Gouvia, Aleka Hotel

The Hotel Aleka was set in a quiet location but the accommodation itself was very poor.

The owners, Aleka and Spiros, were very rude and made no attempt to make you feel welcome. We did not have a proper conversation with them throughout our two week stay there nor did they ask us how our holiday was going at any point. The Golden Sun rep Rita was just as bad and showed no interest in any problems we had during our stay at the hotel. On our arrival she showed us to our rooms and instructed us not to ask any questions till tomorrow.

The room itself was like a box with no windows. It had two beds with a narrow space in-between them. It had a wardrobe which dominated most of the space in the walk way of the room. The bathroom was very small with no window. It had a toilet, shower and sink. There was only just room to stand in there. We did not have a private balcony only a table and couple of chairs outside the front of our room which other guests had to walk by to get to their rooms. At night the room got very hot as there was no windows and we had to leave the sliding door open at night so we could sleep which meant anybody could have walked in. We asked to be moved the next morning because we knew there were empty rooms in the hotel as other guests had left the night before but we were simply told no. We then asked the rep if we could have free air conditioning which cost E42 per week but the owners again said no. The rooms were cleaned daily apart from Sundays and bed linen and 'towels' changed once or twice a week.

The pool bar was quite expensive. We didn't use it for food very often but did for drinks during the day. They charged E1 for a small bottle of water while 5 minutes down the road the shops charged 25 cents for a small bottle or 50 cents for a large bottle of water. The pool bar also had a pool table. Breakfast at the hotel wasn't up to much and we only had it on one occasion.

The hotels pool was a decent size for the amount of guests staying in the hotel. The sun loungers surrounded the grass verge around the pool and there was not normally a problem getting one at dinner time. Guests from the Pyrros Hotel were also allowed to use the pool.

The resort of Gouvia is a 10 minute walk down the road. It is a great resort with lots of restaurants and bars. You won't have any trouble finding a nice place to eat in Gouvia. Gouvia beach is mainly shingle and the water not to clear. Further along the main road there are the Govino Bay Apts which have a beach which is more sand than shingle.

There is not much in Kontokali apart from G&Ms which we didn't visit and the Beer Bucket which is an English bar which we did visit for breakfast.

Overall we had a good holiday in Corfu and Gouvia as there is something for everyone but the Aleka Hotel is very poor.