Maro Apartments. And Katarinas Reviews

My Wife and I visited Aghios Ioanis on the Pelion on the 1st October 2004 travelling with Kosmar holidays. We flew from Gatwick to Volos airport but had go via Skiathos which added one and a half hours to our journey. This makes a 3 hour flight into four and a half hours.

When we booked the holiday we were told that the coach transfer would take about 2 hours, It took nearly 3 hours.

The resort of Aghios Ioanis is not bad. A shingle beach and a few bars and restaurants. The village is quiet with lots of walks up into the wooded mountains that rear up from the sea. The biggest problem was on our second week nearly all the bars and supermarkets closed and we were left with only one Restaurant open.

MAROS Appartments
We had a quite large appartment in the Maros overlooking the seafront. It was reasonably clean but the bathroom was very dark and dinghy being decorated in Navy blue tiles. Our bedlinen and towels were changed on a frequent interval but during the week we were staying at the appartment it was not cleaned once. The biggest bonus was lots of hot water. We were told after two days in the Maros that even though we had booked the apartment for two weeks it was going to close. So we had to move to another appartment after one week.

Katarinas Apartments.
Our second week was spent at Katarinas apartments.
Katarinas was a nice family run apartment which was spotlessly clean. The only problem was you had to ask for bath towels and they were given very reluctantly. Also you never had hot water before 11am. The room was very small but was nice and airy with a good view out over the sea.

Kosmar Car Hire.
We rented a car through Kosmar Holidays for one week. The car was supposed to arrive at 9am but arrived at 11.30am. We paid Kosmar Holidays the price of £179 for one weeks hire. This according to Kosmar's telephone booking line was supposed to be covered for all insurance and no excess.
When the car finally arived it was not covered for theft insurance or excess and we had to pay another 38 euros to have cover. The excess was 300 euros. You have been warned don't trust anything you are told by Kosmar Holidays.

We were due to fly back to Gatwick on Friday 14th October from Volos Airport. The night before we were told by the Rep that there was a problem. We would have to fly back from Skiathos, but this time we would have to get there by 3 coaches and an hydrofoil, all supposing the hydrofoil was running due to terrible storms for 2 days prior to our departure. The rep did suggest that we may have to fly to Manchester and then be coached down to Gatwick!!

There was an elderly gentleman of 85 staying at the resort, and no representative of Kosmar offered to help him with his luggage, on this journey from hell. This involved handling his luggage 8 times in total. I had to help him and my wife had to struggle with both our suitcases.

The flight we were supposed to return on, never was due to land at Volos airport,but was a regular flight to Skiathos only. We left our appartment at 2am English time and finally arrived in Gatwick at 4.05pm. We could have travelled to Canada in the same time.

After the way Kosmar Holidays handled the arrangments for this holiday we will not be travelling with this company again.