Anastasia Beach Hotel

We were flabbergasted at the room we were walked to right beside the pub away from the hotel..the noise of the bar went on all night..we asked to be moved as we have young kids and was a big ordeal..took a few days after constantly hounding the manager.Tried to charge us 900 to change then decided she could get us something for 160..the rooms are filthy wana cleaned once during our stay..food was just eatable.Will never book here again!this hotel should be a 2 star..it’s definitely not a 4!!Very disappointing all round.

Don’t book this hotel. It’s a waste of your hard earned money. The hotel is very dirty. It’s never cleaned properly. The rooms are very badly maintained, cracked tiles and dodgy electrics. Other rooms had door handles missing. The all inclusive option is a waste of money. There is very little choice of food - especially for kids - and the usual all inclusive snacks are non existent. Only 1 restaurant is open and the alacarte restaurants are all in the centre of Protaras. The hotel entertainment is at the hotel next door not even this one. And customer service is poor at best.

We originally booked a different hotel for our weeks holiday away in the sun - we had an 18th birthday to celebrate and I found myself 8 months pregnant by the time the holiday came around. We thought moving to this hotel would be a better option as I could ‘chill’ on the beach or in the hotel whilst the other celebrations went on, if I wasn’t feeling up to it.. We should have stayed with our original choice!!

Firstly, as mentioned above, we moved to be closer to the beach - something our original hotel was advertised as but wasn’t exactly ‘beach front’. Anastasia is. Although while it’s a small public beach, which is beautiful, what travel agents (or anyone) fails to tell you is that for the use of a sun lounger or parasol you are charged €3.50/€3 each (respectively). This is an ‘all day’ charge, though if you leave the beach and return you’re expected to pay it each time. Even the showers are chargeable.

Now, the hotel. I’ve attached some photos for a start - the advertised photographs are either very old (when first refurbed) or they have a good editing team! The rooms are dated, damaged and dirty. Our bedding was stained, our towels weren’t white and the pillowcases collected so much dust from 1 night it triggered allergies. The headboards are stained where people have had their heads against the velour and the tops of them are grim - haven’t seen a duster in a long time! Although, we did have a disco feature(!) with the side lamps in the room. No. I’m not being serious. The side lamps were NOT touch activated as we discovered when we knocked it and the lights in the room went on/off; this is how poorly the place was wired up! Dangerous if nothing else. Bathrooms suffered cracked tiles and mirrors, which I don’t think were cleaned by house keeping in the 7 days we were here. House keeping generally switching out towels (if you’re lucky), pulling over the duvet on the bed (not making any other part of it) and sweeping the floors with a wet mop. Not exactly clean. On our first night there was an olive left outside our hotel room.. the next morning this had made its way down the corridor, to which is stayed right up until us leaving on the 7th day. There was also some form of chocolate cake left on top of the hose reel in the corridor.. this was moved by day 4 but clearly there is a very distinct lack of cleanliness in this hotel! Especially grim for a hotel advertised as ‘suitable for all ages’ - definitely wouldn’t want my child wandering around the corridors in a state like we saw!

The food and drink was sub-par. Whilst they do offer 3 meals a day, they were all very generic. Themed nights were on offer each night, though it was your generic fish/chicken/beef with a different sauce on, accompanied by steamed veg, rice or chips. If you like salad that had a somewhat decent selection, though the deserts had a lot to be desired. This was consistent throughout each meal. And although it’s advertised as ‘2 restaurants’ to dine in - all 3 meals were served in 1 area, with ‘snacks’ being served in the secondary area. I say ‘snacks’ lightly as there were the options of chips, chicken nuggets, fish fingers and A cold sandwich choice (albeit the fish nor chicken had never seen life, were cold and often overcooked/dry). You do have the option to use the 4 à la carte restaurants - though they fail to tell you these are not on site, have to be booked at least 24 hours in advance, and they don’t provide transport to either venue. The pool bar is a nice touch… though there’s no point for snacks. There is a snack bar sign on it, though this looks like there’s been an attempt to peel it off.. you can get a miniature ice cream if you’re lucky? (And if you like banana flavour Magnum replicas as this is all they ever had). TUI specifically advertises 3 bars.. there’s 2. The pool bar (open 10am-6pm) and the Lobby Bar (open 6pm-12am). Not sure where they get the idea of the third bar from..

Yes, there is a water park attached to the hotel - though again this is dated. It’s functioning and somewhat clean. The secondary pool is also clean and somewhat maintained well. Though both spots are only open 10am-6pm… Plenty of sun loungers and sun beds outside on the terrace - if you can get in before the 6am crew who reserve a bed all day and are rarely seen on it, or even by the pool. There’s also no pool-side entertainment. A Bluetooth speaker which is turned on sporadically (which a number of guests thought would be funny to hook up to themselves). And the option of a very repetitive, low energy aqua Zumba class taken by a member of staff from a different hotel.

Entertainment. Lack of. The lobby advertises daily entertainment suitable for all ages. It was only on our 4th night we actually figured out where this was. In a secondary hotel a short walk away from Anastasia. Not the sister hotel directly attached, it was behind that still! Timings are also off. Yes there was a kids ‘club’ with a few generic songs starting at 830pm, which we were told further entertainment started at 9pm. 10pm we were finally greeted with 30 minutes of ‘popular’ entertainment that we couldn’t actually see due to poor lighting and outfit choices.

We opted for a late check out - generally check out is 12pm, however with us having a 940pm collection with TUI transport, we would have had nothing to do for almost 10 hours (we were told access to anything but the lobby and the all inclusive privileges had ended). €30 to extend 3 hours to 3pm is all we were offered - despite being told on the introduction we could extend to 5pm or even 8pm (for extra cost). On enquiring we were told 3pm was the latest for either of our 2 rooms as there were ‘early check-ins’ due.. again, 8 months pregnant, in Cyprus, where anything worth filling time with was a 40 minute walk or €20 taxi journey.. luckily the Irish bar (Tipsy O’Turtle) just 2 minutes down the road was more than accommodating, letting us spend a good few hours there watching the Silverstone Grand Prix and enjoying their delicious food! Not to mention we were rudely interrupted, twice, at no later than 230pm by 2 different members of staff - one was housekeeping, the other appeared to be some sort of manager. Stood in all my glory after a shower, luckily they didn’t get that pretty(!) sight as they realised we were still in the room!

Whilst we’ve been here there’s been at least 5 people/families we’ve heard complain about their rooms and have either been moved or apologised to (with no room change opportunity given). One family said they needed a change of hotel as this one did not fit their family diversity needs - where the manager said ‘sure, for €900 to pay’. Another gentleman was very calmly making his point his family cannot endure another 12 nights in the room they had been placed and wanted a change of room - being met with a very abrupt ‘no’ by the concierge. There was no rationale, just a straight ‘no’. On leaving day we actually walked past a string of hotel rooms on our floor that had a littering of broken appliances in the hallways - broken fridges and beds/foam toppers! There have been no TUI reps (or ANY rep) available to discuss with - and the 24/7 online chat takes you round in circles, unless you went to raise a complaint. So those I’m hearing say ‘why did you stay/why did you not complain?’ - there was literally no point. We did what we could to make the most of a bad situation. And make the holiday we have paid over £4000 for, enjoyable.

Positives: the Blue Spice restaurant directly opposite and the Tipsy O’Turtle offer AMAZING food and is very competitively priced. Very friendly staff and lovely atmospheres! … oh, the positives on the hotel? Let me get back to you on that..

Sorry for the long review, but the more context the better considering the amount of money you’re likely to spend here.