Cyprus and Cap St. Georges Hotel and Resort

[LawrenceChard]

I occasionally used to post reviews on TripAdvisor, but have now stopped because my last review, which took me more than a half hour to create, never got published. There also appears to be no way for an individual member to contact TA to enquire about progress of a review, or lack of it, so goodbye TA.

I feel sure that @TheTravelForum-Chris will be far more democratic and responsive, so here goes...

Jane and I have just returned from a late-booked fortnight in Cyprus at the Cap St. Georges Hotel and Resort. 

This is a new 5* hotel, which only opened in April 2022.

It is an excellent hotel, which we would recommend, and we would be happy to return there in future.

It is rather remote, being on the west coast, about 34kms away from Paphos Airport, and almost as far north along the west coast as roads will take you. The nearest bars and restaurants are all at least a 20 minute walk away, so it is not easy to "eat around", which we like to do. Fortunately, it does have a number of bars and restaurants of its own, including a Greek / Cypriot / Mediterranean one (Mesoyios), Italian, and Japanese. Mesoyios has indoor and outdoor (near the beach) sections. There is also a separate breakfast restaurant (Yeronisos), which has indoor and outdoor terrace sections. 

We both happen to enjoy long, lazy, breakfasts, and the extensive buffet selection here is among the best we know. There is also an "egg-chef", who will cook eggs almost any way you wish. We also enjoyed spanakopita, which is a Greek savoury spinach pie. If something was missing from the buffet, there was a good chance that they would make it specially the next day, or reserve some for you.

Although Jane has visited Cyprus before, it was my first time. It struck me as a slightly hotter, more arid, version of Malta. The driving is also on the left hand side, and almost everyone speaks English (I only came across one person who couldn't - as he managed to tell me in English).

We were in the southern part, the Greek speaking Republic of Cyprus, not the northern Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), where Turkish is the main language.

Like Malta, everyone seemed to be genuinely warm and friendly, including the hotel staff, who also combined it with being professional and helpful.

I must give a mention to one of the breakfast waitresses, Milena, who was originally from Bulgaria. Every hotel, and every hospitality business, should have a Milena.

Other name checks go to our room maid Sylvia, who had now heard of Dr. Hook, and the beachside parasol, cabana, and towel man, Nikos, both simply unassuming, friendly, and efficient.

Many, or possibly most, of the staff were not Cypriot, and nationalities included Greek, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Georgian, Latvia, and Ukrainian.

We probably hit the perfect time to go, for us at any rate, as the temperature stayed between about 24 to 27 in the day, and dropped to around 20 at night. We would not enjoy it there in July and August when it can hit the upper 40s, which is too hot for many, but not all. The weather forecast threatened rain on some days, but we experienced almost none, although the weather was turning cooler and wetter as we left.

We booked direct with the hotel, and arrange our own Jet2 flights. We have found that many of the best, or our favourite, hotels cannot be booked via TA, Booking.com, etc. There is almost certainly a good reason for this. The booking sites all work on commissions (often about 15%), so quite understandably hotels can provide better value for its customers by dealing direct.

There are a few possible negatives with the hotel. It is remote, so will not appeal to everyone, although this means the small beach was uncrowded, and there are quiet walks north and south with great sea views.

The large (50 metres?), main outdoor pool was cold (in our opinion), and its temperature unknown. The smaller indoor (spa) pool was also cool, at 25 degrees. The sea was warm.

We guess that the beach cabanas and parasols will be in short supply at peak times.

A taxi from Paphos airport is about €80, although of course this is not the fault of the hotel, and public transport would mean about 4 different buses. Next time, we will hire a car from the airport.

I was surprised to learn that the patron saint of Cyprus is St. Barnabas, as St George seemed to be everywhere, although we were staying in the Agios (Saint) Georgios area, with a church of that name about a 20 minute walk to the north.

If I have omitted anything important, please let me know.

😎

[TheTravelForum-Chris]

Thank you for your very detailed review

[LawrenceChard]

1 minute ago, TheTravelForum-Chris said:

Thank you for your very detailed review

You're welcome!

Actually I initially did a shorter version while we were waiting for our driver to collect us from the hotel, but when I hit "Submit Topic", I got an error messsage as my wifi connection had dropped. 

I often copy stuff into a text document before I hit "post" because it's good practice learned from long experience, but Jane was rushing me!

😎