Porto Bello Beach

Lovely clean hotel and grounds. Beach is stunning, such clear water you can see the fish, you can use the hotels pedalos for free which is lovely! Entertainment team are great for small kids, Tamzin was fantastic learning the kids names, always full of excitement and fun, made them feel so special, she is a real ray of sunshine!

We stayed for two weeks in August, with our two children. We have stayed at lots of all-inclusive hotels and this was definitely one of our favourites.

Beautiful hotel and location on the beach. Great staff; so hardworking, friendly and helpful.

The waterpark is fun for a couple of hours entertainment and no queues, even in August.

Spacious and clean rooms. We paid to upgrade to a swim up junior suite. This was great as we didn’t need to worry about reserving sun-beds, as we had our own on our terrace.

The pools by the swim up rooms are open to all, but were lovely and peaceful, and a quieter alternative to the main pool. Unfortunately in our last couple of days a large, rowdy family set up camp opposite our room, playing their own music (even though there’s always music and activities round the large pool) and being loud and raucous, which sadly made us feel ready to go home.

Food: great variety and quality in main restaurant. You had to queue to go in for dinner as the hotel was so busy, but we waited to eat later to avoid this. We enjoyed the Italian restaurant. For guests staying two weeks it would be nice if you could visit once per week, not just once per stay. The beach bar food (hotdogs, toasties) is handy if you don’t want to get changed out of swimwear to go to the main restaurant for lunch.

Entertainment: the theatre is away from the main hotel, as it’s shared with the hotel next door, and there is no bar there. We went once for the fire show which was good, but the location put us off going. There are singers in the lobby bar some nights which are ok, other nights it’s bingo which was repetitive. They need the main entertainment to be within the hotel.

We hired a car from the lady based in the hotel reception, who was very helpful with advice and recommendations.

There’s a shop on site for essentials, but nothing else in walking distance of the hotel. In August it was very hard to get taxis into Kardamena and back. We waited over an hour both ways at times. Other guests used the local bus and told us people were pushing and shoving to get on the last bus back at night, as it was so busy. A shuttle provided by the hotel to the town and back would be a great addition. Guests would happily pay a fee for this if it was regular and reliable.

A couple of improvements that could be made:

• More storage in the rooms. The rooms are large so there would be plenty of space for additional shelves or drawers.
• Drinking water needs to be more freely available, either self-service bottles or a dispenser. You get small bottles in your room each day, which is great, but other than that you shouldn’t have to queue up at the bar just for water.

Overall a great hotel that we would recommend to others, particularly those with younger children. We appreciate we visited in peak season when the hotel was at capacity.

A last-minute booking turned out to be one of our favourite recent holidays.

The staff were amazing – so friendly and happy to help. The restaurant staff, particularly Mairy and Jemsey, went above and beyond to make sure our kids had a great time at breakfast lunch and dinner. Making them laugh and having a good conversation with us as well, always nice to have friendly restaurant staff who really care about their guests.

The food was fantastic. The onsite restaurants offered a great variety, unlike other all-inclusive resorts that tend to be a copy-and-paste of the main buffet. The Greek restaurant was particularly stand-out.

The hotel was tidy and the rooms were excellently cleaned with beds made every day.

The beach was amazing – clear waters and plenty of fish. Being a two-minute walk from our room made it easy to hop from pool to room to beach.

The water park was good but some of the bigger slides required a suitable weight difference. For example, I wanted to go on the big slide with my son but he was too light for me. Some lifeguards were more strict than others about this. We also had an unfortunate accident at the water park that left my partner unable to walk for a few days. However, the Tui and hotel staff were incredibly supportive and raised an incident.

The only improvements would be for the beach restaurant/bar to be open in the evening so we could enjoy the beautiful views. The snack bar on the beach would also be great if it offered gyros or Greek salad instead of burgers and hotdogs.

We’ll definitely be back and would highly recommend Porto Bello Beach!