Dreams Corfu Resort & Spa

Stayed one week beginning of May in preferred beach front bungalow. Accommodation was as expected as stayed in the same last 2 years. Housekeeping perfect. Beautiful views and perfect sunrises. All inclusive we only used in day as we like to eat out in evenings and be served, apart from one evening we booked for à la carte Greek restaurant. Unfortunately even being here before, knowing hotel caters for young families, this time it was like being in a child’s nursery with screaming babies and toddlers, not what you want when you have evening meals. For this reason we never went into the main restaurant and had our breakfast in preferred lounge early to enjoy some quiet time. Preferred lounge was nice but drinks often run out and this again is not an adult only area. It felt too loud this time with no escape so will not be returning as it’s catered more for young families now. It’s a real shame as previous years it was perfect. But good for those with young families just not ideal for couples.

We spent a lovely relaxing week at Dreams Corfu Resort and Spa. The resort is well laid out over the hillside. The staff were wonderfully friendly, helpful and responsive, from the welcome towel and rink on arrival through to the sorting of a blocked/smelly drain in the shower on our last evening! The rooms were very clean and quiet. Breakfast in the World Cafe was extensive; I particularly liked the omelettes cooked to order, freshly baked bread rolls and all the fresh fruit. One disappointment was no fresh orange juice, which I would have expected in a 5* hotel - it was watery from concentrate. If you're a fussy coffee lover like me, then avoid the coffee machines in the World Cafe and the filter coffee served at breakfast, it is very weak and tasteless. However Coco Cafe serves great coffee from their barista machines, and Kath made be a double shot Americano every morning! Dreams provides all rooms with a refillable metal water bottle, and there are ample filter water refilling stations throughout. A new large bottle of filter water was replaced daily in the room fridge. We had dinner twice in the a la carte restaurants, had good meals, and made a nice change from the buffet style meals in the World Cafe. Although we are an older couple, it was lovely to see how welcome small children are, so well catered for. Finding a bed by one of the swimming pools was never a problem, but this was not high season! So all in all a great holiday and definitely recommended.

Generally a good hotel dated in places. Staff all lovely. Not 5 stars. Food in buffet good quality but never that hot. It is a very big hotel so was busy in the restaurant. Only 2 a la carte restaurants open and had to use an app to book. Preferred club not especially worth it apart from you have your own sunbed area but no views. Other heated pool was always busy and biggest pool was unheated so not many people used it. Room felt dated and not an easy place to sit and relax.

A beautiful location, however not suitable for less abled people. Fairly hilly. The general restaurant was nice, we found the outside areas were better as it was too dark inside. There was plenty of choice and staff were attentive. We had excellent service from Katrina in the main bar and from Leonderos as a waiter at the adult pool. There were so many babies and toddlers there I guess as the Corfu temperature would best suit them. The room was fine but they definitely needed another mirror in the main bedroom. Air conditioning and ceiling fan were very good. The grounds are beautiful and the views are stunning. A great location for airport transfers and visiting Okd Corfu Town

Hotel is a very nice complex with amazing views. It’s very accommodating to babies which was really good for us as we travelled with our baby for first time, so it was great they supplied baby purée meals in all restaurants when asked as well as baby bowls, sterilisers and baby baths etc. Another great thing here was you didn’t have to reserve sun beds as there are so many so you never had to worry about getting one, which is rare in hotels these days. Most of the staff were all very friendly and helpful especially the buffet restaurant staff who always interacted with our young one. Dinner was quite chaotic in the buffet restaurant where a lot of tables were left uncleared as staff couldn’t keep up, however if you asked them to clean a table they were very quick to clean and get a table sorted for you. Unfortunately we found the Cons outweighed the Pros though here at this hotel as we experienced way too many issues for this to be anywhere near a 5 star. Cons we experienced: - Hotel is not as advertised on their own website and TUI’s website as only 2x à la carte restaurants open at night, not 4 as advertised on website. Italian not open at night, plus Pappous not open. Photos of restaurants on website are also not accurate. Oceana is same restaurant as the Seaside Grill but with different menu, but the photo of Oceana restaurant on website is the Barefoot Grill (Snack Bar). Photos for Pappous are actually just the outer tables of the Seaside Grill, yet a waiter told us when Pappous is open it’s the Snack restaurant at night with different menu? Swim up bar was also not open. We booked hotel because has a good selection of restaurants so disappointed to find out not all were open as it didn’t say anywhere these wouldn’t be open, so quite false advertising going on. Very surprised no previous reviews mentioned or complained about this. - Very bad/slow service at Italian restaurant at lunch. We had to ask for our drink 3 times before getting them, which was a day after we had to do same thing at Oceana seafood restaurant. Tried again next day and again took so long with drinks. We could literally see the people at pool bar not doing anything so not sure how our drink orders kept being lost between the restaurant and the bar? - Again poor service in other lunch à la carte Oceana Seafood restaurant, we received main meals before welcome snacks were brought over and before our drinks. Overheard people behind us complaining that people were receiving their food before them even though they had been there longer. Not sure how they were getting the order of things so wrong. Tried another day and it was better however again on our last day they didn’t put my wife’s main meal order through so she didn’t receive it. This is all very basic stuff they seem to keep getting wrong. There were plenty of staff there so can’t be a staffing issue. - We couldn’t reserve restaurants through app like we were told we could, we had to book with guest relations just to get in them. Couldn’t get in more than once even though it says it’s not limited. However it sounds like we were lucky getting in them at all as overheard multiple people every morning complaining that they couldn’t book restaurants or even worse having their booking cancelled and being turned away at the door which is terrible. Guest relations said the app is being updated while we were there so it would only let people book on the day instead of 3 days ahead, but that seemed to make it harder to book any as then always said no availability. They didn’t seem to give any solution but used same excuse of App being updated or short staffed. This definitely needs to be addressed as everyone staying at hotel should have the same opportunity to book and sample the à la carte restaurants so they get the full experience of the hotel. Maybe open all 4 à la carte restaurants in evening that should be open anyway and that will free up more room? - We requested more water bottles for room on first day as needed more to create baby bottles etc, they said that was fine and would bring more however we didn’t get any, so had to ask couple more times at reception and eventually got some couple days later - There was no waiter service at main lobby bar in the evenings, which we couldn’t believe, everyone had to form a queue at the bar which would often get quite long, not sure how that is 5 star service when you get no service at all? - Not enough seating at Lobby bar considering size of hotel, so often no free seats in the evenings so we had to get drink and take back to room some nights, which was a shame. We couldn’t even go back and sit on our balcony as it was always covered in bird poo - Beach bar was very un inviting as grass not even cut so grass/weeds growing through chairs etc, which is weird as most other grass areas were maintained quite well - Family rooms are a bit on the small side and don’t have any dressing table/mirror in the room, so the only mirror is in bathroom, which has not much counter space at all, so I have no idea how a family with 2 kids fit in the room as we only had a little baby. Our bathroom always smelt of drainage as well. - Rarely get the correct glass the cocktail should be in at main lobby bar, martinis were often served in basic water glasses instead of martini glasses. This may be a bit picky, but it’s supposed to be a 5 star experience which we have paid for, so when you have to join a long queue at the bar to get a drink, then have nowhere to sit and don’t even get your cocktail in a nice glass you feel like you are being a bit short changed. We booked this based on all good reviews from last year, and although the hotel was very accommodating for babies which was exactly what we wanted, we feel we didn’t have the same experience as others who have left 5 star reviews. We feel like we were quite unlucky with some of the service we got, it was made more annoying as noticed others were maybe luckier and got good service without having drink and food orders forgotten about on numerous occasions. Everyone should receive the same level of service, and we definitely felt like we didn’t. Although I can now see there are more negative reviews more recently, which sound similar experiences to ours. Something has obviously changed since last year for it to now have a lot of negative points. It may be a staffing issue, however that’s no excuse as they should be well prepared for the season. We don’t like to spend our time complaining, as we still had a lovely time, however it was over shadowed by being disappointed multiple times throughout the holiday and when you consider this is supposed to be a 5 star resort, something needs to be said for it to improve. It was such a shame as the hotel has so much going for it and so much potential, but seems to be failing at the basics.