I Giardini di Athena- Athena Resort

The most horrible hotel, zero service, money thrown down the drain, the description on the website does not correspond at all, the food is very bad and tasteless, the drinks are of the worst quality, everything is mixed with water, basic things are missing, not even water they don't have anything to drink in the rooms, I absolutely do not recommend the place, avoid this crappy hotel as much as possible

Waited over 4 hours to get into a room which was dark and dingy and dirty. Supposedly being cleaned. Tried to complain and the reception staff so rude. Have checked out and got booked in another hotel. Could not stay in this hotel. It’s a complete shambles. Kids and dogs everywhere.

The resort is a beautiful destination for a vacation. The food is nice. And people are amazing there. The evening live singing by Desiree is so much fun. I would definitely recommend this place. The staff is very helpful.

I truly recommend Athena Resort. Very nice place to stay during the one week holiday. It is suitable if you like doing sports with great olimpic swimming pool, tenis courts, and jogging paths. If you want to rent a car or a bike, or maybe go for a one day trip to Malta, you can contact with Giulia (she is sitting close to the restaurant patio). She is very nice and gentle with fluent english. She can really helps you.

This hotel had no real English speaking staff to assist with issues, all signage and trips were in Italian. The food was served cold and most ala carte restaurants closed. All entertainment was also in Italian. Holiday was advertised as being close to Ragusa but only accessible by taxi at 100E a trip. The room that we were allocated was not as advertised. Overall, though advertised as 4 star, we do not feel this should be anymore than 3 stars. All in all we feel that the entire holiday was certainly not at advertised and definitely inferior to what we expected. This is not somewhere we would ever return.

There were a lot of disappointing things about this resort. Sadly I am unable to find out if the resort misled our travel firm or the travel firm misled us in their website description. Firstly our 'all-inclusive' package was far from that. We were not allowed bottled water and had to buy it at 1.5 euros a bottle. The resort didn't supply free pool/beach towels they were 7 euros every time you wanted a clean one. There was no tea and coffee making facilities in our room. The resort is entirely geared up for Italians. All the entertainment is in Italian and most of the staff speak very little or no English. Fortunately we did not have any special dietary needs but if we did we certainly would not have communicated that to the staff. We stayed here at the very end of their season and it showed. The poolside was dirty and wasn't washed in the entire time we were here. On the plus side, Our room was cleaned every day to an acceptable standard. Our travel company rate this resort as a 4 but we would rate it as 3 at most. There was no rep here and boy did we need one. There was no welcome pack and limited, due to language problems, help from the staff.

Please this is not a rant.. it’s the fact! This was perhaps the worst break we have ever been on. Booked all inclusive 10 days at the Athena Resort via EasyJet holiday. The resort itself has a lot of potentials (especially for a family with kids). However, the cleanliness, food and location is so terrible that it feels uninhabitable and inhumane. Our experience started with an overcrowded reception, the floors and walls looks old and worn. We were given keys to a room 5 ground floor in main building. The balcony badly fitted a bedside table and completely covered bushes. At most the side of the balcony space is 2ft by 4ft. Hardly enough to have 2 adults stand side-by-side. Immediately in front was the wall of the reception. So no sun, no air, and very claustrophobic. The lights in the room were dim and unsuitable. We had no refrigerator in the room and the toilet was very difficult to get into. The showers were rusty and the provided towels were so old and worn that it felt like they hadn’t been changed in 10yrs. Dinner felt like walking in a crowded mall, the chips were cold and the salad felt like they had been lying around all day. Which was the case as we caught a glimpse of backup trays of salad left uncovered in lower shelves of the serving area. There was a chef serving freshly made linguine but even then it wasn’t the most palatable. At this point, we had been in the resort for nearly 3hrs. The main restaurant had an odious small that was equally a put off. We abandoned dinner and the group went back to the room. The all inclusive offering was quite bad. There was a tasteless mix of local gin with what felt like Ribena. Breakfast was worse, the odour persisted with the crowd. The food was untouchable for all including kids. We decided to ask the reception to book a taxi to nearest town of Scoglitti (6km) and we were told it cost €65. We later found out we were ripped off by the excursion team who had added a €30 charge on top of the taxi fare. Scoglitti itself is a wonderful town and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. However on return to the hotel, we encountered an incident in the small pool whilst the kids were swimming where a large poo was pulled out from the deep end. It was the last straw, we packed our bags after 2 days and left Athena Resort. I hope the management of this establishment take note or face the risk of a complete shut down.

Very good food! Beach is perfect! Animation is amazing! We was wit a family for a week and we are super happy with this vacation! Thanks to Hotel Athena! Everyone who want to have good vacation can choose Athena Resort!

Firstly, I too was concerned having read some of the reviews on here prior to travelling but those concerns were quickly wiped. We travelled with Eastjet Holidays which included private transfers to and from Catania which was a massive bonus as it is an hour and half journey (would have been a lot longer on a big bus) Upon arrival at 10.30pm we were swiftly checked in by the reception team and guided straight into the restaurant where they had food ready for us and as we were all pretty hungry so this was well received and created a great start. We then headed to our rooms in the village which were fairly basic yes, but clean, spacious and there was a fridge, hairdryer & plenty of hanging space and drawers for clothes etc. And as previously mentioned on other reviews the beds are incredibly comfortable! Rooms serviced daily to a great standard and towels replaced whenever you wanted them to be etc. Food - Excellent, fresh, plentiful and pretty varied. There is so much choice and a fresh pasta dish cooked in front of you with seafood or whatever (changed daily) and a counter where they served freshly prepped meats and fish dishes with vegetables. We enjoyed every single mouthful at every single mealtime. The pizza restaurant and the beach restaurant have to be booked the day before at the counter at reception and this is explained to you at check-in....couldn't be clearer in all honesty. The Pizzeria and beach restaurants are both excellent and in 8 days we visited both twice. The drinks are fine - Peroni, white and red wine as well as lots of soft drink options in all restaurants which are self service and at the bar you have lots of choices too including daily cocktails which were great & vodka, gin etc. The resort itself is pretty big and remote so do your homework as to whether this is going to work for you or not. We hired a car for 3 days to explore locally as this work out around the same as it would have to have booked excursions for the 4 of us to the same places - Vitorria for the biggest market I've ever seen, Scoglitti and the highlight was Marina di Ragusa. There are lots of options for other excursions too which can be booked once you are there. The pools are great and there's something for everybody....quiet or full on whichever you prefer. We did both when to mood took us and embraced the evening entertainment up at the Olympic pool. The private beach is excellent. Entertainment in the form of dancing and fitness but easily avoided if that's not for you. More than enough sunbeds and pedalo's for hire. The sea is shallow, warm and just lovely. The beach bus provided by the Resort is regular and never too crammed and takes less than 10 mins. If you choose to visit here (and you are not from Italy) then at least make the effort to learn at least a few phrases or words in Italian. That effort goes a long way. I would say that most staff speak a little English...some more than others but if you can at least ask for a table an