your face in order to ensure you have a fantastic stay.

Why 4/5? We unfortunately had a number of small hiccups which did detract a little bit from the overall experience. One restaurant we ended up leaving because the food arrived undercooked, quite late, and with a lot of wasps around it was pushing last bed time for our two kids. We also found the loud music from White Party to be quite disruptive to sleep for our 1 year old. I’m sure it’s a lot of fun but when travelling with a baby, disco music and sleep are a bit tricky to balance.

I would recommend guests buy or pack beach shoes if they want to use the beach or the sea, as the sand is quite gravelly/shelly and the shallow waters are full of rocks making it a bit slippery and rough to walk on. The water itself is like a lagoon and perfect for small children, as the area is known for.

We stayed late August and the resort was very busy. Whilst the à la carte restaurants on the whole offered excellent food and service - especially Anaya and Fresco - the buffet could become a bit of a carnival with the number of people all arriving and filling their plates at the same time.

We have stayed at other Ikos resorts previously, and Andalusia is still the standout for us.

I feel bad not giving full marks because on the whole the staff are really excellent, but as the prices of Ikos stays continues to rise perhaps our judgement also becomes a little more discerning.

Anna the guest relationship manager was fantastic throughout, friendly, attentive and helpful and did everything she could to put things right. Huge credit to her for her enthusiasm and lovely, friendly attitude.

A lovely, relaxing stay – excellent dining, but not quite 5/5

We had a lovely 12-night stay at Ikos and overall really enjoyed the resort. It’s a beautiful, very relaxed hotel with some genuinely excellent touches. For me, though, there were a few areas that stopped it from quite reaching a 5/5, particularly given the price point.

Food – the standout

The food was probably the highlight of our stay. The à la carte restaurants were excellent, with the Asian and Italian being our favourites. The setting at the Italian is particularly lovely – try to get a table overlooking the sea. There is a lovely lemon tree with sea view in the background which provides a great photo opportunity!

We messaged the WhatsApp concierge during our stay and were given a meal plan covering our restaurant bookings, which made everything very easy.

The buffet was also good and the general quality of the food was high. We never struggled to find something we wanted to eat. The only disappointment was probably the desserts, which I found a little underwhelming with a fairly limited selection.

We also used the Dine Out option twice. Elia was fantastic – excellent food with a stunning view and definitely worth doing. Our second visit to Moungario wasn’t quite as successful. The menu felt more limited and personally I didn’t enjoy the food as much.

The à la cartes are what really make Ikos special. The service was consistently excellent and you never went without anything. Sitting down to high-quality food with sea views on most evenings was a real highlight. It’s probably the best à la carte experience I’ve had at an all-inclusive resort.

What is particularly impressive is that you could genuinely spend your entire holiday eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in proper sit-down restaurants with excellent food and service without needing to visit a buffet once. That’s quite unique for an all-inclusive resort.

Service

Overall, service was very good. Generally, if you asked for something, it arrived quickly and nothing felt like too much trouble.

There were a couple of areas where it wasn’t quite as consistent. Drink service could sometimes be a little slow or lacking around the buffet and lobby bar, whereas in other parts of the resort it was excellent.

A special mention has to go to Carlos around the beach pool, who was brilliant and an absolute character. Lavinia at Potami Bar in the evenings was also fantastic and extremely attentive.

As mentioned above, service in the à la carte restaurants was on another level and consistently excellent.

One minor criticism was the cocktails. They tasted great, but seemed very light on alcohol. Obviously that’s subjective, but on quite a few occasions I could barely taste any alcohol in them.

Room

Our room was nice and perfectly comfortable, although a little on the small side.

Cleaning was okay rather than exceptional. Over the stay I noticed dust gathering underneath the bed and around some of the corners, which isn’t something I’d necessarily expect at this level of hotel.

One touch I absolutely loved was the pillow menu. I’m a front sleeper and asked the concierge whether they had any flatter pillows. Rather than simply sending another pillow, they provided an entire pillow menu for me to choose from. It’s a small thing, but exactly the sort of detail that makes a premium resort feel special.

Mini Cooper experience

The complimentary Mini for the day was a brilliant inclusion. It was a really nice car to drive and, as we were staying for 12 nights, it was great to have a day away from the resort and explore the local area. Definitely something I’d recommend taking advantage of.

Kids Club

Our 8-year-old daughter really enjoyed the Kids Club and wanted to go back most days, which probably says everything you need to know! She particularly loved Evie and Megan, who clearly made a big impression on her.

Activities & entertainment – the weakest area

This is probably the biggest area where Ikos fell short for me.

There are plenty of facilities – tennis, table tennis, darts, football etc. – but the resort lacks the activity “buzz” that I’ve experienced at other high-end resorts. Things generally felt very quiet. I entered a darts tournament and there was literally one other person taking part!

Evening entertainment was also quite hit and miss. There were some genuinely brilliant events – the string quartet playing modern songs was excellent – but on a number of evenings there simply wasn’t much happening.

I appreciate that Ikos is deliberately a relaxed style of resort and some guests will absolutely love that. But if you enjoy having lots of activities going on during the day and a strong entertainment programme in the evening, this is probably one area to be aware of.

Overall – 4.5/5

Overall, we had a lovely holiday and there is a lot that Ikos does exceptionally well. The quality and choice of the à la carte dining in particular sets it apart from almost every other all-inclusive resort I’ve visited.

I can’t quite give it 5/5, though. At this price point, I would expect the service to be slightly more consistent across every area of the resort, and I think the daytime and evening entertainment programme needs improving.

If I could give half stars, it would comfortably be 4.5/5.

A beautiful, relaxing resort with exceptional dining, some fantastic staff and lots of thoughtful premium touches – just a few improvements away from being the complete 5-star experience.