Ascos Coral Beach Hotel

Ascos coral beach hotel, what can I say. It was an amazing holiday. Hotel was always clean. The room was lovely, could maybe do with a bit of TLC and updating but don’t let that put you off. The room was nice and spacious, we had three adults in the room, and room it wasn’t cramped. We arrived at the hotel at 2am, after a long day. There was food in the room, fruit, cakes, and some ham and cheese rolls. Also a bottle of wine. The balcony had amazing views of the pool and sea view, and lots of space on it, it had a table and three chairs on it, and not cramped. Food was great, always something to eat, our daughter struggled more as she has ADHD so fussy eating will still dictate her food choices. She was trying new things, which was a big thing for her, and found a few new foods she likes. Lots of salad choices, breads, deserts are a varied choice. Fresh fruit available at all meals. Breakfast you self serve drinks, lunch and dinner is waiter service for drinks. The breakfast and lunch restaurant is on the swimming pool level, and has inside and outside seating. The dinner restaurant over looks the pool and has a sea view too, the window seats are popular. The waiting staff are amazing, they ALL work so hard to make your stay a good one. Arif was always so smiley and happy. Learns your drink order quickly and is very good at his job, a credit to the hotel. He will check on you to make sure everything is ok, and to see if you need more drinks. The bar staff are also amazing here. They work hard to work quickly to get drinks made for you. Always smiley, and happy. We never had a long wait at the pool bar or main bar at the evening. The entertainment was mostly ok, when entertainment was provided. all acts brought in from outside, mainly singers and a karaoke night. One night was awful, I felt for the singer, he didn’t know the words to some of the songs he was singing, didn’t even get applauses at the end of each song he tried to perform. On our last night the new animation worker called Joe did bingo, which was a great night. He has a great level of energy, and a very natural and at ease personality. He was excellent with our 18 year old daughter. He brought a great energy round the pool, he arrived a week into our holiday, replacing the old employee, (who wasn’t that great we only saw him play darts, with girls of around his age) he runs a full schedule of activities round the pool during the day, he does Archery, Darts, Aqua Aerobics, and Water Volleyball. He walks round the pool to see who is interested in the activities, being inclusive to everyone. He was so lovely, and always puts in the extra effort. Our daughter did archery on his first day, and as very few took part in the activity he really helped her with learning how to use the bow and arrows. She really enjoyed it. Joe is a massive credit to the hotel, and hopefully thrives at the hotel 5* for Joe. The pool was amazing, never cold how some pools are abroad. And in the afternoon, it was like getting into a bath. The pool was huge, but very deep in parts. Most the pool was over 1.8m deep, parts are 2.8m deep. Which made a lovely change from the pools being 1.2m all over. There are shallow sections at two ends near the volleyball net, and near the pool bar. There is also a kids pool which is 0.5m deep, and edged by a metal railed fence for safety. Inflatables are allowed in the pool. Giving the whole family fun on lilos, and rubber rings as a few examples. There is a lifeguard on duty during pool opening times, he spends his time sitting at the bar, walking round the pool collecting peoples used cups, and tidying up sun beds so people could see available sun beds. Plenty of sun beds for all when we were there. Even early afternoon you could get a group of sun beds. But it was getting busier when we left with new arrivals going down as they would on other holidays to get sun beds. There were no sun beds wars here while we were here, which was very refreshing. There is a small beach with sun beds laid out on grass, and a small bar at the beach. Take beach shoes with you as it is a bit tough on the feet to get into the sea. We went down to the beach once to have a look but stayed round the pool. The main beach at Coral beach is only a 10-15 min walk from the hotel, we went and paid 16.50€ for 3 sun beds and 2 umbrellas. Food was fairly priced there and lots of choice for water sports. The main strip where the shops/bars/restaurants is only a 5 min walk away. All day Full English breakfasts are 5€-€6.50 if you want to sleep in past breakfast. Car hire is readily available, and hotel can get a discounted rate from a company, (advertised on a sign in reception, we didn’t look into this as didn’t want to hire a car) Reception team were all very friendly and very helpful. There is a bus stop directly outside hotel where a free shuttle bus runs (Monday to Friday) to Paphos zoo. It has 3 morning collections, and 3 drop offs back to the bus stops. No need to have already bought your tickets, you can buy at the zoo. We went on the 4 hour trip to the blue lagoon, we bought it at the little shop at the hotel, the lady in there was lovely and so friendly. She is very helpful and stocks all essentials you may need. A bit dearer than shops on the strip but it’s a convenience charge, like our Tesco express shops do. And she was super helpful too. She took the deposit and we paid the rest at Latchi Harbour. The coach picks you up at front of hotel on the main road. And drops you back to the hotel. The only thing I would say hotel needs to change is the colour of All Inclusive wristbands for under 18’s. For the added protection to their bar staff, as reception would have seen if adult or child from passports at check in. All guests get the same colour band currently, but some 18 year olds don’t look their age, our daughter looks younger so had to keep her driving licence on her to get drinks in case the bar staff asked her for proof (she understood this so wasn’t bothered) And also some 15/16 year olds look much older than they are, and could easily get served alcohol. We saw a few girls try but bar staff didn’t serve them the times we saw as they did look quite young, maybe 15. But overall a lovely holiday. Would visit again. Reception also have a typical price list for mikes taxis if you want to go out and about. There is also a very small playpark for under 12’s.

We have just arrived home after we stayed at this hotel for 11 days and was our first trip to Cyprus. We had mixed feelings as a lot of reviews varied. On first glance the rooms were a great size with air conditioning, small fridge, large bathroom and balcony. They need to do some maintenance with the bedrooms as our room had a lot of large cracks on the ceiling and wonky lights attached to the walls. The view from our room (sea view) was absolutely beautiful overlooking the pool and sea. Thankfully you haven’t got to rush to get sunbeds as there is plenty of them. The only issue was that the lifeguard would sit at the pool bar for the majority of the day and not keep a close eye on the pool and constantly on his phone. On our first day I caught my foot on something sharp to find that the pool filter covers/lights were hanging off and screws were sticking out the wall. I mentioned this to the lifeguard and reception and got fixed 8 days later. They have different themed nights for the evening restaurant but doesn’t add up to the theme some nights and was sometimes quite basic (but a good variety of other food and a children’s food area too). Hemel and Abir on the pool bar and inside bar were excellent. Always making conversations with us and making jokes which was pleasant. The staff in the restaurants need to smile more and interact with people as they look like they don’t want to be there which I can understand when they get paid €3-€4 an hour. A couple of the female staff in the restaurants would constantly give us dirty looks and made us feel quite uncomfortable. I feel like this hotel needs a lot of work done to it to bring up the standards considering it’s meant to be a 4 star hotel. We’d met lots of people and made new friends who’d told us they’d been to this hotel a handful of times and this year was by far the worst they’ve ever seen it so it wasn’t just our group that thought it. It started off very well for the first 3 days and then we found out the in house entertainer Jack (who had been great so far) had left due to not being paid from the hotel (the hotel claim they sacked him). He was the only person from the entertainment team which we were shocked about as other hotels we’ve been to have 4-8 staff for this type of team. We then noticed the entertainment boards were taken down and no day time or evening entertainment was done for two days to which we contacted EasyJet who were very helpful. A lot of other families and couples complained to reception as we had nothing to do in the evenings and ended up going out to the strip of bars for music etc. EasyJet spoke to the hotel manager and said they’d have someone new to replace Jack within the next few days. Ben had come over from another hotel but didn’t interact with any hotel guests and we saw him with two girls around his age a lot of the 4 days he was here. He had no idea what he was doing and only did Darts for during the day entertainment which was poor. I’m not sure where they find some of there evening entertainment visitors as a couple of nights were honestly tragic. We had a gentleman who couldn’t sing at all and lots of people left due to how badly he sang. There is a shop inside the hotel and the woman inside is absolutely amazing. She’s very friendly and always making conversation and giving recommendations on where to explore around the island. We booked blue lagoon boat tour through her and was €35 per person with a bus transfer and fruit and wine included. Was an excellent day out and the sea was crystal clear. We also went to Pafos zoo which I definitely would recommend. The gym is very dated and equipment has tape on some of the machines so was very sticky when using them. The indoor jacuzzi was covered in brown body fat and obviously hadn’t been cleaned for a very long time. Complained at reception on day 3 of 11 and on our last day it had only just been cleaned. Flowers were put around the pool bar and downstairs restaurant, water volleyball net was severely damaged and only just been replaced with a new net on our last day. Seemed to be that everything was being fixed as we were leaving which was annoying to say the least considering we paid nearly £1,500 each for an 11 day holiday. Thankfully easyJet did their best to sort the issues out and offered us money back.