Elysia Park

Really nice apartment. Complex is really nice and the swimming pools are incredible. Unfortunately due to location being inland you do get quite a lot of road noise, depending on where you are staying. Late check in was not great and cleaning was all over the place not carried out every three days as advertised.

The complex is a mix of privately-owned and holiday lets, away from the harbour and covering a large plot in an otherwise residential area. It was clean and well-maintained and the apartment had everything we needed, including a microwave and dishwasher and washing machine. There were loo rolls and a couple of tiny bottles of toiletries however little else was provided: no washing up liquid for example (so you have to buy a standard sized bottle for just a week of use). Dishwasher and washing machine tabs are available to buy at the Reception for 50 cents each. There is a small shop just outside the complex but the prices are sky high; a block of local butter was 4.50 Euro and a tin of tuna was 2 Euro, so if you plan on self-catering you will need a hefty budget. It was expensive to buy anything in the bigger supermarkets as well but the little shop was the highest. There is a restaurant on site and a takeaway burger, a curry, a chicken wrap and a pizza, plus 2 sides of wedges cost 60 Euro. We had a 6 hour gap between check out and when the taxi was coming to collect us for the airport to go home and we were offered a courtesy room for an hour, which was really helpful. If we wanted to stay with our own room for those 6 hours the cost would have been 50 Euro so that felt a bit odd as the courtesy room was actually nicer than the one we had been staying in! The beds in the apartment were really comfortable and there was plenty of hanging and drawer space. The pools had a lifeguard in attendance during the bulk of each day. Very few sunbeds and all were a bit the worse for wear. Sadly, the pools were freezing so we could not really use them for more than 5 mins at a time, which was a shame as they are lovely and big and clean. Some general info about the experience: There is a bus stop outside the Elysia Park and the bus service (the 603 or 603B) runs pretty much every half hour through the day and will take you down to the harbour or up to the town area on the hill, for 1.5 Euro per person PER DIRECTION. This is important as you might go down to the harbour for example, then change buses there and go further on to Coral Bay for a great beach and you can use the same ticket to complete the journey as you are going in the one direction, albeit via 2 buses. Then it is the same principle on your return. The Reception staff did not include any info on the buses when we arrived but were very quick to order us taxis everywhere. It was only after we had been there for 5 days that they gave us a preprinted slip with info about bus times. We could have saved well over 120 Euro if we had known about the bus service from the outset. Taxis seem in the main to be privately-owned by their drivers. They have obviously agreed a set price for the most used journeys and that price is pretty steep. The journey by taxi from the harbour to the Elysia Park takes 4-6 mins and will cost you 10 Euro. We asked one driver to drop 2 of us at the supermarket which was literally on the way back and he added 2 extra Euro on at the end! It is quite a walk to the harbour; takes 25-30 mins down hill and there is cat poo everywhere; it is a major problem on the residential streets as it literally is EVERYwhere... if it is hot it is no fun to walk back up the hill after an evening out so, as mentioned, get to know the bus times and you will save your legs and your money. All in all, I think it would be a challenge to visit this area of Cyprus on a tight budget. We got a great deal from Travel Republic on the accommodation which helped enormously but the over all impression was that it was all about extracting as much money from the tourists as possible for every thing and that has left us feeling a bit reluctant to consider a return visit.