Gaia Palace Hotel

The Gaia Palace is a lovely hotel one of three sister hotels in the same area, although we only went into the grounds of the other two, the Palace appeared to be the best, the grounds at the Palace are very nice and well kept. The public areas of the hotel are kept very clean. As we stayed towards the end of the season, the staff had really started to reduce, leaving two young people covering reception, they did not have a day off in the 10 days we were there, even though they were working long hours they they stayed really friendly and always helpful. All staff were polite. There is a bus from the hotel at 9.30 into Kos town each morning except Sunday. This is a good fly and flop hotel as long as you can put up with the food and drink. There is a car hire company in the hotel Reception area, although the young lady here was lovely and very helpful, you will find it is cheaper to book with the same company on line, we save €75 one a three day rental, we picked the car up from the office 5 minutes walk away and then left the keys with the hotel reception when we had finished with it. The hotel deserves 5 star review but due to the disappointing food and drink we had to only give it three. Rooms: We had a superior room with private sun beds, the sun beds were in the shade for at least half of the day and from what we observed it was the same for all the other private sun beds. The room was very nice but had been designed for looks and not practicality, there are only three small drawers, we had to ask for extra hangers to make up for the lack of drawers. The hairdryer is in the bathroom, this would be better by the dresser to free up the bathroom. The beds are two singles put together, but very comfortable, there were different types of pillows. Overall a nice room, always clean thanks to our maid. 😊 Nearby activities: Not much around, just a very few free inclusive and things like crazy golf you have to pay for. All the pools were really cold 🥶 Walkability: Well there is very little to walk to, 5 minutes through the sister hotels to the beach. At the hotel beach you have to pay for your drinks and the wooden sun loungers, there are other loungers for free. The toilets here a lovely and clean. There are two tourist shops about 3 and 5 minutes walk away (second one is the best) , one car, bike & buggy hire and island excursion offices 5 minutes away and one taverna. By the beach there looked to be two restaurants. There are other hotels along the coast line. There is no coastal path to Mastichari, you would have to walk on the side of the road, which would not be save. You can catch the bus at the top of the road. Really not a lot around. Really a fly and flop hotel. Food and drinks: This was the most disappointing of the part of our holiday, the hotel really lets themselves down with the food and most of all the drinks. There was a good selection of nice salads, and some off the wall ones like defrosted sprout salad 🤢. The cooked food was lukewarm and poor. The desserts were quite nice. Overall the food was disappointing. There was a very poor selection of drinks and the quality of those was very very poor. You could upgrade for €25 per person per day for branded drinks, you would need to drink a lot the make that worthwhile. At a hotel where you cannot drink the tap water, then you would expect bottled water to be free, you could get free water by the glass at the bars (except at the beach) and restaurant, but if you want drinking water in your room then you need to purchase it. Be careful if you have food intolerances or allergies, my sister has gluten and dairy intolerance, desserts for her was jelly if there was any or fruit. We had a packed lunch on one day when we went out, she asked for a gluten-free/ dairy free lunch, she was given a sandwich which had both gluten and dairy in it, luckily she could see she should not eat it.

Very nice hotel, extremely nice staff, well-maintained facility, very clean, varied food, good and tasty.

Top hotel Very well maintained facility.