To finish off 2013 we spent 4 days in Cyprus on our own Fam Trip.
We started with the best Meet & Greet in Cyprus – Evie and Robina from Event Makers kicked off our personal Cyprus Fam by chauffeuring us to the Londa Hotel in Limassol.
Fourteen hotels, ten dinner/gala dinner venues (eleven if you count our best dining experience – at home with Robina and Demetris) plus three off site conference spaces. All packed into three days with Sunday to walk the beach and lunch late in the old port/town.
See our company Facebook for more details and our photos.
Hotels
Our thanks to the great team at The Londa for a delightful stay and the upgrade. The sunset views were remarkable and staff efficiently friendly.
Thursday we started with the Four Seasons – walking though reception and into the hotel is like entering the Tardis. So many spaces and areas, intimate restaurants (6 in all) and more that you forget this is a large hotel. The Four Seasons gardens and pools are designed the same way. You feel as though you are exploring rather than being lost in just another large hotel.
We then saw a brilliant contrast – The Amathus Hotel Limassol. The Amathus has a lovely clean, modern, light feel with great spaces. We loved the executive wing which we believe would be great for small incentive groups. Four floors of nine garden suites. These rooms come complete with own pool and private garden. They are so popular they are often booked a year or more ahead.
These two hotels will combine well to provide conference spaces and breakouts for large conferences with the benefit of being separated by a few minutes’ walk along the beach front.
Friday was Paphos day and old friends at Aphrodite Hills Resort. On to The Columbia Beach Resort (Pissouri) - what a beautiful escape – set in its own bay along with its sister hotel Columbia Beach. The Columbia Beach Resort , with Paphos a short drive away, is great for incentives, retreats and small conferences or meetings where privacy is required. For larger groups you can combine Columbia Beach Resort with its sister hotel.
Two more sisters – Annabelle and Almyra – were next along with lunch with Sophia in the Annabelle.
The Annabelle has a timeless style that just works with great views towards the port and Paphos castle and so handy for the bars, restaurants and clubs of Paphos. While the Almyra is modern, clean with a light contemporary simple decor. The Almyra meeting spaces are a great blank canvas – ideal for those who wish to theme and dress a venue. The hotels share a lovely beach, the views and will mix and match as required for larger groups/conferences.
Last, but it could never be least – The Elysium. You have to see this hotel to appreciate the application of a simple concept that creates a beautiful luxury hotel. The Elysium is great for high end incentives, conferences up to 200 and private meetings.
Dinner Venues
Good food and wine are essential to great events and Cyprus produces plenty of each.
We started with dinner on Wednesday at the Carob Mill – an atmospheric dinner venue with conference spaces close to Limassol castle. Lovely food and great Cypriot wines. On Thursday we lunched at The Londa as Evie and Robina were invited to the Londa’s annual pre Christmas supplier lunch and dined at the Four Seasons. Nick Aristou, the Executive Director, kindly invited us all to dinner – can there be a better Chinese restaurant in Cyprus than the Four Seasons – all of the Seasons Oriental chefs are from Hong Kong!!! This is a lovely intimate restaurant serving some fabulous Oriental dishes with a Four Seasons twist.
You can dine on a ship’s bridge – this restaurant, with its ship’s bridge shape looks as if it belongs on a mega yacht – or you can dine out of town, informally, by the beach for truly great seafood.
We loved the two wineries – each produces superb wine – but for ambience are like chalk and cheese. One traditional and the other modern.
For impressive gala dinners spaces we loved the Carob Mill, Limassol Marina Conference Space, and Kouklia all great spaces to dress/light and from over one hundred years to a few centuries old. For the truly different and so impressive there is a unique open air atmospheric venue dedicated to Cyprus and Art whose owner hosts private charity events.
Limassol Marina
Exciting times for Limassol as the new Limassol Marina is close to opening – potentially by mid 2014.
And on Friday morning we had a show round of this exciting new development.
A number of luxury villas and apartments are already occupied, the Marina is fully functional for yachts and last year saw a 77 metre mega yacht berthing. Shops, restaurants and gym are nearing completion with many units already taken.
Limassol Marina will be a yachting paradise come next summer. If you are fortunate enough to own a luxury yacht you can tie up and tune in/communicate thanks to the Med’s most technologically advanced marina. Fibre optic broadband and TV channels on tap for each berth.
The marina facilities will be fabulous – high end shops, great restaurants, gym, villas and up market versions of fast food outlets.
An old renovated warehouse provides an atmospheric gala dinner venue or interesting event space complete with its own cinema. We think that the conference facilities will work well for events that combine a short conference with an incentive. You can have a morning conference session, lunch in a great restaurant and spend an afternoon on the water.
Limassol Marina when complete will be the best luxury Marina in the Mediterranean and will be able to berth 100 metre mega yachts.
