Poseidon Beach

Just returned after 2 week stay. Never write reviews but holidays are expensive for families so want to share our experience.

Positives: staff, particularly in bar/snack bars. Work incredibly hard in extreme heat. Fati who basically runs the entertainment is brilliant. Girls who do the kids club are very enthusiastic too.

Location. Literally on the beach. Fantastic.

Food. For a 3 star we were impressed. Meat dishes really nice, salad bar great, plenty of choice.

Negatives. Extra charges for wifi, safe, air con. On top of room tax. Scam. Reception staff are mostly disinterested or dismissive.

Sunloungers. Unless you are a vampire, good luck getting a bed. Some very sad people in this world, who wake well before crack of dawn to claim a bed. Honestly as a family of 5 it was shocking, impossible to find beds and we are early risers. Hotel need to address this urgently.

Room doors. Shambles. Key cards not working, keys not fitting. Spent one night watching the maintenance fella spraying wd 40 down the lock as the door had jammed. We had 2 rooms as family of 5 (stung double room tax). My room with my son was fine. Wife and daughters room smelt of sewage.

Drinks. Bang average. Watered down beer, sickly sweet mixers.

We stayed at the Poseidon as a family of 7 across 3 rooms, 2 in the main hotel and 1 swim up suite across the road. Upon arrival reception staff were friendly and welcoming and the hotel is really clean throughout, that’s something that actually stood out to us - how often everything is cleaned and how well everything is kept. We were impressed by the buffet at breakfast, lunch and tea as there was always something for everyone and always new things to try, lots of fresh fruit, pastries etc, that was lovely. The snack bar throughout the day could do with a few more options as we saw burgers and a pastry roll daily and pizza on the odd occasion. The all inclusive ice creams were brilliant compared to some all inclusive hotels where you get the really cheap flavourless ice lollies so that was a nice change.

In terms of entertainment, we were around the main pool daily from 8am until around 12-1pm and saw nothing going on despite a couple of announcements for “stretching” which was disappointing. I feel this hotel is lacking an animation team that can bring the fun and enthusiasm for both adults and children. We didn’t stay in the hotel of an evening so we can’t comment on what the evening entertainment was like but we did see signs for things like bingo, karaoke and fire shows.

One thing that really REALLY annoyed me during our stay is that we watched a male member of staff take photos of our sun loungers whilst we were in the pool presumably because they were empty. It’s evident there’s an issue with towels down on beds but my children and my mom were lying down on the beds behind the empty ones me and my partner had left to go for a swim, how do I know my children weren’t caught in said photo in their swimwear without my permission? I’ve never seen a hotel taking pictures on a mobile phone of empty sun loungers with people’s belongings on before and it just doesn’t sit right with me given the money we’ve paid to stay there and the fact we were genuinely at the pool area. There are plenty of ways to resolve sunbed hogging that doesn’t involve taking photos with a mobile phone when there are children present - after picking up on this my daughter then opted to stay in our swim up pool for the duration of our holiday as she is neurodivergent and growing in to a little lady therefore felt uncomfortable.

The sun comes round to the swim up rooms after midday and the terrace then becomes a lovely sun trap. There is also a main pool in the block of swim up rooms if you want something bigger without going to the main hotel but we didn’t use this.

If for whatever reason you’re allergic or don’t like cats then I would suggest asking for a room that’s not ground floor as there was a few times the two rooms we had in the main hotel had little visitors 🐱 we didn’t mind this however

We selected ‘do not disturb’ for our cleaner not to come in one morning but she did, so if you don’t want to be disturbed I’d suggest leaving a note on your door or asking reception to take note of it

For the rooms in our party that had more than one adult per room we were only allowed one key which was a bit inconvenient when one of us wanted to stay out and the other wanted to go to sleep etc

Swim up rooms have a fridge but no kettle so if you want a cuppa I’d pack a travel kettle. Overall the swim up suites are very spacious and the pool is enough, especially if you’re an autism/ADHD family who need to escape but don’t want to miss out like us. As far as I’m aware you don’t pay for air con in the swim up suites.

The garden areas as beautifully kept and there are lots of lovely backdrops for photos. My partner had a massage off the lady leading down to the beach (I believe she’s a Poseidon employee) and he said it was brilliant and she was very professional so he’d recommend that!

Overall the hotel is lovely, clean and staff (apart from the sunbed photo incident) have been pleasant and helpful.