Pafian Park Village

I stayed at the Pafian Park holiday Village in mid September, for 10 nights. This is my review, based solely on my experiences, and given the time of year, may be extremely different to hight of season periods. This is a long and in depth review, so I hope you find it helpful.

Location wise, it is just about 23km/14 miles from the airport, which takes about 25 minutes or so in a taxi. No noise pollution from airplanes or other hotels whatsoever. The main town centre is a few km inland, and the harbor is a few km south. There is a 'main road' about 200 meters up the road, which again, you cannot hear at all. The village almost appears to be slightly secluded, with only 1 other apartment type hotel next to it, and a few villas behind. It is right on the beach, facing west out into the Mediterranean sea.

Rooms are nothing special, but are more than acceptable. There are facilities for self catering (fridge, toaster, cooker, kettle etc), t.v, hairdryer and so on. If you are not all inclusive, the air conditioning is at an extra cost, of '4.50 a night, which would get expensive. It is not good air conditioning. It basically acts as a cold fan... When it's blowing on you it's lovely and cooling, but the temperature settings don't work well, and it does not cool down the whole room, so you always find yourself having to turn it off and on once you get either too hot or too cold. Double beds, as usual, are two singles put together, which i don't really mind, but they don't have rubber feet or anything so they keep sliding apart, especially if you sit upright against the wall head board, and of course the bed starts sliding away. That gets very annoying. Garden/sea view rooms are available, pool view, no view, or pool/sea view rooms also. I stayed in a pool/sea view, which had a beautiful view over the pool, and out into the sea. The apartments are only two floors and 4 rooms across, and have thick walls, so noise is at a minimum. However, the 3 apartment blocks that are raised up over the restaurant, game room or entertainment stage, have a shared balcony on the lower level. There is a small wall dividing them, but the floor extends outwards and reduces privacy a lot. Also, don't let my saying of the blocks over the restaurant etc make you think that they will be noisy, because they're not, at all. But I will get into that a bit later on.

Facilities are good. Gym, indoor pool (not that you'd ever need to use it!), hairstylist and manicure treatment. A claimed 3 bars I think, however there are only really 2. One is in the gardens down at the beach front, which is only open at season peak times, and the other, is 1 bar, in an L shape, with one front on the outside and the other square on, on the inside, which they count as 2 separate bars.

Drinks are very good. Local spirits and beers available on all inclusive, including coke, diet coke, carlsberg and sprite I think it was. Food was good, but does get a bit boring after while. Nights are themed; Italian, Barbeque, Oriental, International, Greek, Cyprian and Carvery. There is also a kids section, which always has chips, chicken nuggets, sausages and some other stuff which comes in handy if you don't like any of the food that night (which in my case never happened), and that food also acts as the snacks available pretty much all day, along with ice cream. Breakfast is a gold old fry up, lunch was often very similar to dinner time... Beef stroganoff, pasta, chicken, pork etc.

One thing about the pool everyone particularly liked (and the whole hotel in fact), was that it was extremely clean. Very very hard to find even small areas of dirt, which makes it look even prettier. The pool isn't huge, but big enough, and goes from 1.1 meters to 1.3 meters deep I think. Sun beds weren't amazing, but weren't bad at all. They are a woven fabric, as opposed to ridged plain plastic ones I have often experienced, so they are quite comfortable. The hotel management also leave a few inflatables and balls around the pool, so people can use them at their own will if they don't have their own.

Staff are very very friendly. Animation team go out of their way to make your time there that bit better. Bar staff are very efficient, are very friendly, and certainly aren't stingy when it comes to strength of drinks! Receptionists are very helpful and of course, friendly. It is not hard to have a conversation with any of the staff, as they all speak good English (and German). The waiters/waitresses for lunch and dinner however seem a little bit less bothered about pleasing you. They're not by any means a mood ruiner, but it could be better. Sometimes, once you've chosen your table and sat down, they'd take ages to approach you to take drinks orders, and sometimes didn't come at all, but usually they are efficient. Also they didn't always do things very practically, for example I experienced several times that they'd lean over the table to try to pick up an empty glass or sometimes plate, so you end up passing it to them, which just takes away part of the 'being waited on' feeling. Also they can be very quick to snatch your plate off you once you're finished. One other thing that the staff could do in the day time is to go around the pool waiting on you, bringing you drinks. Nothing major but might have been a nice addition.

Evening entertainment is probably the biggest and only proper let down. It's not awful, but it's not good by any means. Rather watered down, I would call it. It's only a weeks schedule, so of course it would be repetitive for 2 weeks. It goes on from 9 till 10, and then 2 rounds of bingo afterwards. I have read a review by someone who was there about the same time as I was, complaining that the entertainment goes on too late and is too loud. Rubbish. If anything it's not loud enough and doesn't go on long enough. The bar is open until 12 o'clock, but that does not mean that people stay up till then being really loud. Partly as you wouldn't hear them if you were in your room anyway. My biggest annoyance about the entertainment though was that there were nowhere near enough chairs, and this Is when the hotel is relatively quiet too! This meant that a lot of people would eat dinner as soon as it opened at 7, and got a table for entertainment straight after. So either you have to bare with sitting round the outside restaurant tables (which isn't a problem but you can't see much), or bare with racing into dinner to grab a seat after. For me, holiday is to relax. So of course I chose the latter.

Daytime entertainment/activities are good. There is a range of stuff such as archery, table tennis, water polo, water volleyball, beach volleyball, football tennis etc.

There are nearby excursions such as a water park, safari day, snorkeling etc.

The beach that the hotel is situated on is, well, it's not a beach to be honest. It's basically flat rocks, with a tiny section of a slightly sandy bit. The sea is very clear though, but if you're a beach fanatic, you will not be impressed. There is a beautiful beach a few miles up the road, which I will explain soon.

As previously stated, there is a 'main road' about 200 meters up from the hotel, along which a bus service operates along the coast, a stretch of around about 15 miles at a guess. Each time you get on, it's '1 per person (that's not a return, literally every time you get on a bus), and you can go anywhere along the bus route. One problem is none of the bus drivers speak English, despite probably 75% of the passengers are always English, so sometimes it's hard navigating where you want to get off to them as they have a habit of driving past bus stops. There is a harbor a few miles down, which also has a large area of shops around it. There is speed boat rentals (fun and good value), a small castle, beautiful restaurants with beautiful views, day cruises etc.

The beach a few miles up from the hotel is called Coral By Beach. It's fairly small, but beautifully clean water and golden sand. The problem with it though, is it's ridiculously expensive there. There are 2 sun beds to a parasol, and you have to pay of course to use a sun bed, and the parasol that you can't actually move away from. It's not much but '2.50 soon adds up, so for 2 of you it's '7.50 just for 2 sun beds under a parasol that you might not even want. Drinks are also a rip off. A can of drink is '2 a pop, and the alcohol is very over priced too. But the biggest rip off is the water sports there. I was quite up for going jet skiing, until I saw the prices. Now I'm all up for spending money for a bit of fun, but when its '40 for 20 minutes, it's sort of makes it not worth it. It's not just the jet skiing thats over priced though, it all is. Paragliding is '50 for about 10 minutes and '10 each for a banana boat ride, again for about 10 minutes, which actually seems OK, until you see some people riding one and you realise it's no fun if the water is completely calm. I don't make a point about spending a lot of money, but we didn't stay there long.

Fair enough these last two points aren't about the hotel, but to me it's all relevant about the area too. My last comment is about Cyprus in general. The Euro has obviously done it well for many reasons, but that's also ruined the country. Shops in general are not cheap. In fact, sometimes more expensive than in England. It does depend on what you want, and sometimes which shop, but imported stuff seemed to be randomly either cheap or expensive. For example I found that Smirnoff vodka was very cheap, yet Bacardi wasn't. Wine was expensive, Whisky wasn't. Some shops wanted '1 for a 500ml bottle of water, some wanted 50 cents for a litre. 99p magazines were about '2.50, but perfume and aftershave was really cheap. I couldn't get my head round it, but on the whole, if you like going on holiday, and looking round cheap shops for cheap stuff and maybe treating yourself to some cheap alcohol/cigarettes etc, then Cyprus will disappoint.

I will like to quickly mention the weather too... Outstanding! Hot, sunny, no rain and only experienced half a day of a slightly cloudy sky. There are barely any flying bugs and weird creepy insects too, which to a lot of people I know will be a relief!

As I said at the beginning, I went in mid September. These are only stories but I have heard that this summer, it was pretty bad at the hotel. They overbooked rooms, you have a set time to go to dinner, no inflatables in the pool, ran out of sun beds etc. Now don't let this put you off because as I said I only heard this. Please read other reviews before taking my word on that.

Overall I would rate my experience at the hotel 8 out of 10. I loved every minute of it. It's just some of the small things that let it down. But It's just such a shame that when you get out of the hotel it's so expensive. It is though such a beautiful country with amazing weather. Which leaves me torn with what to rate it... 8 out of 10 I think as well. I can deal with expensive alcohol and stuff. The weather, sunsets and views are not to be missed.

the Pafian Park Village staff were great they always made a fuss over the kids good choice of food the maids were excelent the pool was always very clean and tidy great for relaxing if you like to always be on the go choose somewhere else the down side rooms basic and tired the beds are rock hard and your are a taxi ride from eneywhere. this was relaxing holiday and great if you have young kids they can keep going and getting food and drink all day long and you can just let them play all day. i would have liked to have known that there was nothing at all near the hotel and not a shop for 2 miles except the tiny hotel one. if you go to pathos go to fat mamas restraunt a must

We chose Pafian Park based on the 4* advertised. We arrived to find cockroaches in the bedroom, we then got moved to another room with other insects. The food was okay, repetitive and basic. Entertainment was cringeworthy and at times laughable. Staff were friendly however did not welcome criticism. The location was too far away from anything and the shop on site was always empty, the bus stop was an up hill walk, however was worth venturing out of the resort. The weather was the one positive thing and that is the only reason I would return to Cyprus. Not worth all inclusive and not worth time out of precious holidays.

This Holiday at Pafian Park Village was the best holiday we have ever had as the food was great , friendly staff , The animation team were fantastic!! Would love to come again. The weather was mostly sunny and didnt want to come home.

what a rubbish holiday!!!!!!

bad food 3* hotel - Pafian Park Village called 5* by a1 travel!!

Mostly rude staff!!! boring night life in hotel with terrible shop disgusted with everything will never even return to cyprus again what a waste of our money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

josh and jade

Alright for relaxing holiday, good hotel, nice views of the sea, staff very friendly. There was no beach, it was all rocks, alright if you want a quite holiday. Too far to bus stop, all up hill, no entertainment at night time, boring food not worth all inclusive

We chose Cyprus as it was our honeymoon considering it is the 'island of love'! The travel agent recommended paphian park, we are so glad she did.

The food was fabulous, so much choice, the chef is a talented person! my waistline has reflected this!

The animation team are so friendly, they walk round the pool twice a day to greet all the guests, they organise great water games to which my new hubby and I really enjoyed, the water polo soon worked the lunch off!

most of the staff are really pleasant and will try to help with anything, The pool is great, huge and as its only one depth there is no danger for not so strong swimmers. Lilos allowed in the water too.

I only have a couple of little grumbles, one being that the poor receptionist got into trouble for changing our room on arrival we had originally been given a room with two single beds and I'm afraid that just wont do on honeymoon! So I was a bit narked that someone who was trying to help us out was reprimanded when he was only trying to help, so a big boo to them. But thank you anyway!

Also, the waiting staff clear the plates away a bit too fast, sometimes when you are still eating and maybe have got up to get some condiments, whooosh - the plate has gone.

Other than that it was real value for money, I would definitely recommend it to others, maybe not so much for youngsters wanting any clubs/pubs as its a good bus/taxi ride away to bar street, but young families and older couples its great. the parrot show on saturdays is a real hoot! also bingo is good prizes, about 90 euros prize money for full house if a lot play.

I want to try protaras next time I visit cyprus as the beaches are supposed to be nicer but if I had a choice to come back to paphian park then I would also.

Basic entertainment which kids love but some of us older clients may cringe at. Basic quality and way too much chlorine, but as far as a basic holiday goes its not too bad what do people expect Do make sure you get out and about or your holiday will be wasted.Oh beds were a tad hard I like a firm mattress but even I struggled.Bus from top of road is 1.35 euros runs every 15-20 mins air con taxis into harbour or bar street area 10 euros 12 after midnight but haggle they will take 10 and you should push for lower. Hey, if you don't ask you don't get right.Try to learn some basic phrases, as it's appreciated. We did and it helped us a lot!

Really enjoyed the Pathian park, if you have a young family then this is the place for you. The food was excellent and all the staff were extremely friendly and very helpful. The complex is very well designed and the views from the pool are and rooms are excellent. The all inclusive package is good and the animation team keep the kids happy. I was there with two 16 year olds and I feel that it was just to quiet for them and it was to far out of Paphos to let them go there themselves.

Had a great time would go again tomorrow food great had plenty of choice. Bar staff always helpful animation team always smiling and not because of work even after work finished they stayed around and had fun with us. All rooms were always kept, clean towels were changed every 2 days. As said in other review about the 15 June bank holiday for locals was busy but we are the visitors to the country only 2 days then back to normal