Corfu

Anyone ever been?  We may book our holiday there tonight, in Roda, which is supposed to be a very quiet, laidback sort of place (Ibiza-esque party zone? NO THANKS!) Just wondering if anyone has been and what their experiences were. It's one of the less expensive beach holidays flying out of Newcastle this year, and will be my first Euro holiday! 

I have had many holidays in Europe and Corfu was the worst place ever..for me anyway.

We stayed in Kavos and it was a dump.  The pictures of the beaches look wonderful but when we arrived there was 3ft high mounds of seaweed all across the shoreline with dead seagulls, gloves and other rubbish hanging out of it and the smell was atrocious  This wasn't just the one beach..it was every one we visited.

The town was made of of shacks with neon lights hanging off it for the night time.  Lots of very young Chav's pissed out of their heads drunk...vomiting on the streets..Toilets overfilling and washing raw sewage down the road.  There was nothing "Greek" about the place.  It was catered towards young holiday makers. "Only Fools & Horses" played constantly in virtually every pub.  If it wasn't that it was "rave" music blaring out everywhere. Hardly a decent restaurant or tappas bars...it was all Maccy D's and greasy spoons.

A taxi driver drove me into a field rather than the hotel and made some very sexual remarks about "f-ing me from behind" which was really scary!! At not one point in anytime did I give off any "sexual impression"..especially as he was old and had hardly a tooth in his head!!.  Luckily I gave him a mouthful of abuse and he took me back to my apartment untouched..but I legged it out of the cab without paying the jerk.

Our hotel was nice..but we never wanted to leave it!!  It rained 6 days out of the 10 we were there..and when I say rain..I mean full gale force winds and thunder!

I was quite glad to get home!!

I am sure thats not all of Corfu..just that area..I would avoid like the plague.

I have been to the island of Crete and it was completely different. Stayed in Eulonda which is a very authentic area. Lovely harbours...seafront restaurants...great food..Greek entertainment etc...  Again tho with Crete..I would avoid Malia which is the other side of the island..because again its catered for youngsters.

That's what we read about Kavos, more or less. This place we are thinking of is in Roda, which, I think, is on the other side of the island. From what I have read, it caters to families and people seeking a quiet holiday and the beach is really calm and fairly empty. Neither of us is keen on staying in a big resort, and we liked this place because it is a small hotel with only 19 rooms and there are loads and loads of blogs about how nice the family is who runs it and how much people want to go back to visit them the following year, so I take it that even though it's not the nicest hotel (don't really care about that too much as long as it's not too dirty or roach-infested, a small, clean room is fine with me, as we won't be in it very much) it must be a very nice atmosphere. This is the link to the place we are thinking of staying in:

http://www.spiros-no1.gr/

Again, nothing fancy, but we just wanted a quiet, nice place to spend our first anniversary. What do you think?

Just checked out some reviews..looks good 

I couldn't find much on local areas on interest.  There must be somewhere...I just couldn't find them that easily.  I would always suggest going to the harbours in Greece.  You will usually lovely restaurants down there.  Basic but lovely.  Buy lots of insect repellant..I get bitten to smithereens in Greece...no matter what island I go to 

A good site to check out ( which I wish I knew about before the Kavos Ciaos ) is

www.holidaywatchdog.com

Well, the reviews are a bit hit and miss, but I suppose any place would have it's fair share of that, as everyone cares about different things, and some people are just never satisfied in general. I read there are a few great restaurants (and nearly everyone reported that the food in the hotel itself was wonderful), some day trips to other islands, and a few places to shop, but other than that, there isn't much there. Fine with us, as we more or less just wanna hang by the pool or on the beach and read a book or have a few cocktails and relax, I don't really want a place that advertises it's "great nightlife" as I know what that generally means!   
It's just that a few of the reviewers said the rooms were very dirty and the beach wasn't very clean. It's a pretty bargain holiday (£500 for both of us) so I suppose you get what you pay for, and I'm not expecting anything fancy, but I hope it wouldn't be too gross (the hotel I booked into in London was the worst ever - couldn't believe it when we got there, it would be hard to find something worse than that, I think).
We had pretty much made up our minds on this place, but is there anywhere else you would recommend that is in a similar price range and would be nice and quiet and relaxed? I really do want our first holiday together to be special, since we are going for our first anniversary and everything. Thanks!

For Greek holidays I tend to use the agent below.  I call them usually. I myself have found them really helpful...I tell them exactly what I want and what I dont want.  What my budget is ect...and they will come up with suggestions of which you can look at on the internet.  All the accomodation I have stayed at through them has been nice and clean.  It is usually pretty basic ( but most package appartments to Greece are ) But the facillities have always been good, good food, pretty surroundings, clean pool ect..

I also find they don't push their holiday excursions on you when you get there..and infact on a couple of occassions the rep has suggested people to go and see directly on excursions so that its cheaper.  For example their boat trip was £30 each but directly it only cost me £18 each just by going to chat to the local boat owner at the harbour...

Different people have different experiences I suppose..but I think they are ok.

www.libraholidays.co.uk

PD: thanks for the holiday watchdog link, that's a new one on me!  I checked out the hotel where DH and I stayed in Tunisia, out of interest - there were quite a lot of reviews on the site, which I thought was good.

Jewlz: here is another website link for hotel reviews and general advice.  I posted a review of the Tunisian hotel referenced above, and flagged that I was happy for other people to contact me with queries, and someone did so within a couple of weeks of my post.  Maybe you (and others) might find this helpful:  http://www.tripadvisor.com/

Thanks to you both for the helpful advice! I will have a look before we take the plunge!