Flew from Manchester T2 with First Choice - be aware they have no priority check in and it was chaos with loads of people worried about missing flights after queueing for around 1.5 hours!! Get there early.

We arrived at the hotel mid afternoon with some nervousness after seeing previous reviews, and were immediately greeted by the hotel staff who gave us drinks and a tour of the hotel. We booked a jnr suite with sea view as some reviews had said basic rooms were small. The room was larger than expected but still extremely basic - fridge, safe and aircon were great but the bathroom was absolutely terrible. Within an hour the whole shower enclosure had fallen off the wall and the taps looked like they'd never been cleaned for months - to do them justive though, they did fix the shower within the hour. The seaview we'd paid for was non existent due to trees but we did have a very private terrace. It really does need some updating as the rooms were very tired and poor in comparison to other similar star rooms we've stayed in - we only expect basic in greece (we go every year) but we do expect it to be clean and functional.

The hotel is located just along the beach from the main resort but it's a really short walk - don't take your high heels though girls as it's all rocks and shingle - you need sea shoes to go swimming but they're only about 6 euro to buy. You can go a slightly longer way round to Kamari by road if you don't want to use the beach - only around 5 mins walk. The private beach is great with good quality sunbeds, free towels and a beach bar - high prices at the bar, especially for wine but it was a nice place to sit and the service is great. Unfortunately, as always, people spoiled it by booking sunbeds and rather than leaving towels they left rocks on the beds - some even did this as they got off them at the end of the day in readiness for the next day - really poor that the hotel doesn't do anything. There are only a few beds around the pool and you'd need to be there before 8am to get them.

Breakfast is a basic american/euro style buffet which is the same every day but is very nice - bacon, sausage, eggs, pastries, bread, meats, cheeses, fruit, cereal and yoghurts.

Kamari is a nice, vibrant resort with quite a few good quality restaurants and bars - loads of choice and we didn't have one bad meal - Plaza Pizza is fantastic for lunch (best service ever), Maria's, The Boat House and the Almira were all excellent at dinner.

Fira is only 10 minutes away on the bus which is very cheap (taxi is 9 euro) and Oia is only 20 minutes further so the whole island is very accessible. Fira is lovely to see and wander around - whitewashed streets and more select shops and some bars with fabulous views.

All in all it was a great holiday and we would definitely go back to Santorini again but next time to Oia and not to the Thalassa.

We have just returned having stayed at this hotel for a week,we were very impressed with the staff who made us feel very welcome and were really friendly. This hotel has a private beach with free sunbeds and towels provided. There is a beach bar that is very well managed by Floriene who looked after us very well from the moment we sat on the sofa's looking out to the sea. We felt very relaxed and the mood was set by music played to keep you chilled out. We liked the breakfasts which were included in the price - buffet style, we also ate at the beach bar and the restaurant both good also. Our room was very clean- towels changed every day. We had a double bed, seating area and fridge which doubled up as the mini bar. Only one critisim slightly higher prices than in the resort but the customer service makes up for this.

We will return to this hotel because we found it a perfect place to unwind.

Terrible disappointment when arriving, website gives a totally wrong picture of this hotel, rooms are terrible , 2star quality, only location by the beach and friendly waiters were positive,

It was August 2006 that we stayed at this Hotel so i am obviously writing this review very late. I appreciate that in this time things may have changed at this hotel and i hope that if you choose to stay here that they have!

My fiancee and i were discussing our experience at this hotel over the weekend with friends, which prompted me to have a quick search on Trip Advisor. I was very surprised, to say the least, that no one had written a review considering the many other guests we spoke to during our stay there who were of the same opinions!

Firstly, i probably need to point out that my fiancee and i generally do not book package holidays and this was the first holiday in years that we booked with a brochure through a high street travel agent (and the last). That said the impression given by both the agent and the brochure was of a great 4* hotel on the lovely island of Santorini and we were really looking forward to a fantastic two weeks in the sun. This was also certainly not a cheap option and with the money that we paid we expected something nice, not incredible, but nice.

Ok.... i'll start with the positives:

The resort of Kamari is nice with restaurants all along the sea front serving both Greek and Italian food. The places that we chose to eat were great and i am quite fussy with my Greek and Italian foods after living/working in both countries in the past. There are also a number of funky bars that you can chill out in until the early hours. It is also quite a smart resort (probably due to the number of Italian tourists) and it was nice to 'dress up' a little in the evening.
The pool area in the hotel is nice looking.... if you ignore the low flying aircraft and lack of sun loungers. There was ONE good barman at the hotel who we chatted to a lot and who made our stay more bearable. He totally sympathised with our complaints and explained some of the 'going ons' of the hotel which i cannot write on here as it is hearsay but made total sense. He even made us Caribbean style cocktails and put on some reggae music when we said to him that for the money we could have gone to the West Indies!

So, the negatives:

Our hotel room far from being of 4* standard was a slightly 'done up' and re-painted self catering apartment. Our mini bar was a fridge, there was still a hob in our "lounge area", we had two single beds that had been pushed together, a tiny old television with a couple of channels, the bathroom was horrible like something you'd find in a 2* self catering apartment and the balcony was tiny with low walls so you were practically sitting next to your neighbour. The noisey, rusty air conditioning unit was squeezed right next to the old wooden table and chairs.... and it leaked both inside the room and on the balcony. We complained about this and it was never fixed.
The food at the hotel was over-priced and we found ourselves nipping over to the hotel next door for far better value drinks and snacks.
There were never enough sun loungers by the pool - although the few they had were nice and comfortable. This was always a big complaint by both ourselves and other guests.
The brochure said that the hotel was close to the airport. Close was an understatement! We were at the end of the runway! The noise was awful and sometimes you felt you could jump up and touch the bottom of passing planes. Obviously you couldn't but thats certainly how it felt! Not only did we have to put up with this every day but by night the Greek military would frequently take their even noisier aircraft out for a spin!!
The beach, similar to many Greek beaches, was not sand but pebbles. Thats fine by us but when you went out for a swim there were many big rocks in the sea that you could swim in to or knock your legs on. Again that would be fine if there had been some sort of warning!
The walk in to Kamari was not great. The first night we walked the road route. This way is a good 20 minute walk with parts of the trek along a fairly busy and badly lit road. We had cars skimming past us which was quite uncomortable and one very charming Greek car passed by and threw a bottle of water over us! The route we used after that was via the beach. It took less than half the time but we had to use the light from our mobile phones to see where we were going. I put my heels in my handbag and swapped them with my flip-flops when off the beach! I would advise taking a torch to see more clearly and to avoid the few (large) stray dogs we encountered on the beach at night!
The spa, in my opinion, was a joke. The therapists, although friendly and polite, were in Jeans and really didn't know what they were doing. The spa had been half 'done up' and not to a very high standard. We had apparently been booked on the spa package - something we had no idea about until we got there. We had our first treatment, some sort of lame mud therapy, and promptly cancelled all the rest. I've been to many spas and have treatments regularly and this was truly awful.
Apart from that one barman the rest of the staff were indifferent and never very friendly. They didn't take any complaint seriously and always referred us to our holiday rep who was also completely useless - although my complaint with the holiday company is another story!

We have never had a complaint about a holiday before - NEVER! I guess we have always been really lucky. We did however try to make the best of our time in Santorini - we could have spent our whole time complaining but we chose to get on with it for fear of our trip becoming an even bigger waste of money!
Santorini is a beautiful island and we saw so many fabulous hotels there that for just a few hundred pounds more would have made a massive difference. Kamari was nice but if we go back i will most certainly be staying on the other side of the island (facing the volcano) where the hotels appear better quality, all be it more expensive. To say this hotel was not what we expected is just too kind and to class it as a 4 star is just ridiculous!