Mark Warner Holidays Reviews 378

Loved the holiday and location. Resort was good. Mainly played tennis and padel. Was a real shame about the coaching staff

Friendly staff, especially Sue, the Resort Manager, when my girlfriend lost her passport, and Dimitry (I think it was) who off his own initiative phoned the restaurant where she'd left it in Moudros !

The team at the resort were fantastic but the company's chosen charter airline, Enter Air, provides the poorest flying service I've ever encountered - late flights, poor pilot updates, inadequate food and equipment supplie as well as cabin crew who tend to shrug it all off without apologies.

Great place to holiday, must say it was disappointing the lack of equipment. New equipment arrived for the send week, but why was this not in place prior to the season starting? No driver for the ski boat, again until partway through the second week. Drinks at the resort are shockingly high. Would be interested in hearing back on the lack of equipment from MW and why I should be paying top dollar for a substandard experience?

Good quality hotel with lovely position. Our family had three adjacent garden rooms that had a great location and easy access for the child buggy. The rooms were well serviced and kept very clean. Friendly and helpful MW staff, especially the MW Manager. The hotel staff too were friendly and welcoming. Good range of activities and equipment although the windsurfing equipment was a little limited and tired

The resort itself was great in terms of staff, facilities and activities. The pool areas especially were perfect and both the MW and local staff were super friendly. Our kids seemed to enjoy the childcare provision. Our only criticisms of the resort were the lack of wind for watersports (quite significant when you are going predominantly for sailing and windsurfing) and we did find the food pretty average. Very heavy on the pork! Even with these criticisms we would still have definitely given the resort a solid 4/5 stars. However…

Whilst the booking process was good, our experience was let down by the UK based customer services / strange company policies and fluctuating prices. This would probably put us off using MW again in future

Another successful MW holiday at Phokaia. We had the advantage of being there for Charlie’s regatta week when even the most experienced sailor is likely to learn something new from Charlie’s tips and demonstrations. With so many additional races during the week, every sailor had the opportunity to race in different crafts and weather conditions.
The tennis 🎾 sessions were also a very worthwhile experience.
As I said before, the staff are MW’s most valuable assets.

The whole experience was excellent! Friendly staff, excellent food, the waterfront staff in particular were amazing; nothing was too much trouble for them. The resort general manager was superb too! It would be difficult to top this holiday!

We keep on going on Mark Warner active beach holidays. I can leave my comfortable bed in our spacious room and within five minutes be doing any of these activities:
Eating healthy and tasty Greek food in the generously stocked buffet restaurant,
Taking a mountain bike out on the mountain tracks, Taking a road bike on the quiet roads,
Snorkeling among the fishes in the clear Agean sea water,
Zooming along in a variety of dingies or a cat,
Getting excited windsurfing in the strong afternoon wind,
Playing tennis, or padel, joining in exercise classes.

All this in a hotel in beautiful gardens, staffed by lovely local staff and patient, skilled and fun Mark Warner activity specialists, on a very relaxed rural agricultural island with friendly local people, colourful flowers and insects and cute baby swifts.

I haven't even mentioned the gym, paddle boards, kayaks, wing surfing and foiling!

Beautiful location, clear water, sandy beach and magnificent sunsets!! We will return!!

Kamari Beach” on Lardos Beach
The Mark Warner online brochure trumpets:
“The local conditions are perfect for water sports. Combining this with our large sailing area and amazing instructors, you’ll be all set for unforgettable days out on the ocean.“
This passage conveys and was intended to convey that the holiday package provides an opportunity to sail in perfect sailing conditions in a relatively free large area (“Ocean”) helped by competent sailing instructors .The reality is the polar opposite.
1. The sailing area is confined to a fixed very small rectangular pen regardless of wind strength and direction .If you stray outside this small highly restricting area by even a boat length no matter what your level of sailing expertise or the wind strength, you are immediately “hunted” down by a power hungry boy in a Rib and shouted at (“ Stay within the Markers Sir”).Why ? Its Force 2 with no significant waves, there are 4 dinghies out, visibility is perfect ,it’s obvious all 4 Single-handers are experienced sailors. It was “unforgettable” for ALL the wrong reasons.
2. The Sailing Pen is positioned in the obvious Wind Shadow of a nearby high Hill .There is very little wind in half of the Pen. The other half is spoilt by wind eddies .One minute you are semi-hiking and bearing away the next you are ducking in and sheeting in. The wind shifts 20 -30 degrees in a heartbeat. The sailing area and wind conditions were hugely frustrating and never enjoyable . for any dinghy sailor it will be very frustrating. Further out the wind becomes stronger and consistent and would provide for an enjoyable hiking reach. But stray to fair winds and the boy in the Rib will hunt you down for his Power fix
3. The instructors are “amazingly”” incompetent Numptees ! When I questioned what a 1mm( yes, 1mm ) piece of twine was doing in the Laser Downhaul ,I was met with “It does the job Sir” .[ Training by the Fast Show : suffix every sentence with “Sir” ] .The job? Not trimming the Luff but trimming flesh from your fingers trying to trim it. Unbelievably, this twine was anchored to a 9mm (!) rope in the outhaul [ not the kicker block]. This rope was far too wide for the blocks too. The Dinghies were beyond decrepit and dangerous (see Below).I was never asked by the “amazing” Beach Boss Justin or anyone else before I was let out on the water “Do you know how to sail? /Have you been in a boat before? /Can you swim”? . When I questioned these omissions on day 5 it was met with “ Oh no need to ask that ! If you capsize we are there to rescue you, Sir “ What a cretin! Those are fundamental and imperative questions to ask. What if a boom hits my skull because I do not know about gybes ? What if my feet get wrapped in a sheet when I capsize and I get trapped under the hull ? Are MW staff not interested in attempting to help sailors improve or have a more enjoyable sail? Is there nothing they want to contribute positively. On the one day the wind did pick up and became onshore Sailing was cancelled. The reason being “we cannot launch in waves” Really ? Pathetic. When compounded by the appalling fit out of the 4 full size lasers the sailing was so frustrating I gave up on day 2 .The purpose of my holiday stultified. Btw there’s No sailing on Saturdays (2 of your Holiday days) and No sailing or any water sports when there are “waves”. Maybe re-locate to a Lake?
The Dinghies: see the photos on TripA .There are 6 Lasers which were very old and very abused .No sail battens .No wind indicators .No proper sized ropes .The mainsheets were hard and stiff with salt .The blocks were broken and long abused .The Kickers twisted and deployed cannibalized systems /blocks The Downhaul and Outhaul were unusable .The Tillers were screwed into the rudder stocks .The Amazing Numptee put the tiller over the mainsheet track then when challenged, under both strands of the Mainsheet Track ! . To fix that you now have to take the rudder off at sea. The tillers were so low they stuck/jammed on the mainsheet track cleat .The T- extension so short you could not hike fully or sit forward .Overall, no dinghy sailor could enjoy sailing these dumpster dinghies .There were 2-3 RS Aeros and other single handers in the Dinghy field but no effort was made to release these .Do not Book this Resort for Sailing .You will rage with frustration having been conned out of your Holiday time and Money.
The Package was a Waste of Time and Money .Never again .See TripA
Resort Location: On Lardos Beach in front of a curious recycling facility See Photos providing a glorious view for those in Room 50 et al. See Photos on TripA. Lardos is highly touristy in the worst possible way. Tacky and exploitative .The Beach is dirty and unappealing .The sea water looks cloudy .A River adjacent to the onsite Sewage plant discharges into the sea close to the Hotel.

Just returned from a very disappointing week at Kamari. It is safe to say that the MW standard has significantly declined. The hotel is far from ‘stylish and modern’ as advertised. Our bathroom (which had no bath) was a total health and safety hazard, with rusty parts and pink mould. There was no shower door so everything was damp the entire week. The electrical socket by our bed had no cover and the wiring was exposed. I could go on.
The water sport equipment was in shocking condition with some advertised activities and components missing entirely. This was the first week of the season but it felt like nothing had been touched or replaced all winter.
Two members of the group have serious nut allergies and the food was repeatedly miss labelled or missing completely.
In fairness, the childcare was great and the team were lovely with our son.

Mark Warner website will not load!! Wtf, another cyber attack?

The holiday went well with no hitches. Staff at Hotel Ecrins were pleasant, helpful and welcoming. The hotel itself was in good condition and as expected as I had been the previous year. The evening meals were generally tasty but I believe they were slightly smaller than the previous year and not sure about having mushrooms in a fish pie. Afternoon tea was a bit restricted as it was 4.30 to 5.30 exactly and limited. All said I would return again at the right price.

Friendly and helpful staff team, good food. Good location with short walk to ski or bus outside in both directions every 10 minutes making it easy to ski or return from anywhere in resort and also the centre of Tignes Le Lac in minutes. Others guests always a friendly and mainly British crowd. This resort suits intermediates upwards, ( blue /green) new skiers may be better a locations with lots of nursery slopes how ever there is still enough to learn on.

We had some critical feedback regarding safety in the sailing school for 7 year olds, Mould in our room, extortionate drinks price, unsafe transfer coach… we emailed Head of Customer Service providing this feedback, not asking for a refund or future discount etc. and we were sent two aggressive emails back from him! How he wouldn’t accept my husband’s complaints as they were sent separately, how pricing was normal for Turkey, nothing addressing our safety concerns. What a terrible experience that man left us with. Staff on the ground were great.

I think it is important to provide balanced feedback, rather than just focus on the negatives, so I will structure this into 2 sections, positive and negative:

Positives - The hotel is well located close to town and a 10 minute walk to the lifts. The staff are friendly and are clearly trying their best. The facilities in the hotel are generally pretty good. The childcare team and kids club are the main selling point; these staff and the service they provided made up for a lot of the negatives listed below.

Negatives - The charter flight arrangements with BA are not great. First of all the timings, horribly early 4:30am checkin on the way out and 5am departure on the way back. Because it's a charter there is no online checkin and you end up with lengthy checkin queues at the airport. We sat in the same dirty seats both ways. Someone had spilt a sticky drink all over the seats, seatbelts and tray tables, that had not been cleaned up. This is a BA flight without the BA quality! Whilst the hotel staff on reception, in the kids club and restaurant are clearly trying their best and working hard, the reality is that they are covering up a management problem. The hotel manager provided a brief on the first day but then wasn't seen for the rest of the week, whilst the deputy manager was visible most of the time. However, it was the childcare manager's day off on the arrival day and neither manager or deputy manager were able to provide all of the details for the next day. This lack of communication became the theme for the entire week. There are general notices about things like meal timings on the wall on the stairs, but we were finding out about ski lesson requirements from other families, rather than the staff. For example, whilst adult ski passes are ready on arrival, the kids ones are not. On the evening before a ski lesson, after the ski office was shut, we were told that we needed to go and get a lift pass for the next day. This meant delaying the start of the ski lesson whilst the parents ran around town trying to get ski passes for the kids. It was the same for the ski presentations, where the timings were provided 3 hours before and picked up by word of mouth around the families. Given that this was well into the season and a weekly routine, it was quite astonishing how disorganised it all was. For the kids ski passes (free under 7 years) why on earth they aren't collected at the same time as the adult passes and made available at the start of the week is baffling. The reason given was that all kids might not end up going up a ski lift during their week of lessons, so they wait to see what the instructor says. This is nonsensical, as most kids will be on a ski lift by the end of a week of lessons and they will inevitably be going on the slopes with their parents on the last day (when there are no ski lessons). Next the food, which is mentioned in a lot of other people's reviews. The problem is quite simple, the hotel is exclusively run by people shipped out from the UK for a ski season. They are mostly young people trying their best and this review is not meant to belittle their efforts. Rather, the point being made, having used many of Mark Warner's competitors over the years, is that you will only get superior food quality in the restaurant if you either employ local chefs and kitchen staff or ship out people from the same industry in the UK. It is the difference between experienced professionals and gifted amateurs. I applaud the efforts made by these staff, they did the best they could under the circumstances. A few other things that are worth adding. The pool complex is lovely but for some bizarre reason the spa section is freezing cold, whilst the pool itself is heated. Who sits in a cold jacuzzi? Whilst on the cold, coach 2 had a "known problem" of the heating not working, so everyone froze on the 3 hour journey back to the airport, whilst the Mark Warner rep had brought blankets for themselves. It would have been nice to have known this before we boarded the coach, but also maybe get a coach with heating that works! I believe that most of the issues here are down to poor communication and management, so it would be disappointing if this feedback was taken out on the staff. Simple things, like the staff not knowing where to go and buy a ski pass, looking on Google Maps. Surely, some basic staff training should be provided at the start of the season, so that they all know how to answer basic guest questions.

Sadly, overall not good and we will not be using Mark Warner again next year.

My family went on a week long break with Mark Warner Holidays in Phokaia Beach in Turkey last October. The holiday, itself was fine, although in hindsight, it turned out to be a lot more expensive than had we booked a similar holiday directly ourselves. Following our return to the UK, we were asked to give feedback to Mark Warner on our experiences so we though we would take the opportunity to mention a number of the elements that we found sub-standard. These included a coach that had broken seat and so seat belts, a number issues with the poor cleanliness in the suite, the exorbitant prices of the drinks in the hotel, tennis nets broken, booked sailing trip and refused entry due to captain forgetting to record our booking and finally, a group of under 10 (including our daughter) being stranded on a sailing boat with a non-trained MW staff member in charge.
We were genuinely expecting acknowledgment and understanding for our comments but the response from the Head of Customer Services was nothing short of hostile. We were completely taken aback. Rather than taking our comments as constructive criticism, for which we wanted nothing in return, he moved the blame to us for not bringing these things up while we were at the hotel. Did he not consider that we didn’t want to and all we wanted to do was to offer constructive criticism for the benefit of Mark Warner. All we wanted was to be heard and respected for our grievances and an unconditional apology. Instead, we got repeated mentions that we should have complained while we were there. So it was our fault. Honestly, if this guy is Head of customer service then its no wonder it’s on 3 stars on Trust Pilot.
I still not looking or expecting anything from Mark Warner. I just want to warn would-be travellers not to expect to be listened to if you have a grievance.