MarBella Corfu Hotel

Visited this hotel at the end of May and had a decent enough holiday but not as great as we were expecting. The hotel feels like it is penny pinching more than any other all inclusive hotel I have been to. As an example, when you go to the pool bar to order a drink they ask you to give them your order then go back to your sunbed and they will deliver. This can take half an hour which makes you want to not bother getting up out of the sunbed. The problem is that they will only send someone around to take orders (the people that collect the glasses say they can???t take any orders) about every hour, so they limit the amount of drinks you have by making the ordering process awkward. It???s easier to go and order at the bar and tell them you will wait to take it away. When eating in the a la carte restaurant for the first night we were waiting 45 minutes for a glass of wine to be delivered, had to chase it several times and in the end just asked them to bring a bottle as it was all inclusive. Same story with bread, asked for white bread when a mixed basket was delivered then had to ask several times again for it and it didn???t actually appear and as the food had come out we couldn???t be bothered to point it out again. This same thing also happened in another a la carte restaurant during the week so it???s like they are trained to do all they can to not hand out anything other than 2 brown rolls and 2 white rolls. The meal in the Italian ended up taking 2 and a half hours which was a disaster with 2 young children. The main reason for us choosing to go all inclusive was so that we could have meals in the a la carte restaurants so this was a big disappointment. On the flip side with regard to the Italian restaurant, they do a very nice chilled out breakfast in comparison to the main buffet and you can choose which one you want to go to even if you are on half board. We were greeted with a big smile every morning by the ???captain??? Michael, and he remembered our order after a couple of days. This however slid downhill when Michael wasn???t around one morning and we were unfortunate to be ???greeted??? by Konstantinosis who clearly wasn???t happy to see someone arriving to breakfast 5 minutes before it was due finish and he said it was closed. I said there is 5 minutes till closing time can we just use the buffet quickly if there is no chance of warm food. He said to wait there whilst he got on the phone. He then came off the phone to say yes they will still accept you up at the main buffet as there is 5 minutes left. Michael???s friendly face then appeared and I asked him if we could have the buffet there and he said yes that???s fine - much to the annoyance of Konstantinosis, who then started slamming plates and causing a scene by having a go at Michael very loudly in Greek because he decided to be nice. Konstantinosis had a bad attitude every day after this at the Italian breakfast but we tried to focus on the fact that Michael was a great asset to the hotel, rather than the opposite of his colleague. Day time entertainment was non existent which we found strange for such a big hotel that was full. The only thing we did was play darts when they set that up on the grass. When they had a captive audience they could have then said, do you want to play football/tennis etc but no it seemed as though darts was the only entertainment for the day. On one day of the holiday they decided to put music on around the pool and it actually felt like being on holiday but the next day it disappeared and didn???t get played again. Evening entertainment was even more of a joke for a hotel full of families during May school holidays. No stage, simply a corner of a bar area where someone would play piano and have a singer to sing along. There was never any spare tables in the bar to be able to see the singer and it a boring end to the evening to have to make your own entertainment and play cards or similar. Not what you expect in a busy 5 star hotel that is charging enough money to be able to put on a decent act for the families paying to stay at their hotel. This is simply more penny pinching from the management, oh and they need to go out an buy themselves a EUR5 football that hasn???t fallen apart. When asking at reception for the football to play on their 3G pitch they handed us a leather football where the stitches had all come loose on the hexagonal sections and the rubber inner is trying to escape. Again not an example of a 5 star hotel providing their so called ???ultra all inclusive???. One of the barmen in the ???entertainment??? bar was also very rude when us and another family ordered drinks for the 8 of us, after 6 drinks he was huffing and when the 8th and final drink was ordered he said no more and waved us away from his bar. Plus points - plenty of sun loungers so no need to get up early to save one. Very well heated pool that is a good temperature of 25 degrees. Enthusiastic kids club staff that are friendly and welcoming. We won???t be returning and feel that they don???t really want to attract families and that they would rather concentrate on making it another adult only hotel, like the one next door.

We have visited this Hotel before and were fearful service and meals would not have been as good--pleasantly surprized to find meals were even better and the ultra-inclusive even including my wife getting her hair done. In 7 days we spent ZERO --that???s a first for us A true 5 star hotel with a great atmosphere and welcoming staff