Mitsis Grand Hotel

We are currently staying at the Grand Hotel. Tomorrow we fly home and we would like to say a big thanks to the whole staff for takimg care of us throughout our entire stay. Ftom the reception, guest relations, to the bar and restaurant staff everyone has been so kind, helpful, and professional and nothing was too mucj for them. The food is amazing and soooo many choices amlnd variety. We hope to come back next year too and meet with everyone again.

We had all inclusive holiday in this hotel. At once we go to hotel bar, it was open but no staff, wait and wait, we didn't try it again. Breakfast was ok, some day no fried egg, someday more, so average was fine. First day we need to have meal, we asked it from hotel reception "if you really want to have meal here you must wait to 18:30". So have meal everyday in neighbour hotel.

Just arrived home after spending two weeks here with my new wife, who I married in rhodes and 11 family and friends aged from 13 to 72. Our experience started several months ago when I emailed guest relations to request one of the better rooms for myself and wife to be, which I thought justifiable as we had given the Mitsis grand £10000 in business. The Mitsis grand thought differently as all I received was a stiffly worded response stating that if a room was available upon arrival then we may, “....at a further cost.....”, be able to upgrade. I wondered if anything would have changed on arrival but nothing was said and I’m not one to beg so didn’t press it. On entrance there is a bit of a wow factor as it is a beautifully marbled lobby with a high quality bar to the right hand side and lovely pool area to the right of the entrance. We arrived at 1pm, check in was speedy and the reception staff very friendly. We were able to get a drink as the bar opens until 2am and there was a small buffet available in the main restaurant, two nice touches. I was hoping that we weren’t going to get one of the rooms with the horrible blue carpet and curtains but yes, we did!!!!!! The room was a massive let down. Very basic but it was clean. The shower is one of those old ones where you have to pull the little metal knob upwards on the the tap for the water to come out of the shower. Not the end of the world but not what you would expect from a five star. We also didn’t get a sea view which I requested on booking with Thomas cook but we had a decent view of the pool/garden. I went to room 236 to see how my mother was settling in to her room and found a massive dirty brown stain on one of the walls. I had to laugh at my Mam’s face it was a picture. Seriously though Mitsis that stain could be painted over in two minutes flat...five star...no way. One other gripe about the room concerns the mini bar, don’t get excited by the contents. I quickly opened it and thought ‘great, it has magners’. How disappointed the next day when I went for one and found a local brew called ‘magNUS’ lager which was not nice haha. It also doesn’t have diet pop. However like I’ve said the rooms were clean and were well maintained throughout our stay by the lovely chamber staff. The pool area is pretty good. Nice deep pool but please don’t do anything other than tiptoe your way in all you’ll have the pool police, who seem to appear from nowhere by the way, on your back reprimanding you for daring to do anything other than totter your way in like a two year old. No doubt the hotel will respond with the ‘elf and safety’ line but that is total tosh, obviously Greece is just like the UK and is H and S mad. The gardens are very picturesque and as long as you are down by nine you will get a sun bed. The sun beds are those horrible blue ones which we’ve all used at three star hotels, they’re ok but not five star. There is lots of shade in the hotel grounds due to the many large trees and the main building, also the bloody parasols don’t go down which means I would estimate at any one time 50% of the space is in shade. The best spot is just to the left of the pool beside the first parasols as you will get the sun all day but u will need to get these early. There is no atmosphere by the pool. There is no music and woe betide anyone who dares to play any. There was a group of not unreasonably loud Swedish lads, maybe in their late twenties, who had the brass neck to play there own music via their phone and honestly, the looks they received from other guests you’d think they’d pee’d in the lager and pood in the pool. Needs less to stay the pool police were in sharp attendance after a couple of complaints!!!! The only hotel I’ve been to where you feel guilty speaking above a whisper!!!!! Now the food and drink. The restaurant food I found to be generally good although not that much better than lower star hotels. It was always well presented and replenished and the queues were well managed. Breakfast was the usual foreign bacon and scrambled egg combo, definitely edible and not too offensive. The bread was always fresh and, joy of joys, they had a toaster that only took two revolutions to toast bread rather than the usual four or five, yea!!!!! Desserts were a bit lacking, and that’s from my wife who loves them and always skips to a dessert trolley in glee wherever we go. However the best part of the main restaurant are the two greeters, Michalis and the very beautiful Erikea (I think!) whose happy smiling faces were always a joy to see. They are both so young and full of energy and they work so well together. Please Mitsis look after these two as they are fantastic at their jobs and are a great asset to your hotel. There are also an Italian and Chinese restaurant. The Italian was pretty poor I thought. I had a starter which consisted of warm runny cream and a snotty poached egg followed by medallions of beef which were literally the size of two Jaffa cakes sided by two fancy smears of sweet potato. The second time we went the other members of my party were just about finished their mains when my turned up. I’d asked three times where mine was to be told there was a ‘problem with the oven’. The big oaf of a chef then proceeded to have a full on argument with the waitress in front of all the customers (it’s an open kitchen) before my food turned up. By the way mr chef, sending out dry, salty chicken with some tasteless green crust on a bed of what can only be described as pot-pourret substitute does not make it Italian, it just makes it inedible!!! The Chinese restaurant, in total contrast, is amazing. We ate there four times and enjoyed every mouthful. The sushi starters were fabulous and the caramelised pork belly and chow mien main courses equally good. However I’d never had wasabi before and didn’t know it is a Chinese horseradish, so got quite a surprise when I put a whole bloody spoonful in my mouth at once haha, try not to do the same anyone! The poolside restaurants are great also, especially the burger bar which serves ten or so different burgers and they are all superb. My kids ate there every day and it’s fair to say it’s all they talked about missing when they left us after the first week. One word of caution though, our European friends all seem to like their burgers pink in the middle so make sure that you ask for them well done. there is also a creperie and an ice cream parlour both of which serve high quality crepes (sweet and savoury), beautiful desserts and a fantastic range of ice creams and sorbets. Finally, there is a small Pizza Hut which has an authentic pizza oven which serves a selection of thin crust pizzas from 10.30 TIL 6. The lovely lady pizza chef works tirelessly all day in ridiculous temperatures and gets my vote for staff member of the fortnight. I got talking to her and we worked out she makes 20000 pizzas per season! Please try and appreciate her while u are there because she deserves it. The pool bar itself is ok. Some drinks are premium, for example they have Johnny Walker whiskey, absolute vodka and Havana club rum. The cocktails are good although there could be a larger selection. The staff are pretty miserable though, I liked soultana, she was funny but other than that they were fairly brusque in their manner and quite arrogant. Tmampis (I think was his name) in particular was awful. Never said hello, please or thank you once in 14 days and by the way mate you need to shave that fluff off the front of your head cos it ain’t never hiding the baldness behind it (I’m bald so think I can get away with that). The entertainment was pretty abysmal. I’m no spring chicken (47) but every act is aimed at the 50-70 age group. After the first 7 days there was not one act we were looking forward to watching during the second week so we went out every night instead. I would say 60% of the customers are 50 plus so why all the entertainment is catered towards them I don’t know. My kids (13, 17, 18) were bored senseless so we ended up going out after we realised how poor the entertainment was going to be. Please Mitsis not everybody likes listening to music that was created when dinosaurs still roamed the earth!! Finally a couple of little gripes. I went to use the gym on the second morning and got charged 20 euros for three days use, absolute joke as it very average anyway. Why, when I’ve paid £1500 for two weeks am I being charged for use of the gym? Also the day before my wedding I needed to iron mine and my two sons shirts so rang to ask for an iron to be sent up to the room. I was flabbergasted when I was told that due to the good old ‘health and safety’ I wasn’t allowed to have an iron in my room but I could, oh lucky me, pay the hotel 9 euros to iron the shirts for me. Have we really come to the stage where a 47 year old man is no longer deemed capable to safely negotiate the use of that dangerous household item.....an iron....or is it just another excuse to extrapolate more money from an already over paying customer? Only nine euros but really not the point, please explain Mitsis. Anyway we generally liked the hotel. Some great food, some great staff, some great touches from the hotel but just too many little niggles and annoyances to rate it higher than four. We’ve stayed at the Rodos horizon and sentido ixian grand and would probably rate both slightly higher than the Mitsis in terms of accommodation and service but you can’t beat the location of the grand so overall would rate it the best of the three because of this.