we went to the hotel annabell for our honeymoon and we really liked it. i had read some of the earlier reviews on this site and was a bit concerned but i didn't need to be. we really liked the hotel and paphos was beautiful although it is a very expensive resort in general, it's not just the hotel prices that are high.
we found all the facilities inside the hotel to be clean and the staff were pleasant. we were there on a half board basis so we did eat a fair few meals inside the restaurants. we really enjoyed all the food and there was plenty of variety. but we did feel that the amorosa restaurant was overpriced (we had to pay a suppliment on top of our half board allowance) and the food wasn't supierior to that of the meditterano where we could have eatten an inclusive meal on our allowance. the hotel puts on different theme nights in the restaurants and we went to some of these and had buffet meals which were really enjoyable but we did seem to also end up paying suppliments to go to a few of these. so even though we paid for half board we were always paying for something extra.
the hotel did seem to lack much in the way of entertainment in the evening infact most of paphos resort closes early too. by 11.30 you would be hard pushed to find many good bars on the main road, you have to walk further into the town to a place known as 'bar street' to get anywhere open a bit later. apparently there is a night club there but we never came across it. even getting fast food after 11.00pm is hard. we arrived really late in paphos and were starving the first night we were there but we couldn't get a meal annywhere.
paphos in general is a quiet sleepy resort with great scenery and scortching heat. a wonderful place for rest and relaxation. there are alot of boat crusies you can go on and the mosaics really are a good outing. the castle isn't much to shout about. the aquarium is nice. the better shops are in the shooping centers, the ones on the main road are a bit samey.
one of the reasons we picked cyprus was because we had decided before we went that we wanted to take one of the day trips to egypt, from cyprus to egypt is only a 50 min plane ride but you have book it over there and we couldn't find any useful information before we went so i thought i'd add some onto this review for anybody else who needs it. it costs around 200 cp each for the trip and that included transferes, flights and all entrance fees on the tour. we visited the mosque of mohamid ali, the great pyramids of giza, the sphynix, the cairo musuem and we had dinner at a 5 star hotel and a boat ride on the nile. we got to go shopping at a bazarre and visited the papyrus institue. it was a great trip, worth it for a once in a lifetime experience. egypt is very cheap in terms of currency too. you won't need egytian money as they accept cypriot pounds. a pound to us is like 10 pounds over there.
back to the annabell..... we paid to have one of the delux sea view rooms and we loved it. the room was nice and big with a good sized bathroom, it had seperate shower and bath which was nice instead of one of those duos. the only thing with papohs is (and we didn't find this out until we went) they have very narrow sewage pipes and the pipes cannot carry paper, only natural waste, so you get these little bins to put all you toilet paper in. not very pleasant in some of the cafes etc but the hotel ones were okay and emptied twice a day in the rooms. the tropical gardens around the hotel grounds are supperb but the crickets can get really noisy. the swimming pools were very relaxing and swimming in the caves was a nice way to cool down at the hottest time of the day. everything you need is on your doorstep at the annabell you only have to walk out and there are shops everywhere and it's a bit like a home from home. anything you forget you can buy. i would recommend taking flat shoes only in paphos as the pavements aren't very level.
overall it was a good holiday. the hotel was a beautiful place to unwind and because of the size of it you never felt crampt we had plenty of room to spread out and get the best out of it. the man made beach is a little bit dissapointing and we had to travel to find a decent beach. we tended to find that the further away from the harbour we got the cheaper things became and some of the best bars were at the back of the shops not on the main road.
a taxi wil charge you a minimum of 4cp (over £5 sterling) no matter how short your journey is and alot of the drivers don't know where they are going or only know the hotels as landmarks. it's better to take the bus, they are very regular and air conditoned so it's not too bad in the heat.
This review is the subjective opinion of a TripAdvisor member and not of TripAdvisor LLC