Avanti Hotel, Paphos

I stayed in this hotel with my boyfriend for 2 weeks in June 2006 on a Bed and Breakfast basis.

LOCATION
The hotel is in a great location in Paphos, near to plenty of bars, restuarants, supermarkets and within 10 mintues walking distance to the harbour. The best restaurant is just over the road from the hotel at the back called Ficardos. The service was 1st class, friendly staff and the food was the best we had, also reasonably ...
...sea is just over the road, however there was not much in the way of a beach, it was rocky and no sand. Although there were sunbeds it was not appealing enough to want to spend the day there.

ROOMS
The rooms are small however well furnished with a fridge/mini bar, TV (limited channels, only Eurosport is in English), hairdryer but no tea making facilities or radio.

The bathroom is also small but functional with ... more

I stayed in this hotel with my boyfriend for 2 weeks in June 2006 on a Bed and Breakfast basis.

LOCATION
The hotel is in a great location in Paphos, near to plenty of bars, restuarants, supermarkets and within 10 mintues walking distance to the harbour. The best restaurant is just over the road from the hotel at the back called Ficardos. The service was 1st class, friendly staff and the food was the best we had, also reasonably priced in comparison to other places.

The sea is just over the road, however there was not much in the way of a beach, it was rocky and no sand. Although there were sunbeds it was not appealing enough to want to spend the day there.

ROOMS
The rooms are small however well furnished with a fridge/mini bar, TV (limited channels, only Eurosport is in English), hairdryer but no tea making facilities or radio.

The bathroom is also small but functional with a built in shower over the bath and also a separate shower attachment. The rooms were cleaned every day and clean towels provided each time.

POOL & GARDENS
The highlight of the hotel is the pool area which is set amongst a lovely garden area with palm trees and pretty coloured flowers and plants. There are plenty of sunbeds which are spread out vastly. The pool is large with a good sized shallow end leading into the deep end which is approx 6ft deep. A small baby pool is located near the shallow end and a fairling decent climbing frame for kids.

There is a pool bar which can be accessed either from the pool or on dry land. Although convenient and provides drinks and snacks, it is expensive. A bottle of water is three times the cost of one bought from a supermarket nearby.

ENTERTAINMENT
During the day guests can enjoy Aqua Aerobics, Water Polo, Archery, Bowls and Volley Ball. You are not hassled if you want to be left alone and not do anything.

I enjoyed getting involved in these activities as it gives you something to do and a good opportunity to get to know other guests. They were fun.

What I saw of the evening entertainment was dismal, but may excite others. It consisted of bingo, karoko, some old guy on a electric keyboard singing out of tune, and a quiz.

FACILITIES
The hotel has a games area in the basement area which includes table tennis, air hockey, pool table, indoor swimming pool and a gym.

We used the gym as I wanted to keep up my fitness to a certain degree. The gym was no David Lloyd or Holmes Place but certainly equiped enough for those wishing to pump some iron. There is a treadmill, 2 bikes, variety of weight machines and free weights.

BREAKFAST
The breakfast was in a canteen style dining room, luckily you could choose to sit outside on a large under cover patio area which was much nicer.

There was a selection of food from cooked breakfast to cereals and fruit. It was the same selection every day and got a bit boring by the end of the holiday.

THE FEW THINGS WHICH SPOILT IT
**ISSUE ONE** - a small annoyance really
The room smelt of smoke, being a non-smoker I found this disgusting. It would have been nice to have no smoking rooms to offer guests. You could also smell the smoke from people smoking in the room next door.

**ISSUE TWO** - a bit of inconvenience
There was lots of maintenance work going on which meant you could not use some of the facilities, ie the gym, games area.

**ISSUE THREE** - upset and angry
One afternoon we returned to our room to get changed to go out and found our door wide open and a man up a ladder looking at the air conditioning and another one in the room chatting to him.

We was disgruntled that they had let themselves into our room without notifying us and we asked how long they was going to be we was rudely told just 10 mintues. We sat and waited and half an hour later no sign of them finishing up. I asked them if they could leave for a few mintues so we could at least get changed and go out but the hurridly packed up their stuff and went.

Later that day we returned to our room to find lots of water dripping from the ceiling all over our clothes which was directly under the leak. The clothes were wet through.

I went straight to reception to complain and advise what has happened and was simply told someone will come and look at it. An hour later no-one had come and the water was still dripping loads from the celing all over the cupboards, fridge and carpet.

My boyfriend went to reception to find out what is going on and was rudely told it had been reported, no more than that. We were both very angry and eventually managed to get someone to come and fix it.

No apology was given or offer to have our clothes cleaned or dried. So rude!

**ISSUE FOUR** - the final straw
When we checked out of our room on the final day, we was given a bill for a telephone call, which we never made. When we queried it with the reception staff, we was told that we must have made the call as it was on the bill to our room number. They was basically calling us liers and kept asking for the bill to be paid. I refused to pay it and said we had not touched the phone as we both have mobile phones, the telephone number was not one we recognised, it was also made on the day the maintenance men let themselves into our room.

OVERALL
We had a lovely holiday and apart from the few issues above, we enjoyed ourselves.

The hotel itself was good, it is just a shame about the reception staff being so rude and unfriendly. A real big let down for the hotel.

I would not overly recommend this hotel for the reasons above, however it does have lots to offer and if we hadn't experienced the problems we did, I wouldn't have had to encounter the rudeness of the reception staff.

 

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