Aliathon Aegean Apartments

Location This hotel is located within a 20 min transfer from the airport which is great of you are travelling with a toddler! It’s located about a 35 minute walk from Paphos Harbour. There is onsite parking next to reception with easy access to main roads. With traffic on an evening it’s about a 10 minute drive to paphos harbour. Not as easy to get parked on a weekend though at the front. Rooms We were in room 1244 on the fishing village for most of our stay. I emailed in advance to request a high room. It was a really spacious upstairs apartment for the three of us. My little boy was still in his travel cot so was in same bedroom as us. It was great to have the separate living / dining area and balcony. Kitchenette comes complete with microwave and fridge. Crockery and tea towels were also provided. There was an ironing board (mini one) but no iron. We were right next to the main pool adjacent to the lighthouse feature. WiFi was good in the hotel, TV was limited but we weren’t in very often. There was a DVD player in the room. We had an issue with the air conditioning one evening when it went off. Ironically it went off at 9:45 at night but the kind a/c engineer stayed later than his 10pm shift to help us. He needed a part that has to be ordered the next day but you could not fault reception service. They arranged for a porter to come to our room and we loaded up travel cot and a few essentials and they moved us to Room 1159. This was a ground floor family den room with the extra bedroom, PlayStation etc. It was spotless but a little bit darker being on the ground floor and you didn’t seem to have as much privacy as we had in the upstairs apartment. Reception kept us updated with the progress of repairs via text message. They had fixed the fault by lunchtime and gave us the option to go back to our original apartment or keep the family den apartment. We opted to go back to the original apartment as although smaller we liked the living area being separate from sleeping area and the balcony was lovely and bright. Excellent customer service! Our rooms were cleaned nearly every day. We did get missed once or twice but when I asked reception for fresh towels they were happy to help and send some straight across. Entertainment The entertainment was good, the team throughout the day were always on the go getting everyone engaged. Night time entertainment was good balance - very family oriented, sometimes long queues for the all inclusive bar during show times. If you just wanted soft drinks, beer or wine it was self serve but for spirits and cocktails you had to wait a little longer. Pools The kids pirate pool was great for toddlers. There were always plenty of beds around this pool although the parasols went really quickly. There isn’t a great deal of shade at either pool. The larger pool always had activities on for kids to get involved in. It’s quite graduated which was helpful for my little boy as he was just learning to swim so helped build his confidence up in shallow end. One tip would be if you have hired a car for your trip buy your pool inflatables down at the kings avenue shopping mall. There is a huge jumbo shop which sells them for €3.99 compared to €20 plus in resort. There is a mothercare too (currently) for essentials and it stocks the same brands as in uk. Food Breakfast was excellent. There was a good choice. We tended to sit outside under the parasol area. As with most all inclusive hotels the juice glasses resemble shot glasses (!) so it did entail lots of trips to top up! There was a buffet lunch available with a decent selection of hot food and salads. The pool bar had chiller cabinets stocked with sandwiches, wraps and tubs of chicken nuggets and snack food including pizza and chips. They also had pre packed salads which came in handy when our 2 year old decided to take his 2 hour nap over lunchtime so we could bring sandwich and salad back to the apartment and enjoy on balcony. Evening meal was fantastic. Excellent choice including a kids buffet. The menu was varied and plenty of choice for all. Show cooking was excellent. Particularly enjoyed the Mexican night and the Japanese sushi night with hand made sushi. On tap unlimited drinks, the Diet Coke tap seemed to run dry on a few occasions as did the rose wine selection but we were fine with water at evening meal so wasn’t an issue for us but heard a few grumbles. The staff were really friendly in the restaurant and I loved the clingfilmed high chair idea. You could be confident that the chairs were clean before putting your little one in the chair. Now we have a little boy the things I look for in holidays have changed. But this well thought out resort was perfect for travelling with a toddler. It really took the stress and anxiety out of travelling. We will be booking again! Again, to reiterate other reviews there was an excessive amount of plastic cups. I understand for convenience in an all inclusive resort that disposable cups save a lot of time. But maybe reusable cups or giving every guest a refillable bottle branded up with the hotel logo that they could take home might be an option for refilling drinks and if you lose it you have to buy another. Just a thought ...

We stayed at the Aliathon for 10 nights in a family suite. The venue was great for families and catered well for children. Ample activities and events to keep them very happy, the crèche was brilliant, the kids club was very good (our daughter kept wanting to go back every time). The hotel itself is okay, a little worn in places. Our room seemed quite dated but the layout and facilities of the room were good. There was a PS2, Tv and DVD player, but no DVDs or PS2 games available in the room or available to rent anywhere in the hotel, and the TV channels were few and often very staticy. I appreciate people don’t go on holiday to be glued to their TVs, but we found that after the kids were asleep it would have been nice to have some TV or entertainment in the room that we could use. The hotel gives out all drinks in plastic cups which meant they were often found lying around. There were some recycling bins in public areas but not in our rooms. I’m quite environmentally aware and I didn’t like the excessive amount of plastic used and the lack of recycling bins in rooms. The food (all inclusive) provided a good variety but was a bit hit and miss with some things quite nice and others totally inedible (usually due to massive amounts of salt in some dishes). The TUI reps were brilliant and made the holiday for us. They were friendly, energetic, hard working, thoughtful, fun, had their head on their shoulders and always a smile on their face. Definitely an extra star on our review just because of the reps. Pros: The reps were amazing. Also very good was the crèche and kids clubs, choice of pools, kids entertainment and the rewards (stickers, certificates, etc) for kids. Cons: Not very environmentally sound, the kids pool a bit run down with some things not working, food could have been better quality, room a bit dated.