Right here we go. Going to try and tell everything, most good but a couple of let downs!! The best place we have so far holidayed in Greece is Skala in Kefalonia.......how would San Stef measure up..........
Arrived bang on time in Corfu following a great flight. Lilly and her hubby John were sat in front of us on the plane!!
We were met straight away by our taxi driver booked through Noula at San Stef travel and we were arriving at the Romanza just over an hour later........great service Noula!!
The minute the bus pulled into the Romanza we were met by Alex from reception who came running out to greet us and show us to our room, Number 27. There was none of the usual leaving your passport behind reception etc! I immediatley enquired about the air con and Alex suggested that we just sleep with the balcony door open but the mozzie screen closed and see how we got on! This saved us circa 70 euro's in air con charges!!
First impressions of the room were good, it was quite small and typically greek but also very clean and tidy. The bathroom is small and we had the usual small shower tray with a curtain. I believe the hotel are in the process of installing proper shower screens.
The public areas were nice.....reception and a bar upstairs and the pool bar and restaurant downstairs. The pool is L shaped and has a very deep end and a seperate kiddies section. The hotel is a real family affair Eleni & old Costas are the main figureheads. Reception is manned by Alex and her sister Katy, is the excellent cook in the main restaurant. The upstairs bar is run by Marina from 4pm onwards while Andreas and Dimitris are the two bar people and waiters downstairs. Young Costas also helps out with serving the breakfasts. Leo is Katy's hubby and is always around in the background. All of the family were really nice, warm outgoing people.
Breakfast consists of a continental style offer with toast, and either cheese and ham or scrambled eggs. You also get a pastry, glass of orange and you can help yourself to unlimited tea/coffee. When you consider that all Thomsons pay the hotel is 8 euros per person per night then you cant really expect anymore.
The Romanza also offer excellent evening meals.....we found Katys cooking to be up there with the best in the resort. Her Kokkinisto is amazing!!
I'm now going to try and demonstrate the amazing warmth of these people. It was our 2nd anniversary whilst we were there. I'd arranged for champagne next to the pool for Pam and I as a surprise. She was amazed when Andreas came over with it!! I also arranged flowers to be delivered to the room. I thought of a reason for Pam to visit the room. She came back down in tears to be greeted by Eleni who gave her a big cuddle.......not only were there flowers but they'd put up balloons, left a card and also a bracelet as a present for Pam......amazing and thanks to you all!!
We ate at the hotel that night and had a lovely table saved for us by Andreas/Dimitris where we could watch the lovely sunset. We'd just finished our meal when all the lights went out and I thought we'd had a power cut.......all of a sudden Katy appeared with a big cake complete with sparklers/candles etc and also Andreas with another bottle of champagne!! Thanks again!
We were also lucky to have quite a few lively fellow guests there during our stay. Some were on their 3rd/4th visits whilst others were on their 11th! I'm quite outgoing so I managed to blend in quite well and felt that we were in 'the gang'. If you are quieter and dont want to mix then you could feel a bit overawed by it all. I did overhear a couple of other guests saying that they didn't feel they could sunbathe round the pool as it was a bit cliquey and too noisy. We had some great late nights and I'll never forget the 2 Greek nights as long as I live. Lots of dancing, singing and eating raw chillies!! All made better by the presence of even more locals! Thanks to Andy & Princess, Geoff and his gang, Danny & Sharon, Silvia & Bri, Chris & Shaun, Kev & Debbie, Michelle & Steve......great company!!
Right now then onto the resort itself. The Romanza is right at the top of a very steep hill. Some days we seemed to breeze up the hill no probs but other days it was a real drag and a pain!! I would suggest that it would be a bit too much for anyone with young children or those over 65 if you're not the fittest or have bad joints etc.
Our impression of the resort itself were that it's not the prettiest! Yes it probably benefits from some of the best sunsets around but I didnt really get any wow factor from walking around the village.
We ate a lot at the Romanza but also ate at the following.....
Zorbas x 2 - Prob our favourite, nice food and great dancing
Mythica - Just found it ok. The steak was ok, service was ok but hardly anyone spoke!!
Town Pizza - Nice spicy Pizza. We were however, the only people in there when we ate at 2045 one night!
Little Prince - Good dancing but I thought the food was just ok. Nice starter but my main was just passable
Ozzy Oils - Very nice. We went to BBQ night and it was a very nice atmosphere
Yannis - Nice Stamna! It was very windy when we went so everyone was holding onto their napkins!!
To be brutally honest we found the food in Kefalonia a lot better. Only the cooking at the Romanza compared. Cant say we really had a bad meal but it just wasn't generally as good. A lot of the places were very quiet when we ate despite it being anytime between 2030 and 2115. Mythica was dead the night we ate as was Town pizza. Zorbas was busy on our first visit but half empty on our second. I was shocked by how quiet the village could be at what should be busy times of night. This may be down to the credit crunch/economy etc.
We found the prices ok, on average we'd be paying around 30 euros for our evening meal. Usually 2 starters, 2 mains and a litre of wine.
We didn't really visit many bars as we preferred to end the night at the Romanza. We were warmly welcomed by Glen in Aquarios on the two occasions we went in. We also had a couple of drinks in the Thomas Bay and found the waiters very funny and friendly.
If I'm being honest I hated the Condor and that was from just walking past. Thought it was dark/dingy and the acts we heard looked tacky (the Michael Jackson was terrible!) Same with the Silver Star....it's been done to death but not for us!!
Bar 38 was lovely, very classy bar but again, very very quiet around 11pm on the night we were in.
There were strong winds on a couple of days and we decided to hire a quad from Pegasus that was great fun. We went up to Akrotiri one night and I've got some amazing sunset photos! Very nice bar although again, very quiet!
We spent a day on the beach which was nice and I'm aware the beach has shrunk but it wasn't half as bad as I expected from reading the threads on here. Plenty of room and again.....never really busy.
We booked the moonlight Corfu Town trip via Noula and it was ok. A long day which started in the heat around 3pm. We had to go on a bus to Sidari, Roda, Achravi etc before we left from Kassiopi on the boat. We then had the same bus journey coming back. Loved Corfu Town but we probably wouldn't do that trip again.
To summarise......
We had a great holiday, although we are both still very tired due to many late nights which we didn't expect. We would score the hotel 10/10 and the resort around 7/10. It was very similar to Skala in the respect of number of bars, size and layout although Skala did seem to have a better vibe and didn't have any bars like Condor/Silver Star.
Would we return.....yes! We'll probably return next year and then give it a rest for a couple of years. I dont want to get stuck into going to the same places year in year out when there's so many nice places in Greece alone to visit.
I would reccommend to all you regulars to check out Skala in Kefalonia if you've not been. I know you wont initially get your friendly, great to see you again, welcome but the two resorts are very similar.
Topic: 1st time to San Stef - Review of our 14 nights at the Romanza (Read 23769 times)