Lemnos Village Resort Hotel in Mirina

Incredibly tired hotel. Stinky bathrooms, sewage smells on sea, cracking chairs, murky pool and lacklustre and scant staff. Tennis scene was one shy member of staff, broken and unswept courts. Bikes in bad repair. Ski instructor had bad English and unenthusiastic and ran 30-40 min behind. Pool had old water bottles by it and plasters. No life guard. Kid club staff not bothered or enthusiastic. Other years have hear singing and chanting and high jinks. Food still good!

This was our fifth visit to Mark Warner Lemnos. We’ve always loved the location, the food and the wonderful team led by the brilliant Sue Thomas — thank you to everyone who helped make previous trips such fun and so memorable. This year, though, a lack of flexibility and empathy from the Kids Club head, Zoe, turned what should have been another five-star holiday into a two-star struggle. Mark Warner sensibly assigns children to Kids Clubs' groups based on age, which generally works well — you wouldn’t want a nine-year-old mixed in with toddlers, nor would it be appropriate for an 11-year-old to be placed with the Indys (ages 15–17). However, the 11/12–13/14 age range is certainly a grey area. At this stage, some children are more mature and prefer to socialise with older peers, while others feel more comfortable with kids their own age. My daughter, aged 12 years and nine months, has always enjoyed the company of girls slightly older than her. When we arrived this year, the Surfers group (ages 11–12) consisted of only five boys and no girls (other girls had been assigned to the group but hadn’t turned up on that first morning). Given this, and the fact that we saw there were only two girls in the next group up (Bondi, where no boys had turned up), my daughter decided to join them (she had moved up in previous years without any issue – and still remains in contact with many of the friends she made there). Only a few months younger (five in one case; 11 in the other) than the other two girls, my daughter got on very well with them and was thrilled to tell me at lunch how much fun she’d had. So I was shocked when she returned to our room later, near tears, saying she had been asked to leave the group. She found the situation both embarrassing and humiliating. It was especially disappointing that this was addressed directly with my daughter by the Bondi team leader rather than involving me in the discussion. The handling lacked sensitivity and fell well short of the standards I'd expect from anyone working with children. When I approached Zoe, the head of childcare, I was shocked to be met not with understanding but with dismissiveness. She was brusque and insistent that there was no flexibility whatsoever. Her explanation was that the Bondi group was ‘full’ (as I understand it, 12 kids had signed up) and could not accommodate any more members. If she wanted to be in Kids Club, my daughter would have to return to the Surfers group, which she was very reluctant to do. The result was a frustrating and totally avoidable situation. My daughter remained friendly with the two girls from Bondi outside of Kids’ Club, yet was barred from joining them during daily activities. This really upset our whole holiday, meaning my daughter had no close ‘buddies’ to hang around with during the day, no waterfront activities to participate in and spent most of her time on the sun lounger by the pool feeling excluded. To make matters worse, I was later informed