Ikos Dassia

Our 4th visit to The Dassia and sadly the last! In previous years we have always been accommodated in the Sky building (NO ROOMS FACE THE ROAD), however this year for the first part of our holiday we were situated in the Sea building backing on to the road. For the time we were there, we managed around two hours sleep per night and left us both feeling a little unwell during this period! In addition, and i totally accept that this is a family resort, if you were sitting in the Sea building lounge at any time, including after 9.30 pm you felt like you were sitting in a creche....note this tends not to happen in the smaller (and more expensive) Sky building - AND NOTE, WE HOLIDAYED OUTSIDE OF THE PRIME SCHOOL HOLIDAY PERIOD) Anyway, thats the negatives. The positives however were that if possible the food in every restaurant was even better than last year and the staff were outstanding.....too many to mention, but Diana around the Sky pool is a star and so are George and Alex at the Grill House, plus Eleinne in Provence / Fresco. I also want to thank Giannis the allocations manager for his help and assistance during our time at Dassia. The Ikos experience is still the best in class and now maybe we will try another....but please please take note of my title comment, if you want a nights sleep, try not to book a promo inland room!

We have now been to the Dassia 4 times and had a fab time. I have always given 5 stars but this time I have given 4 and that is only because I think the demographic has changed and not for the better. The food and the service actually deserve 6 stars as this year I think both were even better than before. Diana around the Sky adult pool was incredible - she works so hard and is constantly there to ply you with drinks and food. She is like the Duracell bunny! George and Alex at breakfast and in the Grill House were so attentive at all times. Irini in Fresca is a familiar face and is such a bubbly character and was so pleased to see us. The twins in Enoteka and the Grill House are great fun and can’t do enough for you - it’s actually every member of staff to be honest! Giannis in the main office was also exceptional and I’d like to thank him for his help. Getting back to the demographic as mentioned before - I think that Ikos are chasing occupancy with discounts too much and will end up spoiling it for themselves. Also there were so many young children in the Sea building that it was like a nursery! We did still have a fab time…

Ikos Dassia is fantastic. As all the other review indicate it is very high quality in all respects. We had a fantastic 10 days there and it is difficult to fault any aspects, the food, the pools, the gardens, attention to detail. I would just like to point out two aspects. Firstly nobody knows the word NO, The answer to almost any question is "we can do that or supply whatever you want", sometimes there might be a slight delay, for instance we asked for a delayed checkout from 11.00 to 12.00, which we got but the reception had to check with housekeeping etc. The other interesting aspect which we only learned when speaking to some staff on the last day is that a large percentage of the staff are interns, students from the best hotel schools etc. who come for a few months and are treated Very well. They are all keen to do as much as possible for the guessed. One other point that may not have been mentioned by other guests is the quality of the gardens. They are beautifully designed and kept in perfect condition, but we hardly saw any gardeners, since they mainly worked around 6-9 am. Most people we spoke to were return visitors and we will certainly go back to an Ikos hotel

Me and my wife came to Ikos Dassia for our honeymoon two days after our wedding. It was our first visit to Ikos and we had heard fantastic things from coworkers. We were so excited to come here and spent ages watching videos as we were excited to arrive. We booked through Ikos so got complimentary transfers. We were picked up in Volvo from the airport and taken to the hotel. It is a gated property and feels very safe. On arrival our bags were collected straight from the taxi and we were led inside to check in. The sea building was beautiful and we were quickly checked-in and given a glass of something bubbly. I have coeliac disease and was told I would get to speak to Food and Beverage concierge to help navigate food whilst at Ikos. We were quite hungry on arrival so I asked when we could speak to them and we were told they would find us. This felt a bit frustrating as it felt like I couldn't eat until they had "found us" which was quite vague. Note this is not fault of the concierge but the check in experience. We were then led to our room however they initially had the room keys for someone else and then had to go back to find ours. We made it to our room and to be frank were quite disappointed. This is partially on us as we booked a "promo double room" which I believe is their most basic room. The room had a comfortable bed, clean bathroom, big TV with chromecast, minifridge and a coffee machine. The room in terms of decor was fine but was not the nicest basic room I have stayed in for a 5* hotel. The room was located right next to the cleaners station and facing and next to the main road outside the hotel. During the day this was fine but at night this was very loud. Cars and motorbikes would come past which were very loud making it hard to sleep at times. The air-conditioning was also broken which meant it was very loud (it still kept the room cool). Being next to the cleaning station also meant there was a lot of noise outside our room fairly early. This combination meant we struggled to sleep. Being disappointed with the room on arrival I messaged the e-concierge service and asked if we could pay for a upgrade. We were told we were being given a complimentary upgrade on the 24th June which was the 4th day of our holiday. This was very much appreciated however the noise meant the first 3 nights of our holiday were ruined by the constant noise. To make matters worse on the Monday night there was karaoke from the bar across the street that was extremely loud. I could make out the words to the songs they were singing and this went on to nearly 1am. This isn't really what you expect from somewhere that is meant to be luxury like Ikos. Being frustrated the next day I messaged e-concierge about how we were frustrated but they just reassured us the new room would be better and there wasn't anything else they could do. This is partly our fault for booking the most basic room but I do feel a bit misled by the website as I just thought we were getting a special deal by having promo in the name of the room but it seems it always says promo. It wasn't made very clear that to get a better location away from all the noise we needed the next room up. If it clearly said this on the website we would have paid the extra few hundred pounds. It felt like we had the worst room in the hotel. We were also a bit annoyed when we first visited our room because I emailed before our arrival asking if I could pay for flowers and chocolates to be put into our room on arrival to surprise my wife for our honeymoon. I was told they would look into this for us. When we got in, I was disappointed to see there was a single packet of crisps, a bottle of cava and a note welcoming us on our honeymoon that looked like it was reused between rooms by the bends in the card. The cava was nice but it wasn't really what I asked for. I mentioned this to the e-concierge too and was told there must have been a mistake via email and to their credit they did arrange for it the next day but it did ruin the magic a bit. The chocolates were labelled with any allergens so I avoided them. As mentioned I have coelaic disease so need to eat gluten free. The food and beverage concierge Salomi was fantastic and is an asset to Ikos. She helped me to arrange my food each day and ensured there was always something I could eat. She even managed to arrange for me to have a burger at the pool one day which was appreciated. Note it would be nice if Ikos could get gluten free buns in rather than bread for a burger though as it did need a days pre-order. She was always extremely fast to reply and nothing was too much trouble. The restaurants all felt very safe and there were always options however some stuff that I fancied could not be made gluten free such as some kebabs and other meats due to marinades. This is understandable though as you can't expect everything to be adapted. I was also told that the Asian restaurant can be tricky for coeliacs which wasn't really what I wanted to hear. I didn't completely understand why it can be tricky. The food in general was delicious and for breakfast at the buffet I was told they could make gluten free pancakes, or heat up some croissants (They seemed like the schar brand). They were also happy to get food from the kitchen for safety. The grill house breakfast was much better for this than the main buffet. The chef felt much more accommodating. In the last 2-3 days of the holiday they started to remember us and the servers on arrival would ask if we wanted anything gluten free without me having to find the chef. This was appreciated as sometimes the chef was not available and the other chefs did not speak great english. I think this process could be improved as it did feel quite awkward at times. The desserts for all restaurants could be improved upon. There were not many gluten free options and only the ones that seems nearly naturally gluten free were the options. For example no cakes. The only exception was the grillhouse where their crumble was gluten free. You could only get 1 booking for this though. There was one mishap on the Friday of our holiday where I was glutened. We decided to have the buffet for dinner and the chef took me around and told me what was gluten free. I was told the crab sushi was gluten free. I took a few pieces and sat and ate them. 5 minutes later the chef came back and said sorry they aren't gluten free and the ingredients had changed. This was quite uncomfortable as there wasn't really much that could be said and I was left with a stomach ache after. I think this was not great by the chef as he should know what ingredients are in the food and if not he should say he needs to check and find out. I was also shocked at how many of the allergy labels in the buffet were mislabeled. For example the soy sauce just said soya and I asked the chef if that meant it was gluten free and he said it was not. There was a sushi roll with crispy onions on that did not mention gluten and it was not gluten free. Basically you should not trust the allergy information at all. I think they need to improve this massively. If you have a serious allergy I recommend you do not eat at the buffet they need to improve their practices very seriously. There was also a lack of gluten free desserts. Typically just 1 and it was always some kind of mousse or creamy thing. I didn't see a single gluten free cake the whole time or anything pastry. Later on in the holiday I emailed Ikos directly stating how we were upset about our room on arrival. The Deputy manager came and found us by the pool on the Saturday and asked how were doing and to talk to us about our complaint. This was a bit uncomfortable as we were at the pool and a bit exposed and everyone else around was listening in. We spoke about the room briefly and she said there was nothing else they could have done quicker due to being fully booked. She offered us a spa treatment each as an apology and it would need to be used in the next 15 minutes or next hour. We don't like the spa so mentioned this. She then offered us a ride on the water raft thing pulled by the speed boats which I mentioned my wife may like but it just felt like a very token gesture considering our experience. We didn't even end up using it as it wasn't really something my wife did like in the end. She also mentioned we would get a free beach meal on our return which again felt very token and it required us to return to the same resort... Bizarrely 15 minutes later, the person who checked us in from guest experience came over and asked us about our room and mentioned to us about free spa treatments which again we said we wouldn't use. My wife at this point said we would like some money back to be frank and she said she would see what she could do. The deputy manager found us at dinner later on and said they would pay for our Climate tax which was around 100 euro. This was appreciated but again it didn't really feel like it made up for the trouble we experienced considering how much we paid for this holiday. On checkout we had the unfortunate pleasure of checking out with an extremely unfriendly man. I can't remember his name but it began with a D. We were moved to the sky building from the sea building we didn't know we could check out in sky so we walked to sea. He was confused why we were checking out there. He also asked where our luggage was and we mentioned e-conierge said we could leave it our room and it would be collected. He seemed annoyed at this and made some calls. It felt like he treated us like idiots. We didn't know what the expected procedure was so it felt a bit unfair. Overall, all the front of house staff were lovely and the servers and mangers at the restaurants were lovely. I would love to call out George at Ouzo he was so lovely and the the other young man who served us too was very nice. Salomi kindly arranged for us to have a bottle of Champagne at dinner as an apology for the glutening which was very kind. I can't state how kind most of the staff are. They truely try and give you the best experience. Its the back of house staff how felt quite unfriendly and to be frank "fake" friendly. Ikos was good but I believe it has room for improvement, especially around allergies and some of their rooms. Some of the receptionists could also be more friendly. The key standout is the front of house staff they are so kind.

This is our third Ikos holiday, previously at Andalusia and Kos Aria, so we knew what to expect and it was great! Ikos Dassia is luxury. The hotel and rooms are stylish, modern and impeccable. The resort is in two parts, we stayed in the Sea hotel and there is another hotel within walking (or golf buggy) distance, called Sky hotel. I’m not sure what the difference is. Both have a few restaurants and both have a large pool and access to the lovely beach. We ate in all the restaurants, and enjoyed all of them. Especially the Grill House and Anaya. Service is always with a smile, and staff in general are helpful and friendly. I asked for a few things for the room and they came quickly. We had a junior suite with sea view. This was the only thing that I was slightly disappointed with. That is the size of the junior suite, I was expecting more floor space and the bathroom was tiny. It had a double basin but you could only really have one person in there at a time. The shower was great though. Also, we did have a sea view, however our balcony was above a roofed area, so half our view was in fact the roof, which was a shame. We left feeling relaxed and well looked after, especially with pool bar and beach service. Well done Ikos!