Mark Warner Holidays Avis 403

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.

Great staff.
Social table worked well.
Wine with dinner important

Usually use Neilson but thought we would try Club Mark Warner to Greece Lesbos
Totally avoid . My husband sails and road bike rides . There was only 1 guide for each ride , he was also the mechanic of the bikes . The bikes were totally dangerous , they were 2 years old , brakes didn’t work properly ,
and so many more faults . Bike riders had to turn around or be collected of bike failed on the rides .
Riders at the back were left behind as no back guide , not the guides fault but totally Club Mark Warners . The fitness instructor was amazing but there was only her doing all the classes . Thankfully there were never anymore than 8 people in the classes as there was not enough equipment .
The gym was an utter disgrace , tiny , equipment not working and missing equipment in there . The overall fitness manager was totally full of himself and totally shot you down in flames if you were not happy with anything .
The hotel itself was very good with lovely rooms . The breakfast however was poor with tinned chopped up fruit instead of fresh . The dinner was ok with plenty of choice but quite oily .
Lesbos itself was a gorgeous little town and easy to access.
Would I go back ? Definitely a big no! And I would never use Club mark Warner again -very disappointed.

Staff were excellent, especially Fiona and Georgia. Knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, always smiling. Location of chalet hotel really good. Rooms good size. The social table is a great idea to make it more chalet than hotel. Food was good. Pool too cold though, and the hot tub was more a ice tub!!!

Hot tub cold. Food good

We holidayed in Oct half term - Multiple issues experienced;

The swimming pool was too cold to use for either leisure, fitness classes or the kids' club activities.
The indoor spa pool was unheated when we first arrived. They heated it up later in the week but it was too small to use for fitness or kids' activities and our teenage kids weren't allowed to play in there as it was a 'quiet' space.
Halfway through our holiday the Turkish Sailing Federation turned up at the resort and cordoned off the main beach and sea swimming area so the beach and sea swimming area were also unavailable to MW Guests.
Many of the boats also covered the beach volleyball pitch so that was also unavailable - Kids were offered alternative activity of playing Dobble and Mafia.
OVERALL - NO POOL AVAILABLE / VERY LITTLE BEACH OR SEA SWIMMING AVAILABLE - the small area of beach and small sea area which was available for swimming was backed by motor boats - not pleasant view from the beach or pleasant to swim when a motor boat starts up.

Cycling wasn't available to under 14's - not made clear on the website before we booked. Half of cycling routes were on very busy main roads, also not many alternative routes to cycle as a lot of surrounding area is military.

Not enough staff available in the watersports area, all tuition booked up until the day before our departure.

Daughter got stuck in a lift and was told to climb down whilst doors were held open manually.

A staff gathering held in the room above one of our hotel rooms one night - kept awake until past 3am.

3 days of our stay there was either no hot water or very little water pressure in the rooms.

The staff in the spa were increidbly pushy, everyone who went in for a taster session were told that they needed 'multiple medical massages'!

Chocolate spread on the buffet contained nuts but was not labelled.

Our complaint about all of the above was met with such a ridiculous generic response - showing that MW really didn't care about our holdiay experience. They offered us money off our next MW booking which was less than the offers available from their regular marketing emails.

In Summary - the activities and watersports style of holiday is an absolutely winning formula especially if you have teenage kids, but we certainly would never return to Phokaia and will be booking our holiday this year thorugh another company which offers the same style of holiday.

The rooms, staff and food were very good
Some other aspects were not so good
The beach is small and sparse
Only about 7 metres of sand before the sea
Some of the parasols were in poor condition
There is a road which has to crossed before getting to the beach
The dinghy we took for a sail was in poor condition with one sail missing and toe straps broken
There were no locks on the WC cubicles
Some of the WC cisterns ran continously all the time we were there - I reckon that used about 12000 litres of water in a week
I think some aspects of the resort need a capable maintenace team working under the instruction of an observant site manager

First things first, the Mark Warner staff are exceptional and the facilities and teaching/coaching is fantastic, I’d have no hesitation recommending them, however, they were let down by the hotel. We were in an annexe block and the room was functional at best, but of a poor standard. We suffered 6 power cuts one night, the wi-fi was virtually non-existent and impossible to connect to, the shower drainage flowed back up into the bathroom from an overflow pipe, and we had ants! There was also vomiting bug going around, my wife had it, but there was NO communication of this from the hotel or any extra cleaning protocols put in place to mitigate it. We assumed my wife had food poisoning but then found out about the bug via hearing rumours and conversations around the site.
Again, the facilities and staff provided by Mark Warner were fabulous, the room and hotel in general left a huge amount to be desired and not commensurate with the price we paid.

Sadly Mark Warner has a shocking lack of corporate social responsibility. The aggressive "tennis coach" who was so nasty to my son he refused to try tennis boasted that all the old sports equipment is thrown away rather than donated to the local ( clearly quite poor school ) as he can't be bothered and just chucks it all . There were stray cats and kittens at the resort. Mark Warner could easily afford to neuter and turn them into the resort pets. No water stations so guests are forced to buy bottled water which was plonked on the table without asking then charged for. Staff will let children sign for anything at the bar to appear on parents bill. Some staff ie Oscar at the bikes were brilliant and charming but most were clear that it was the last week of the season they were paid a pittance and their employment was ending the day the final guests left and they could not be bothered. My child was a week off his 14 birthday so had to be in the 10 - 13 age group which is fair enough as that is the rules but the activities were very babyish with no imagination ie find the plastic cup and face painting. The woman running it had no idea how to engage children and just said they would be banned if they did listen to her and exaggerated her complaints. The other staff then openly discussed their irritation with some of the boys. From arrival when I was told I had missed the welcome meeting because the wrong time had been printed on the leaflet but it was too late to change it so basically what did I want to know communication was terrible. Staff won't tell you where the local supermarket is ( map would be handy ) telling you everything you need is in resort as MW don't want you not spending all your money with them. No maps given out for bike rides and my son was told to meet at the waterfront, very vague, when he did not see his group as they were meeting behind the life jackets so missed his session his group leader just blamed him for not seeing them and was not bothered instead of taking on board it's important to have a clear meeting point for children not just say meet on the whole beach. Feedback was ignored she was clearly just counting the days down till the season was over and there was no energy or enthusiasm for the kids ( total contrast to the great child group leader at Lemnos my son had been with at MW in summer) It does not take much to tell guests that the paddle boarding closes at 5pm instead of saying you have 15 minutes to get off the water. Everything had to be found out from other guests as nothing was communicated properly. Local staff were nice but their priority was rushing you out of the restaurant and if you didn't watch your plate it was taken, It was run like a school canteen, rush guests to eat as fast as possible and get out and snatch plates off table the second a fork hits the plate. But in conclusion is was the poor child care and lack of any community spirit by Mark Warner and a tennis coach who was so unpleasant when I asked if my son could try tennis telling him balls would be flying around?? so he didn't that means I will not rebook as I had intended for next summer. Mark Warner neuter the poor cats on your property and vaccinate them and donate to a local charity to help the sick and injured ones in Paleos and give your old sport's equipment to the local school and pick up the plastic around the resort. You should be a member of the community not indifferent or too mean to tell guests where the local shops are incase they send a few euros in support of the locals and not your organisation

Whilst we enjoyed our holiday there were many areas which we feel need improvement to reflect the value for money. It cost us a considerable amount for the week and we were dissapointed with certain things. We had to request to move room after spending three nights in a room which stank of cigarette smoke - coming from another room. The last two days of our holiday we were not allowed access to parts of the beach due to a big sailing competition - we should have been told about this prior to our arrival. The restaurant was so busy with the sailing lot that paying guests struggled to find tables in the evening. Many other guests were also unhappy about this. Tennis courts looked very tired. Booked spa treatments but they didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on and gave us the wrong treatments so we cancelled others.
Swimming pool was absolutely freezing.

Whilst we enjoyed our break we will not be returning and to be honest not sure we would look at Mark Warner again

The holiday was, for the most part, classic Mark Warner and excellent. However the Turkish sailing team descended on the hotel and completely took over the beach front - I have pictures whereby there was only around 10metres of the entire beach reserved for us guests and the kids clubs weren’t allowed to take the kids in the sea because of the sailing boats coming and going. Having paid so much (£7k+) for a family of 5 this felt like a bit of a cheek as we were essentially subsidising the Turkish sailing team which is very unfair.
This was our second visit to this resort and I would not return unless we were guaranteed that this wouldn’t happen again.

The other issue with this holiday is that the team are split. Mark Warner responsible for some customer relations, kids clubs and water sports, all of which are excellent but Turkish team run the hotel and their English is as good as my Turkish(!) and service can be pretty poor. Reception go out of their way to be un helpful and the guy who books the excursions is hardly at his desk and believes you’re there for his convenience. This resulted in our 2 families (9 people) being turned away from a boat we had booked for a sunset trip to Foca. Cue crying children and very grumpy adults but at least we saved the £20pp cost for a 30 min trip when the sun had set before the boat left in any case! However all staff at the restaurant are fabulous as are the local animation team.

On the plus side the childcare was excellent, special mention for Jess with the Mavericks and the sailing tuition was good (thanks Matthew). There are loads of activities to get involved in and other holiday guests were a lovely friendly bunch that it was easy to mix with. The food was great and the animation team were inclusive and super fun. The pool was freezing which was a shame but the sea was lovely (until the latter half of the week when we couldn’t even use that!)

Last time we visited in August, if the pool was heated the cooler temperatures wouldn’t have been an issue but def would pack more trousers and jumpers for evenings and some mornings were chilly with the wind.

Would have been 4.5 star if it weren’t for the sailing team issues.

Paid for sea view but room was not facing the sea. Tennis balls were awful, paddle courts always fully booked and my 11 year old son was not allowed to take a bike out so we were confined to resort.
Food ok, room cleaned every day.

A Norovirus style bug swept the hotel. My family and I were ill on holiday and since we've come home. Many people were ill on the plane. No measures were put in place to contain the sickness e.g. additional cleaning, gloves for the buffet, hand sanitiser etc. We spoke to the manager but he didn't feel that many people were ill and so there was nothing to be done. When we called the hotel an hour after leaving to see if they had found an item of lost property, the receptionist was unwilling to help. The sports instructors and kids club team were great.

Good week on balance but a bit of an issue with noise from the bar keeping us all awake until late most nights. One evening was particularly loud and when pointing out to reception staff that kids were trying to sleep the Turkish manager just stated that the hotel has a license to play music till midnight. Mark Warner staff better at customer relations but seemed powerless (hotel is Turkish owned). The Greek resorts that are owned and operated by MW are better for this reason. Also tennis facilities pretty run down but good coaching. Water sports kit good but note that wind is often offshore so not great for the beginners and quite gusty.

The most incredible place! Fab room, fab food and fab activities. Just the best family holiday ever! The entertainment team made us feel like family, excellent

Great location and friendly staff. We were disappointed with the amount of equipment available. The resort was only half full but there were not nearly enough bikes and of those a high proportion were not road worthy. We had the same issue with the amount of water sport equipment and spaces available on "Learn to" sessions, however this equipment was in good condition.