Ocean Blue Hotel Reviews

Just returned from a week at the Ocean Blue Hotel. First the negatives, it is advertised as a 5 Star Hotel after being upgraded,realistically it is more like a 3* plus. My wife and myself upgraded to a Superior room, which aledgedly had a Private pool, this turned out to be a not so private canal pool, with a little bridge to your room. The room itself was also pretty unique, with a large picture window from the bedroom into the bathroom, it had no blind so if you enjoy sharing your toileting habits, this is the room for you!
It was also advertised as having an ironing board, but there are none in the rooms. The rooms have obviously just been refurbished, but there were bits hanging off the furniture, and the drain grill in the bathroom had snapped in half.

Every morning at 10am a reveille sounded, I kid you not, and the mornings Animation Team ,entertainment schedule was announced.
The Entertainment was something else, which encouraged us to be somewhere else!
We wre lucky enough to meet a really nice Sottish couple( hello John and Linda) and really enjoyed their Company. Apparently there was a Girl's aloud tribute act, and they asked the younger girls if they wanted to have their photo taken with them, and charged them 3 euros for the privilege! The rest of the so called entertainment was a music quiz, Bingo and other audience participation activities, awful!!
The drinks were the usual AI fare, and definately to the formula 10 Bacardis = 1 Shandy.

Now the positives, the food was good, with a wide range of choices to suit all tastes, and always hot and fresh.
The standard of cleanliness in the Hotel is also very good, with rooms cleaned daily and to a high standard.
The pool was also very clean, although it was hard to get a sun bed, unless you put you towel out really early.There were plenty of free sunbeds on the beach, which is where we spent most of our time.
The beach isn't really up to much, and is mostly pebbles and gravel, although the sea was beautifully warm, and a few steps across the road from the Hotel.
There is a beach bar in the Hotel grounds, but is not part of the AI deal.

The Hotel is advertised as being in Ialyssos, but is actually in Kremasti, which is a small Village. There isn't much to visit, but there are a few bars and restaurants nearby. There's Karaoke in the Ideal Bar, which is next to a well stocked Supermarket. You have to call into the restaurant/bar next to the Ocean Blue, just to hear the dodgy London Accent of the Greek owner, we thought he was putting it on, it's real!
There's a Bowling alley in the Village, which was a really good night out,and the bus to Rhodes town, stops outside the Hotel. Really good value at just under 2 Euros each way, we loved Rhodes Town, really Beautiful.
The waiters and Bar Staff, were very efficient and the Dining area light and airy. Most of the guests were either from Italy or the former Russian States,

The Hotel has it's pluses and minuses, but overall we had a great time, and the weather was superb,but wouldn't like to stay there if the weather was inclement, as there would be nothing to do!

After reading all the negatives on here about the Ocean Blue, I was to say the least a little concerned.However let me tell you here and know, this year its a great place to stay.

The rooms are very well appointed, the whole hotel area is very clean, and the food was good with a varied selection.As with all holidays, you can always find something to moan about, and even at the Ocean Blue not everything is perfect.The beer/lager, for example is not the best, in fact is pretty rank.The evening entertainment is less than impressive,although when they did provide caberet shows they were good.Greek dancing, an all girl(English)dance troop,were guest acts and went down well.The on site entertainment team were OK for the under 8s but that was it.The beach is at the bottom of the gardens, and although it is very pebbley, you can buy beach swim shoes for 7.50euros about £5.00 and your sorted.There is still some work going on in the reception area, but all the rooms seem to be completed.

There is a small waterpark about 150 yards from the hotel, as well as a couple of nice taverna,s should you choose to eat out.The hotel staff were always helpful, and the manager was always walking around,to ensure everyone was being looked after.The Ocean Blue has has a major referb over the last 12 months, and as you would expect one or two little snags can occur, but on the whole we as a family had a great time.I would think that to visit this Hotel next year,when everthing is settled ans established, you will be paying a lot more than perhaps you will for this year.One final point with regard to the sunbeds etc,if you,ve not got your towels down by 5am, then you,ve got no chance of lounging by the pool.Yes you,ve guest it the Germans,are there at first light.It got so frustrating that in the end some Brits were putting there towels down before going to bed at around 1.30 am.

Theres a handy little shop near the pool and you can get the UK papers everyday, the usually arrive about midday.The hotel will change currancy but NOT travellers, so you will have to walk into Kramasti,(about 20mins) to get to the bank.So would we go to the Ocean Blue again ? I would have to say yes, although I do prefer to try different places every year.

So if your booked to go to the Ocean Blue, relax you,ll have a good time, all the scare stories from last year are know completely irrelivant.

Just returned home from a SUPPOSED to be 4* all inclusive hotel at the recentley refurbished ocean BLUE Hotel in lalyssos.Afer being dropted off at the wrong hotel at 4am, my boyfriend and I where glad to arrive at the correct accomadation, HOWEVER little did we know what we had let ourselfs in for! The hotel was still being refurbished when we got there so had to put up with the NOISEY drilling for the night, although the downstairs off the hotel did look lovley the rooms and food where by NO MEANS UP TO SRATCH!!

Very basic more like 2* and the food was so arwful we only had dinner in there twice all week.Breakfast was the best meal ham and chesse on toast was all we dare eat. Lunch was served outside by the pool bar so wasnt kept fresh for long due to flys landing on it. As part of all inclusive all we were aloud to drink was wine, beer, orange, lemonade, coke,tea and coffee. At the bar afer 6.30 you were aloud local drinks vodka,rum or tequila. We complained to the manager the 1st night and he was very rude and asked us how much we paid, as if to say what do you expect!

The bar staff and waitresess however were very friendly and the cleaners were also very good, fresh towels and linen every day.

I wouldnt recormend this hotel to ANYONE, planes flighing over constantly as it was so near to the airport.Beach is stoney and impossible to get into without a cheap pair off flip flops.We recormend it for a quiet holiday (apart from the planes of course),as there is some lovley restarants if you are self catering which is what we should have done.We ate at pegasus restarant twice (5min walk to the left of hotel), was the nicest meal we've ever had and very friendly staff with entertainment.

Holiday was cheap but with eating out and paying 15euros for a taxi (EACH WAY) to falaraki ended up being very expensive. we recormend staying at falaraki or lindos for the nicer beaches as Lalyssos is in the middle of nowhere and we defantly wont be going BACK!!!

We went to The Ocean Blue Hotel in June of this year for a week all inclusive. We booked our flights and hotel seperatley and this worked great for us with the hotel being a few minutes from the airport - no waiting around for transfer coaches etc. The taxi from the airport cost us 10 Euros.

We arrived in the early hours and were greeted by builders drilling and sawing the floor in the reception. Obviously our first thought was what on earth have we come too!

We were shown to our room which was rather disapointing. Very old style and small. The view from the balconly was basically a muddy bog with stacks of wood being used for the building works. My partner went to reception to ask if we could move rooms but we were told there were no more available. The room although very old fashioned was very clean and tidy. We had expected the rooms to have been refurbished and to be of a high standard for a 4* hotel but as it turned out there were a small handful of rooms on the ground floor that had been refurbished (these were fabulous by the way) We came across a lot of people who had read in the brocuhre that a hairdryer was included in each room - this is not true, this is only in the newly refurbished rooms so girls beware! Take your hairydryer!!

After not a great start we got up the next day and went to the pool. The pool area was great, the pool was always clean and fresh. The bar staff were friendly and helpful. Just a stones throw from the beach, yes the beach was stony and very hard to get into the sea but I personally thought that was half the fun!

The food was terrible, extremely limited and almost the same every day. It was literally take a guess at what it was. One night we were served smily faces for dinner which caused some great annoyance among the adults! I think out of the whole week I ate a full dinner once. I did not attempt breakfast even once as it was disgraceful. I spent most of the week hungry and my boyfriend and I had a bowl of soup and some bread rolls for dinner at least 4 night. I couldn't wait to go to Falaraki for the day to get a Macdonalds!! It was like heaven! One lunch time my boyfriend and I took some bread rolls from the lunch table and bought some crisps from the shop and sat on our balconly and ate crisp butties! Not exactly 4* but think it was the best meal I had all week!

The drinks were extremely limited and the coke and lemonade were cheap and sugary. Most of the people we met went and bought bottles of coke from the shop and just asked for spirits at the bar.

All in all the reception area and pool area were extremely well presented. The entertainment was poor, bingo and dancing compotitions! The rooms weren't up to much apart from the newly refurbished ones which we looked at upgrading to (they wanted 40 euros per night to upgrade!!)

The planes flying over so low was something that bothered us for literally a couple of hours, after that you didn't really notice them. We certinaly didn't hear them at night - must of been that cheap vodka!!
Overall our week was relaxing and hot and sunny. We met some lovely people and had a great laugh making out own entertainment during the evening sitting outside and having a laugh.

I wouldn't say not to go there, nor would I say I wouldn't go back but I would suggest to leave going there for a while as they did say they would be refurbishing all the other rooms this winter.
Another thing to note is they do not have a courtesy room for you to use if you have a late night flight. We ended up paying 40 Euros to stay in our room for an extra 12 hours.

Give it a go, don't be put off if you've booked to go here. We certinatly enjoyed ourselves regardless - oh yeah and I probably lost a bit of weight whilst I was there!!