Nefeli Hotel

“Standards at Nefeli.”

The nefeli was a great place to stay when under Nico's control, standards slipped and went down hill rapidly when under Tony & Evi's control. Would only return if Nico's, Maria & Katarena were in charge.

“Not quite sure how to start....”

Me and my partner visited Nefeli for 2 weeks all Inclusive in June this year. I’m not usually one to write reviews but our experience was a bit bizarre and we agreed we would write one! So to start with we arrived at nearly 1am. We were checked in by the night porter and he walked us to our roo... more

Me and my partner visited Nefeli for 2 weeks all Inclusive in June this year. I’m not usually one to write reviews but our experience was a bit bizarre and we agreed we would write one! So to start with we arrived at nearly 1am. We were checked in by the night porter and he walked us to our room. During the short walk to our room he made it very clear that he wanted us to go straight to bed. We were in one of the apartment buildings, not the main hotel. We were ushered in to our room and the door shut behind us. It’s no exaggeration to say it was like a prison cell. Tiles floor and walls, minimal Furniture (1 dressing table, 2 bedside tables and a small table next to the fridge). We had expected a double bed but got 2 singles. Whilst we know this is not uncommon in some countries the problem was that the beds were in 2 old and mismatched wooden bed frames that meant that even when pushed together, the mattresses were still about 10 inches apart. At this point, we decided to pop back up to the hotel to see if we could buy a couple of bottles of water. We met 2 couples at the pool bar, who it turns out have been staying at nefeli for years. I stayed chatting to them whilst my partner went inside to find the night man. My partner came back out and said he’s been told the bar was shut (not an issue as it was late, but we only wanted water and the couples we met were clearly still being served drinks) anyway we were eventually obliged with 2 bottles of water so off we went to bed. As we laid down to sleep, the bathroom started making a loud gurgling noise. This went on for some time. Next morning, my optimism quickly fading, we went to breakfast. It consisted of a basic, poor quality fry up, plus the usual continental bits. Not very good but we’re not really breakfast people so not a big issue for us personally. That morning we had also discovered that every time we showered in our room, the whole bathroom flooded.......this was then followed by a number of frog invasions. The shower also did not hook to the wall meaning we had to hold the shower up for each other. After speaking to some other guests we were told that the main hotel building rooms were far better so my partner went and complained about our room and asked to be moved. He was told no the hotel is full but I counted no more than 5 groups of guests on our first day. In fairness to them they did come and fix the shower hook that day. The pool was lovely, nice and deep and looked clean the whole time we were there. There was ample amounts of sun loungers and they had the mattresses on them so they were comfy. Could have been more parasols but I usually got one eventually. Lunch was an improvement. Nice fresh salad, homemade coleslaw, and usually a selection of meat and fish in various forms. Me and my partner are not fussy eaters in the slightest so we can only speak for our experience but we both found the lunch and dinners to be perfectly acceptable and sometimes excellent (Greek night every Friday, the mum of the managers took great pride in hand making the food and it was delicious). Drinks......all inclusive means 1 local lager, vodka, gin, white rum, mataxa and ouzo, red and white wine and soft drinks. That’s it. The lager ran out at least twice during our 2 weeks stay, causing the lads behind the bar to get a lot of complaints and moans. So that’s the room, food and pool covered. On to the staff. On the whole, they are an amazing bunch of people who work so hard in what clearly are quite testing conditions. We heard numerous people complaining, some not as politely as others. The last manager (Evi?) wasn’t particularly approachable or helpful, however she seemed to let her hair down on Greek night on the Friday and was up on the bar dancing and giving our free Ouzo to everyone! The house keeping staff were excellent as were the catering staff. We have give a special mention to the two barmen George and Marios. It’s not far from true to say these two really made our stay so much better. Always willing to stop for a chat or a quick card trick (they always were amazed at my partners tricks haha!) they remembered what we drank and were always happy to try and make us up something special if we couldn’t decide what to have. Really really nice guys who do an excellent job with limited resources. They told us how frustrating it is for them to work in such a limited poorly stocked bar. Nefeli’s location is really good. Minutes from the beach, and from a nice little town with lots of bars and restaurants (Delon pub in particular which I will review separately). And you can walk to Kos town in about 30 minutes or 10€ in a cab. Or as we did you can bar crawl your way all the way along the beach in to kos town, if that’s you’re sort if thing I highly recommend, it was one of the best days of our holiday! In conclusion, would I go back to nefeli? No. Would I recommend it? No. But we did make the most of our situation and we did enjoy our 2 weeks (we did slot of day trips) ..........

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