Aeolian Village Beach Resort

This holiday was a big disappointment. We are seasoned Mark Warner and Neilson travellers and know that they don't offer super luxurious hotels, however we did not expect things to be this bad. Mark Warner failed on many counts in Lesbos. The bad stuff first and there's a lot of bad stuff. The rooms in the main building either overlook a car park, a dusty track, the refuse bins, the staff smoking area, or the restaurant and kitchen, so smells and noise at all times of day really don't make for a good ambience when staying in the main building. It's just very badly designed. The MW brochure does not make this clear, we thought we would have a nice garden view not a car park and the bins. Village rooms are on top of a very steep hill and a long walk from the beach or pool, and if you have a phobia about birds forget it as swallows nest everywhere around the village rooms. The swimming pool is deep and in my opinion dangerous as it has a strange shallow edge with loungers submerged, and then abruptly drops off to over 5ft deep. Pool bar lacked any atmosphere especially at night, nobody went there before or after dinner as it is remote from the restaurant. there is no hotel bar inside the main building. There is only outdoor dining in the restaurant and all the tables are under trees that at dusk are occupied by roosting birds that crap on the furniture or on your food or in your drinks, don't leave the table unattended in the evening. MW do not have 100% occupancy, We did not know this when we booked. In previous years at other resorts MW had 100% occupancy, but they seem to have drifted away from that business model. There is a constant coming and going of greek and turkish guests, plus a handful of all inclusive Jet2 guests. The greek and turkish guests tended to be in very large family or friendship groups, dominating the pool area and smoking despite signs prohibiting smoking around the pool. The beach bar is small but quite nice, but is open to non residents and on many days large groups of locals would spend hours there smoking and drinking. The beach and its bar is a 10 minute walk along a dusty track and there is no toilet. The beach bar is not open in the evenings as no-one would walk there at night anyway. The drive from the airport is very long and scary at times as its like a mountain road, but the views are good. Activities like zumba and fitness etc were almost non existent and you couldn't do pool aerobics unless you had a float or were 7ft tall. Hardly anyone took part. The final straw was that the air conditioning system for the whole hotel main building was broken from the time we arrived, and was not fixed for 8 of our 14 days. A total replacement system had to be shipped over from the mainland. Our room was constantly in the mid 30's even at night with the patio doors open. We did not sleep at all for the first week because of the stifling heat in our room. MW staff were told not to discuss it with guests and no compensation w