Rodos Palace Hotel

The staff were very friendly and helpful, the breakfast was good and the hotel is, by taxi, only 15-minutes from the airport or 5 minutes from the Old Town. Otherwise the place has little atmosphere and is just too big for my liking.

On arrival, we were "upgraded" from the VIP room which we had reserved into a room on the 16th floor of the main tower of what from outside looks like a huge office block rather than a hotel. The "upgrade" was into an ultra-modern room, so far so good, but then the disappointment on our faces when we saw the shower and toilet!! How any architect and/or hotel owner can truly believe that guests might actually like the layout is beyond me! Maybe I am just old-fashioned, but I just cannot find any reason whatsoever to have the shower and wc as part of the bedroom, separated only by some glass. Surely everyone needs at least minimal privacy occasionally but there is none and to make matters worse there are mirrors everywhere, even on the walls surrounding the toilet itself. We therefore requested to have the more conventional type of room we had in fact reserved but none was available till the next day. So next morning we were offered a room as booked and which, to our joy, had a regular bathroom with a door and walls! Although not the sea-view double room which we had booked, but a rear-view twin-bedded room, we still took it. As for the hotel itself, it may qualify as a 5-star hotel but it is 4-star at best. Some of the hotel policies are unacceptable, such as the extra charges for using the tea or coffee sachets provided in the room, the fitness centre or having fresh orange juice at breakfast. The road between the hotel and the (mostly stony) beach is the busiest on the island and although there is an underground passage (mind your head!), to cross anywhere else can take quite a while, so definitely not so ideal for families with young children or pushchairs.