Zeus Eleva Ajul

Overall we had a nice holiday. My 6 year old daughter enjoyed the range of pools and slides. The hotel was clean and well presented. Lovely setting-beautiful views. The private beach is pretty and good for snorkelling. Most staff are friendly and very hard working. The hotel is on a steep hill which means there is lots of walking-but there are golf carts that can sometimes assist you to get to places around the resort. It has the potential to be a fabulous hotel but unfortunately it feels like the management/company that runs it are trying to do things to keep costs down…. There are not enough staff so people were often having to queue for 15 minutes for a drink at a bar-because there was only one bartender working. At the buffet restaurant staff struggle to keep on top of clearing tables whilst also failing to provide drinks to customers during their meal. The food at the buffet restaurant is ok-not 5 star. The selection of salads are good,but the hot food is very repetitive and not replenished enough. There is only ‘live/show/fresh’ cooking on some days. They advertise a ‘kids corner’ for food-however this is only spaghetti,chips,cheese and bolognese sauce-everyday at lunch and dinner. The alacarte restaurants are both nice. It is a nice change to be given a menu to choose from and to be served at the table. However-you must book immediately on arrival. We booked within 20 minutes of arriving and could only book the last 2 evenings as there was no other availability. Entertainment is very limited both during the day and evening. The kids club is a small room located on the top floor of the hotel-it isn’t very inviting and activities are limited. Don’t bank on using this-my daughter wasn’t keen to go at all. In the evening there is a live duo playing quite dated music at the bar. Occasionally there is an outdoor cinema that begins at 9pm. The pools are all good but there are not enough sunbeds-around 40 at the main pool which for such a large hotel is obviously not enough. The depth of all the pools is between 1m and 1.2m-which actually was perfect for our 6 year old as it meant she could always touch the bottom. For older children this could be frustrating as you are not allowed to jump or dive in. The shop has very limited supplies-beware they do not sell suncream so make sure that you bring enough for the whole holiday. The closest shop is a 40 euro taxi round trip away! I hope this review helps to inform others of what to expect and how to prepare for their holiday. We had a double deluxe sharing pool room-which was lovely and I would recommend . Being in the main building meant that it was easy to get to breakfast/lunch/dinner and to get a drink at the bar and take it back to our room. The bungalows are staggered down the steep hill and some are quite a walk away from the main restaurant/bars. Overall-a nice holiday but the people that run the hotel need to pay more staff to work to make things run more smoothly. If you charge a premium price you need to provide a premium experience.

The spa is the best place in this resort. The rest of it is very much hit or miss. The staff are lovely, but they’re just aren’t enough of them to cope with the demand Amilia was great in the spa Nikos / Georgio on the bar

Zeus Eleva Azul Loutra Halkidiki The setting at Zeus Eleva Azul is genuinely sublime. It’s clean, peaceful and absolutely gorgeous, with views that make you briefly consider selling all your possessions and becoming a lounger based minimalist. The photos are accurate, the cushions are densely padded, and the reception staff are efficient, charming and visibly still in possession of their souls. The hotel itself is really secluded. Depending on your personality, this is either “exclusive luxury retreat” or “we may never escape”. Now, the app. Download it if you enjoy an emotional rollercoaster. It presents a dazzling vision of snacks, cocktails, themed dining and amenities, many of which appear to exist only in the spiritual realm. The app is less an information tool and more an aspirational fiction piece. The buffet is an interesting social experiment in delayed gratification. The food quality is actually fairly good — but the choice barely changes. Lunch and dinner seem to operate on a beautifully strict constitutional framework: pasta, salads, chicken or pork, fish, chips/potatoes, vegetables. Every day. Forever. Tzatziki is provided in a medium-sized bowl that remains empty with such consistency you begin to suspect that this is intentional performance art. If you’d like alcohol with dinner, that’s allowed — but only after a sacred quest. Bringing a drink from the upstairs bar is forbidden. Instead, you must locate a member of buffet staff, who then vanishes through the door to retrieve your beer from a mysteriously unstaffed lounge bar approximately four metres away. In fairness, the themed restaurants are meant to compensate for buffet Groundhog Day. However, you may only visit each one once every three days, a rule enforced by the app with the cold efficiency of airport security. We arrived to discover the Italian restaurant was fully booked until day three, so book immediately upon arrival or risk spending your holiday staring wistfully at pizza you’ll never meet. Ravioli inexplicably can't happen in the Italian restaurant. The Greek restaurant at lunch serves “snacks”, which sounds casual and spontaneous but in reality requires the strategic planning skills of a NATO operation. A snack slot must be pre-booked on the app, meaning hunger now needs forecasting several hours in advance. Oh and no snacks allowed at lunch, if you've booked dinner in either themed restaurant. The app also advertised souvlaki and traditional Greek dishes. During lunch and two evening visits, these remained entirely mythical. Like Atlantis, or available sunbeds at peak times… or ravioli. The beach transport situation deserves its own Netflix documentary. An eight-seater minibus ferries guests up and down a hillside road so steep the vehicle appears to ascend through the sheer force of optimism. Walking back would require mountaineering equipment, electrolyte tablets, and possibly a Sherpa. Guests gather at the beach around lunchtime with the tense energy of people awaiting evacuation. Reception tells everyone the eight seater bus comes hourly, but fails to clarify that it does return if full. This omission creates a Lord of the Flies atmosphere around an entirely imaginary queue line near a portaloo best described as “post-apocalyptic”. Our driver became deeply distressed when we stepped beyond the imaginary queue line boundary, to stand in the sun. He then delivered an impassioned lecture all the way back up the hill about queue discipline, public safety and the collapse of civilisation. Other guests actually defended my husband, which briefly turned the shuttle bus scene into a live-action courtroom drama. Just FYI regarding the green inflatable rings in the waterpark- “THEY ARE NOT HERE JUST FOR YOU TO SIT ABOUT, SOMEBODY MIGHT NEED TO GO DOWN THE SLIDE YOU MUST GIVE THEM BACK” The lifeguard's face was an anagram of rage, and several children began to cry. Nobody was on the slide and there were about 5 of the 15 rings being used for floating in the pool. These were swiftly placed in a pile for 10 minutes till the next families arrived, blissfully unaware of the situation. The extensive rules sign at the waterpark omits anything about the specific use of anybody's inflatable ring. Perhaps it's just a misunderstanding. At one point, the barman at the main pool refused to give us water. “There is no water at the pool. Only for your room.” This felt less like hospitality and more like a riddle from an ancient Greek god. Two small bottles of water are left in the room each day. The minibar contains a few beers and soft drinks which reception makes clear will not be restocked, so it's best to keep those for any special occasion that might come up. Elsewhere, drinks availability resembles an advanced logistics puzzle: Pool bar: cocktails Main bar: different cocktails Waterpark bar: beer and wine Beach bar: beer and wine Snacks: theoretically elsewhere Water: don’t ask questions If you can master the app, anticipate future hunger, locate the imaginary bus queue line, and emotionally adapt to the disappearance of tzatziki, you’ll probably have a lovely time. And honestly? We mostly did. The place is beautiful, many staff are warm and lovely, and the whole experience became unintentionally hilarious in a Fawlty Towers-resort sort of way. We last visited Halkidiki in 2021 at Kassandra Palace Hotel & Spa, and apparently some things here simply operate according to laws beyond mortal understanding. We’ll be returning to Barceló Tenerife in autumn. They only have four stars — but there the app offer is not fictional, and water is apparently considered a human right.

great hotel but food, drinks poor and lack of staff

Chalkidiki This place is a hidden gem. Feels like its difficult to find ,but well worth the effort. Everything and everyone is friendly. A totally private beach with a bar as part of our all inclusive so we could stay all day. The main groups has lots more to explore or splash around in.