Atrium Platinum Luxury Resort

Very good hotel ,but the people make the difference.Especially Despina Fotini Maria Klaudio and Michalis the manager

Booking and Arrival

We booked an 11-night stay at the Atrium Platinum on a bed and breakfast basis. Our plan was to enjoy the hotel for most of the holiday, eat at its restaurants and head out into Rhodes three or four evenings to explore and try somewhere different.

By the end of the holiday, we were very glad we hadn’t booked half board, as we ended up eating away from the hotel far more than we had originally planned.

The location is excellent. Rhodes Old Town is only a short taxi ride away and cost us around €15 each way. We also hired a car through Marathon Car Rental at the hotel, which was reasonably priced and gave us the chance to explore the island at our own pace.

We arrived late in the evening and were greeted with champagne at check-in before being taken to our room. This was a special holiday for us as we were celebrating our engagement, which I had let the hotel know beforehand. We arrived in the room to a bottle of Prosecco and a card, which was a genuinely lovely touch and very much appreciated.

Unfortunately, we then noticed that our Deluxe Double Sea View room had two single beds. Not exactly what we had pictured for an engagement holiday! I phoned reception and, to their credit, this was sorted quickly the following morning.

Service and Facilities

The staff overall were very helpful throughout our stay, with some members of staff genuinely exceptional. We met some lovely people working at the hotel and the service in the bars and around the hotel was generally very good.

There were plenty of things we did really enjoy. The drinks in the main bar were very good and it was a great place to sit in the evening. The entertainment was exceptional and created a brilliant atmosphere – definitely one of the highlights of the hotel for us.

The pool loungers were comfortable and the pool itself was very cool, bordering on cold, but honestly in the Rhodes heat we loved it! The gym was also good and our room was kept clean throughout the stay.

One thing I noticed, which I have since seen another reviewer mention, is the setting around the pool restaurants. When you’re sitting eating at one of the two restaurants by the pool, you’re looking towards the mini market and kids’ club. Obviously both facilities need to be somewhere, but when you’re sitting having a meal at a hotel marketed as a five-star luxury resort, it takes away from that luxury feeling slightly. Even some screening would make a big difference.

Food

Unfortunately, the food was where the hotel really let itself down for us.

Breakfast was disappointing. Bacon is about as standard a breakfast item as you can get and you’d expect a five-star hotel to do it well, but it was poor. On our first morning, strangely enough, we had some of the best hash browns we’ve ever had. We thought, brilliant! We then never saw them again for the remaining ten days.

The biggest frustration came at lunchtime around the pool. We ordered a pizza early in the holiday and it was amazing – genuinely really good. Naturally, we ordered it again. Unfortunately, several of the following pizzas came out with raw/undercooked dough.

I took them back and raised it with the staff. On one occasion I was told this was because the pizzas were pre-cooked and then finished off at the Fresco pool restaurant. I couldn’t really understand the reasoning – surely regardless of how they’re prepared, they shouldn’t be served with raw dough?

What really surprised us was overhearing a member of staff serving a pizza to another guest and saying, “Please check it’s cooked, we have a problem with the kitchen.”

Pizza appeared to be one of the most popular items on what is already quite a limited poolside menu. At a five-star luxury resort, guests really shouldn’t be asked to check whether their food has been cooked properly before eating it.

After having food sent back and being disappointed on several occasions, we gradually lost confidence in eating at the hotel. That was probably the biggest shame of the whole stay. We’d gone there expecting to eat out three or four nights as part of exploring Rhodes, but ended up going out for food much more often simply because we weren’t enjoying the food at the hotel.

When you’ve paid to stay at a five-star resort with several restaurants on site, you shouldn’t feel like you need to leave the hotel to get a reliably good meal.

Porfyra was the big exception. We had a lovely meal there and really enjoyed it. The food and overall experience were much closer to what we had expected from the Atrium Platinum.

Unfortunately, we found Koi, the Italian restaurant and the buffet disappointing and below the quality we expected. Some of the food was actually quite poor, and we also found the choice at the à la carte restaurants limited, particularly when staying for 11 nights.

How Our Concerns Were Handled

I did raise my disappointment with meals during the holiday and obviously raised the issue each time we had to return a pizza, but unfortunately nothing really changed.

At checkout I was asked about our stay and decided to be completely honest. I explained that we’d found it disappointing overall compared with what we’d expected from a five-star luxury resort.

To the hotel’s credit, they listened and offered us a complimentary lunch, two complimentary drinks and an Atrium beach bag for my fiancée. This was very much appreciated and a nice gesture.

Ironically, the lunch we had that day was very good and the pizza was perfectly cooked! Unfortunately, when it’s the last day of an 11-night holiday, getting it right then doesn’t really make up for the previous experiences.

Maybe I should have asked to speak to management and raised everything more strongly earlier in the holiday rather than mentioning the problems as they happened. I can accept that. But equally, I don’t think a guest at a five-star resort should have to keep escalating things before fairly basic food quality issues are addressed.

Final Verdict

Overall, this is actually quite a difficult review to write because there is a lot we liked about the Atrium Platinum.

The location is excellent, the hotel has some lovely facilities, the entertainment was brilliant, the main bar was great, our room was clean and many of the staff were fantastic. Porfyra was also genuinely very good.

But for us, the food was a major disappointment and ultimately changed the way we spent our holiday. Instead of eating out three or four times as we’d planned, we found ourselves leaving the hotel for meals far more often.

At this level and price point, I don’t expect everything to be perfect for 11 straight days. Mistakes happen anywhere. But there is a difference between an occasional mistake and repeatedly being disappointed by food, returning undercooked pizzas and even hearing staff acknowledge to other guests that there was a problem with the kitchen.

That’s what makes it so frustrating, because there were moments where the Atrium Platinum absolutely felt like the five-star hotel we’d expected. There were just too many moments where it didn’t.

We still had a fantastic holiday in Rhodes, and there are genuinely a lot of things the Atrium Platinum does very well. In fact, before this stay we had already been looking at another Atrium property in Lindos for our next trip to Rhodes. Unfortunately, this experience has made us seriously reconsider that.

As things stand, I don’t think we would return to the Atrium Platinum. For a hotel at this price point, carrying the Luxury Platinum name and marketing itself as a five-star resort, the consistency simply wasn’t there – particularly when it came to the food.

When you’re paying for five-star luxury, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect five-star quality consistently throughout your stay.