Island of Symi, Captain's Hotel - Yialos

Me and my brother decided to go on a holiday together with our families. And what better place to go than the land of our ancestors. Or so we thought. We had booked two rooms with four beds each at CAPTAINS APTS -YIALOS-SYMI. Finally, when we arrived, he gave us one with four beds, as agreed, and another one with three beds, in which he added a camp bed. The room was dark, gloomy, the tub was flooded, the refrigerator door was broken, the ceiling was so low that we had to bend if we wanted to go to the toilet (my daughter hit her head twice!). When we complained about the condition of the rooms he provided us, he started insulting us, refusing to give us back our money. After all the prize was ridiculously expensive (120 Euros each!). For two hours we stayed on the road arguing with the so said "kind" gentleman. Meanwhile, my nephews and my own children, were watching us fighting. They like totally ruined our joyous mood and our whole vacation trip.

To anyone who would like to visit Symi, I suggest he avoids making contact with the CAPTAIN'S Hotel.

We are a recently married Greek couple of 35 and we live and work abroad. It is an extremely happy occasion for us to return home every summer and to visit a Greek island, something that we have promised ourselves to do even when we get kids of our own. This year we decided to visit the island of Symi in Dodecanese for which we have heard many views and opinions so, we decided to check it out for ourselves.

The island is perfect !!! PERFECT !!! , so beautiful, so nicely put, so well maintained so, so, so..... I could go on and on.

Although it is a bit hard to get to (if you take your car or your motorbike with you) from Rhodes which is the most convenient

location to get the ferry from, you only get 2 chances to catch the ferry, one at 9am and one around 6pm. If the morning ferry

from Piraeus to Rhodes is 1/2 hour late you are bound to catch the afternoon ferry to Symi.

Now, our method was something like this, we saw a hotel on the internet that we really liked. Nice and quiet (at least that was what it said) and we decided to call. We reserved a room and we paid a hefty sum for the reservation (approx 160GBP) for three nights. When we got to the island after some 14 hours (Piraeus - Rhodes) + 9 hours (waiting time in Rhodes) + 2 1/2 hours (ferry from Rhodes to Symi) = 25 1/2 hours of sea travel and wait we were offered two choices of a room not in the "nice and quiet" GRACE HOTEL but in the Captain's Hotel directly over the port high street, over theisland disco club and the "open 24hours/day" burger place with all the motor bikes and cars whizzing around and below.

The room itself was pathetic. Broken toilet seat, coverless toilet light, dirty toilet accessories and a cleaning lady with

a vengeance, hitting everything in her way at 7:30 in the morning.

Our double bed was in a "loft" with a 60cm x 70cm x 2.40length beam hanging over it. Can you ever imagine it?

A beam hanging over your double bed. Now, we are a young couple. If we wanted to use this holiday for a good reason I could certainly hit my forehead if I wasnt too careful. All this package was going for 75 euros/day.

Of course we left the place for somewhere more decent especially following the verbal assault we received from the owner of the place, a local hotel and rental baron also the owner of a jewellery shop and some boats for rent.

What I strongly feel is that I was robbed. Robbed of three beautiful days in a beautiful island, robbed of 225 euros,

robbed of my peace and hapiness by a person who should not be doing this job. This guy also had a sign of Kosmar Holidays outside his rooms and a sign of approval from the local rooms for rent organisation whose phone numbers were out of order !!!!!

The remaining days were almost perfect if you forget how ludicrously expensive the island is. The waters are crystal clear all around the island although you will not find sandy beaches anywhere. The island itself compensates for all the troubles you may have with the locals. Our suggestions ? Try not to come in contact with the locals. They just look you in the hands and judge you by the clothes you wear. Find somewhere to it in the Kali Strata overlooking the port. The shops in the port are extremely expensive. Tholos is a perfect quiet restaurant with the best view of the port, the same goes also for the Italian restaurant located a bit futher in. Symi is perfect, such a pity for its locals .........