Sweet Memories Hotel Apts in Protaras

We booked through JoinUp and were totally disappointed.

We reserved two rooms, both being Standard Studio Apartments with inland view.
At first glance, they looked nothing like the photos presented on JoinUp’s website.

The entrance door has quite a large gap between the floor and the door itself—you can even fit a finger through it—which is why the AC doesn’t work properly.

Cleanliness leaves a lot to be desired; you have to talk to the reception for it to be done, it doesn’t happen automatically.
Dirty walls, chipped paint on the door.

The breakfast food is not a buffet as presented on JoinUp’s website.
You are simply given a menu with 4–5 meal options to choose from.
If you ask for extra jam/marmalade for your toast, the waitress gives you an unpleasant look.
The coffee is literally a packet of Nescafe Brassero and a packet of sugar; if you want a latte or an espresso, you have to pay extra.

The room on the website is presented somewhat decently—relatively okay furniture, generous space—but once you see the reality, you no longer feel like staying at this so-called 4-star hotel.
The photos of the rooms on JoinUp are all the same—they only showcase the Premium apartments to attract more customers. When you confront them about this, the reception makes excuses, saying it’s not their fault and that you paid for a standard room, so there’s nothing they can do.
I would call this false advertising.

The water pressure in the shower is terrible; you waste a lot of water just to rinse the soap off your body.

They don’t provide a drying rack for swimsuits, and they dry very slowly in the bathroom because of the humidity.

We spoke with the agency hoping something would be resolved; they tried, but the problem lies with the hotel. They don’t take responsibility and blame the agency.

FOR THE ATTENTION OF ALL FUTURE CLIENTS!!
We are a young couple who worked hard and saved up for almost a year to finally have a nice vacation. Sadly, this has turned out to be one of the worst experiences we’ve ever had…

The biggest disappointment was the room. Online (Google, Booking, JoinUp – the company we booked with) you only see beautiful, big rooms. In reality, what we got was completely different. Our room was dirty, with old, scratched furniture, and looked like something from another century. If we had seen photos of this room beforehand, we would have never booked it – but of course, there are none.

The bathroom was even worse: rust, yellow stains, dirty floors. The free Wi-Fi is not even working in our room. The room itself was much smaller than the ones advertised, with stained walls and water seepage. When we complained, the staff told us they would change our room to the one we booked – but then suddenly there were “no free rooms.”

And sadly, this is only a small part of the story…

We want future clients to know the truth before booking here. We’re deeply disappointed, and we will try to take this matter further because this is not normal and certainly not fair after all the effort we put into making this vacation happen.
Please see some photos below.

They gave our 4 persons room by mistake to a couple because of surname similarity even though they told us that they would need my wife's ID to check in as the reservation was on her name. We had to wait for more than hour to get us another room. We went to the room and the floor was still wet, so we had to wait for another 15 minutes. Although mistakes can happen, we still havnt received an apology or just a sorry. When i requested an update from the guy at reception, he would not answer. Nor when i told him that we had been waiting for more than an hour at reception without air conditioning and with 40 degrees outside. Room was dirty, papers under the couch/bed and spider webs above curtains. They would only empty our bin every other day. Rotten wood furniture and air conditioning could not be adjusted. We asked for a remote control and they told us we do not need as temperature cannot be adjusted. It is a central a/c unit for all apartments and woth just one option, ON or OFF!

The only good thing about this is that it’s close to Protaras. Other than that, it’s exploiting the crowd with expensive staying. Why am I saying that? 1. You can’t demand 5€ as guarantee for the tv remote control 2. No ac remote controls! I was freezing and couldn’t control the room temperature 3. The kitchen drawers were broken 4. The beds are slippery and we almost fell off (was quite funny can’t deny that) 5. No clean sheets to be changed whatsoever 6. At night, returning home, you cannot lock the door because u can’t see anything😂 I mean, at least give us some light before demanding the key for electricity OR do a better door locking 7. Wanted to call the reception. There’s a phone but no information. It could have been a much better place and why not? Charge a bit more..

I have just returned from 2 weeks staying at this hotel and wanted to provide a fair review for anyone considering staying here.

Staff friendliness
The staff here are not friendly. We arrived to darkness and the man who checked, us in managed to do so without speaking one word to us.

Location
The hotel is situated about a ten minute walk from the main strip, which has its pros and cons, the pros are that you are away from the hustle and bustle on an evening, and it is only a short walk. However depending on which side of the hotel you are rooming you can here the main road well into the early hours (cars and quad bikes) but this didn't wake me once I was asleep. Another con is you can't just nip to the beach but that is personal preference. The location wasn't an issue for me.

Cleanliness
The hotel isn't the cleanest and the maids are sporadic and do the minimum. For example, I felt the need to buy some antibacterial wipes and give everything a clean at the start of the holiday. The bathroom floor was gross whilst doing this and the floors overall always felt filthy. I don't believe our bed sheets were changed in the full 2 weeks. If you can hack a bit of dirt it's fine but I think this could be better. I did also see a few huge cockroaches but I do think in fairness this is a universal problem for the climate.

Pool area
We hired a car and drove to a different pool for all but 1 day of our stay. The pool area is filthy and in a general bad state of repair. The man hole cover for the shallow baby pool kept coming off and in the afternoon the water became like bath water. Both pools felt cloudy and a bit slimey and the sun loungers have seen much better days. You could always get a sunlounger though. There were a few issues with people arguing but this wasn't the fault of the hotel.

Value for money
I always have the mindset 'you get what you pay for'. However, considering a 4* hotel was a similar price 2 weeks before our holiday (we tried to change, but Jet2 wanted to charge us over £600 in admin fees) my advice would be to either wait, or pay a little bit more if you can afford it. You do get what you pay for, but at almost £4k for a family of 4 to go on holiday it is disappointing that Jet2 think hotels like Sweet Memories provide good customer service. I looked into this and compared to the direct hotel prices Jet2 have made a profit of over 2k.

Room and general vibe
Our room (141) was ok. We were on the 3rd floor overlooking the pool and a slight sea view. I moved my kids beds away from a non lockable window as I was scared they might try to open it, I kept the blind shut for the full stay hoping they wouldn't notice it. The furniture was a bit grubby but nothing appallingly bad. The lift has seen better days and none of the corridors had lights on a night which I found hard as someone who is night blind. I think some of the other rooms don't have lift access so please check if you have mobility issues.

Overall
I wouldn't recommend this hotel, personally, I think there are better options. However, my experience wasn't totally dire, but can only speak for my room and circumstances. Shop around or book direct for better value.