Can someone tell me, the following

Is it clean? What is provided in the Self-Catering Apartments? Do the apartments have balconies? Is there a fridge and cooker? And any other information that may be of use would be gratefully received.

Thank you very much

Also, does anyone have any pictures of The Mariana Aparthotel (pool etc.) colindavidcadden@hotmail.com on MSN Messenger and colincadden on Yahoo messenger

Where do I begin here. This is a long article, but I believe it is fair'ish.

Ok, to start, we got there with very closed minds having read the bad reviews about the place.

When we arrived (at 7.30am) we were asked for our Passports and a 50 Euro Deposit (£35). During our stay we needed our passports back to be able to go on an excursion to Athens, which they were ok with. There was a couple there who worked in the R.A.F. and did ask to keep their passports because of the nature of their job, they could have been called back to the U.K.at any time, but they were refused them.

We had been placed in the new apartment block, accross the road from the main hotel. Apparently, this is 4 star style accomodation according to Pete.

We were there for two weeks so decided that we would only use the apartments to sleep in if we didn't like it.

John and Pete are decent blokes and Kirsty turned out to be ok too. To be honest, if I had to deal with groups of 18-30 people for 6 months of the year, then I guess I would be fairly pissed off too. Anyhow, me and the Mrs. got on with them all fine. Pete was very helpful when it came to our excursions and his advice on what to do what to see kind of stuff.

Food prices at the pool bar are a bit crap to say the least. If you want a portion of chips from the pool bar after midnight then that will set you back 4 Euros (£2.80), apparently prices go up after midnight, but there's nothing to say this on the menu. One night, me and the Mrs had a cheeseburger with chips each, a bottle of Fanta and a bottle of Pepsi, this came to 18 Euros (£12.60).

We never had a problem getting our deposit back when we checked out.

However, there was a guy who lost his deposit because he had trashed the room on the first night there and he had bled over the mattress and sheets. The lad was insistent on having the sheet for himself though. Fair enough I say, you can't expect the next guests to sleep on a bloody mattress. There was another guy who lost some of his deposit because a power socket of some kind was missing from his bathroom and a pillow was very wet apparently. All of these lads were in the same apartment block as us, across the road from the main hotel.

We experienced very little noise, which was quite surprising. However, the echo of high heels clunking aginst marble floors in the apartment building got annoying after a while, lol. However, the was a dos nearby the barked at pretty much anything.

Hey there Holly, I didn't say that he did trash his room, just what Pete had said, didn't say I believed him.

Hey there, anyone remember me. I'm the guy who got a Henna tattoo and smudged it up, lol. Anyway, Chevys is quite simply the best. Unfortunately I didn't get on first name terms with anyone there, even though I was there most nights. Will be back in may or June, gonna try and get a good deal on a holiday. My email addy is colindavidcadden@hotmail.com.

Hi there people.

My partner and I booked our trip to Athens through Smile Tours on the Main Strip in Laganas. Our tour guide was Costas, who worked for T.E.Z.

He was great, very well informed and had an answer for every question he was asked.

Very well worth the 79 Euros each that we paid (£52 each).

The hotel was ok I guess but the room was more like a broom cupboard.

Just a word of warning though, we set out at about 7am, and we hadn't eaten, we didn't get to eat til about 10am at our first stop point. So I'd suggest taking some snacks along with you, because when we got up at 6am, nowhere was open for us to get breakfast so we had to wait a long while before getting a bite.

On our 2nd night in Laganas we tried this place. Now then, as I was in Greece, I wanted to try something different. I had fried squid for my starter, grilled swoedfish fillet for my main course and for my dessert, I had cheesecake, which was absolutley scrumptious. We both had 3 courses and two drinks. The total price of this in English money (after I had checked my bank statement) was £19.

Now I'm pretty sure that you'd have to search high and low to find somewhere here in England where you could pay that kind of price and expect to get the same quality of food and service as we got at Dionysos.

Next June my partne and I are getting married on Zakynthos Island and we will have 14+ guests. So we are going to take time out to go here to eat as a group.

Roll on Summer 2005!!!1

colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

In addition.

When we got to our hotel at about 4.30pm. We had about an hour and 45 minutes to ourselves in which to get ready to meet up for a tour round the sights in the City Centre. After doing that we had about an hour and a half to ourselves to shop/walk around (the cafe-bar/restaurant we went into charged us 6 Euros for 2 Pepsi's £4.20 approx).

Then we all met up to go to a traditional Taverna for our meal and entertainment (which was 26 Euros each for 3 courses). The meal was nice, but there was not enough of it. By the way, their prices are quite high, so we stuck to drinking the bottled water which was complimentary.

We got back to the hotel at about 1am and finally into bed at about 2am.

But we had to be up again for breakfast at 6.30am This resulted in us sleeping three quarters of the return journey. The breakfast was poor, the choice we had was, cold fried eggs, watered down fruit juices, miniature croissants, tea, coffee and cereal. The milk they give (in my opinion) is way too creamy so I ended up drinking juice.

PLEASE don't let me put you off, it still was worth all of the above.

colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

Thanks Paul. Looks to me like it's not far from the Villa Aliri and Mariana Hotels.

     I'm flying out from Birmingham on the 7th of September at 11.30p.m. arriving in Laganas early a.m. on the 8th and will be staying at the Perkes til the 15th.

I was just wondering if anyone is going to be at the Perkes or in Laganas around the same time I'll be there.

I had the idea that we could all get together and go for a monumental night out or something like that, basically a get-together.

If you are there or just want to say 'Hi' you can contact me at colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

Also, I'd very much like it if Leggie could email me, I have something I need to ask her.


Take care all.

How long you there for Kerrie?

I understand that there's a nudist area to the beach at the far end of Kalamaki. Is that true? My Mrs. wants to go have a bathe there if so. 

30 days (or thereabouts for me).

Anyone else?

If anybody is out in Laganas during September. Feel free to email me or add me to your MSN (if you have it). It would be nice to chat with you. Maybe if we're in Laganas around the same time, perhaps we could meet up, go out etc, who knows. My id/email is colindavidcadden@hotmail.com Take care all

When are you there Emma?

I've read mixed reviews about the hotel. But as far as I'm concerned, the holiday doesn't centre around the hotel, after all it's only a place to bed down at the end of your day, you don't have to spend all your time there if you don't want to. The holiday (and possibly the accomodation) is what you want to make of it.

For more opinions than mine and those listed below, you could try registering on www.laganas.me.uk or www.zante.me.uk

Take care.

colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

There isn't by all accounts Cristina, but I think you can hire one.

When you there?

Do any of the rooms have balconies or terraces?

colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

Hi Sophie.

You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of the Perkes I could see?

Where abouts you from?

colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

The Perkes is a fantastic place to stay.

Hi Matt,

I'm heading to the Hera Studios on 21st June - 29th. From what I can gather from the various sites I've been on, it's a 2 minute walk from Perkes (which I stayed in last Sept) a little further down the strip away from the beach. So it's not much further to walk to the beach from.

colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

Matt,

If you have MSN, feel free to add me.

Colin

When we booked the holiday (some 9 weeks before departure), I wasn't able to find out much about the apartments other than what was already on the Olympic website about the place. I'd even googled it and searched using other search engines, to no avail. What I'd read about the place was not of much use except to look at the few photographs they had. There were no details as to how far away from the beach it was or how long it'd take to get places. I hope this may be of help though. We flew from Birmingham through Monarch Airlines and stayed from the early hours of 22nd June 2007 until the midday check-out on the 28th June 2007. The first thing I was aware of is that you are no longer allowed to film take-off and landing (the cabin crew say that 'use of electronic equipment is not permitted while the fasten seatbelt sign is illuminated') so I wasn't best pleased with that, seeing as this was the first proper chance I'd got to use my new toy. Anyway, back to the point. We landed at Zakynthos airport a few minutes after 5am (local time) and made our way to the arrivals area (which, I have to say is much improved on what it used to be), although, it would have been of use to all people arriving if the monitors above the carousels actually indicated which flight number(s) the luggage was from. We got onto the transfer coach. After dropping off the other arrivals we finally got to our apartments (at about 6.30am (local time)). Now, to drive from the apartments to the beach would have taken about 5 minutes. To walk though, it takes about 30 minutes (although I do consider myself to be a faster than average walker anyway). I was on holiday with my wife, Mother and Father In-Law. When I was in there company and heading for the beach, it took an average of about 45-50minutes to walk the distance. As for the location of the apartments, if you are walking away from the beach and keep going past the crossroads (where the Go-Karts are) and still keep on going past the Hotel Perkes and again, still keep going past Pythari apartments/restaurant and past Paradise Restaurant/Apartments, you'll eventually come to an area of Laganas called Agrillia. Here you'll see that on the right, there is a cyber café/bar called Planet and on the left there's a rental place called Dennis. A little further on the right there is a supermarket and opposite to that, there is a left turn next to an English bar, which, after walking for 2 minutes, you arrive at the apartments (which are signposted/named as HPA Apartments). The apartments themselves are very basic but also very clean. In the apartment we had (apartment number 5) there was a 2 ring hob/cooker and a fridge as well as some crockery/cutlery. The bathroom was a bit on the pokey side but it was sufficient. The shower didn't hang from the wall as you'd expect it to be but there was a shower curtain (so at least you didn't flood the place as much). Also, the electricity in our apartment was controlled by a key fob that had to be placed into a slot on the wall to keep the electric switched on. The balcony we had was a bit unusual, I mean we had a balcony but is was a bit of a tight space, I mean, there was a table and chairs but not enough width to the balcony to be able to get round the table to get to the chair on the other side (you had to breathe in to be able to get round it) also, the balcony ran the full length of the side of the building but had a lockable door/gate halfway which, (if the other half of the balcony was in use), would make sense. However, the balcony for the next apartment (apartment 6, where the In-Laws were), was on the front side of the building. On our first night there, none of us were able to sleep (this was nobody's fault; it was just too damn sticky and humid to sleep). So, the next morning we all paid for Air-Conditioning for the remainder of the holiday which was 6 Euros per day per room (approx. £4.20). There was a slight problem with that. On the morning we paid for the air-con, I had to go into Zakynthos town to collect a hire car and we didn't have a spare key so that we could leave the air-con on while my wife stayed by the pool and I went into the town. We managed to gain a spare key from the boss of the place and were then able to leave the key fob in the electricity slot and leave the Air-Con and electric on (hope I haven't lost you), but still able to gain access to the apartment. Once I had returned from Zante town, we picked up the wives and went out for the day. When we got back, the boss of the apartments demanded the spare key back because the maids weren't able to gain access to clean our rooms. So basically, whenever we went out, the Air-Con didn't work and we always came back to a warm room, which would lead to another problem. If the patio/balcony doors were open, then that would break the circuit for the Air-Con and so we'd have to sit in the room while we waited for the Air-Con to take effect and we weren't able to sit on the balcony while it did so. The In-Laws didn't have this problem as their electric didn't work off the key fob system, it was permanently on and were able to go out of the room and leave the Air-Con on all day and return to a cool room (naturally, they had the circuit breaker on their patio/balcony doors but they didn't open them unless they needed to).

I'm all booked up for a week at Tassia Studios. 2nd - 9th May. Anyone else going at the same time?

Could someone tell me, where the Tassia Studios located please? I know it's out of the main resort a little, but can someone tell me where and how far exactly.

Hi Lee,

Hi Hollie, I stayed there in May this year. As far as the room I was in is concerned, there was no safety deposit box. I think there is somewhere that you can safely store things though. If there's anything else you need to know, feel free to email me at colindavidcadden@hotmail.com. I have pictures and stuff too. All the best.

Hi Janikka, yes, you can exchange your currency there. Kostas would have the pool bar area opened by 9am for trade etc when I stayed there. xxx

Hi Rhys, take no notice of the reviews I stayed there in May last year (2010). The apartments are situated at the top end of the strip, well out of the busiest areas. It's nice and quiet, the apartment owner is a great guy. The only thing that could be considered a bit on the minus side is that the bar would close at midnight but, if you're like me and don't drink a great deal, then it's great. The food that is served at the bar is damned good aswell. Feel free to contact me on colindavidcadden@hotmail.com

Hi all, which end of the strip are the apartments at? I'm assuming the top end, near Hotel Perkes (the apartments with the water slides) or Black and White club (as it was called when I was there last year.

Who's been here recently and who's going this year?

Coming here Sept 10th - 17th (2012). Anyone else here at this time?