I'm about to complain to First Choice because of a holiday ruined by the incompetence of them and their tour guides. Our guide Gemma was absolutely appalling and as someone else mentioned, was more interested in selling the daytrips and getting people to hire cars than making sure we had a good holiday. Wish I had read your views before booking with them. She didn't even know that it was a bank holiday on the Monday before we left. Neither did the reps in the First Choice Office at Lassi. They were completely uninterested in us and they were all rude and standoffish. We got all of our information from a local taxi driver! On our last day we had to hang about for almost 9 hours with our luggage. We were told that we could just leave it in the toilets underneath the pool which had no locking doors. Our rep Gemma informed us that Kefalonia resorts have never had a room for left luggage and that we should just leave our luggage unattended while we went off for the day. She said that this was the norm and we were made to feel that we were being difficult in querying it. I wonder if Airport security know that First Choice policy is to tell holidaymakers to do this!! I would never use First Choice again, they were absolutely appalling!

We were told that a car was advisable to stay in these apartments when it is actually VITAL. I would not recommend staying here at the beginning or end of season unless you are prepared to hire a car because everything within walking distance closes, All the surrounding supermarkets/restaurants closed the weekend after we arrived. For the few days that the supermarkets were still open, our rep advised us all in the 'Welcome meeting' to climb over a wall at the back of the complex to make the walk shorter. We did this a couple of times but when my 69 year old Father cut his arm after falling, we stopped. The pool bar was closed most of the time although to be fair this was because there were not many guests and the owner did explain that First Choice had forced them to remain open even though the surrounding villas/apartments had closed. Sunrise has no restaurant or supermarket and no public telephone which caused problems. It was costing us 20 euros to get a taxi to the nearest town Lassi just to buy bread and milk! The owner was happy to ring taxi's for us but it was a 10mnt walk to the payphone to ring home and part of the walk was in complete darkness. The amount of stray dogs took us by surprise and I was attacked by one of them in the second week. It actually had my leg between it's teeth. Again I dont actually blame the owner for this, if the other guests had not been feeding these dogs then they wouldn't have hung around. Even our rep Gemma was making a fuss of the dogs and encouraging them to hang around even after she was made aware of my being attacked. There were small children on the site which made it much more of a concern in my opinion. My other complaint would be that the walls are paper thin. We could hear conversations word for word from next door to us, above us and below us. The location was peaceful and tranquil, perfect if you are wanting to get away from it all, but a nightmare if you do not have transport! Also, the owner told us that our rep was responsible for choosing the apartments for Guests. We were in a first floor 2 bedroomed apartment and there were very small children above us?!?!?!? An accident waiting to happen or what! Also, the shower bases were too low and the bathroom flooded everytime we used the shower which made the marble floors very slippery. We would not return to Sunrise but mainly because our rep Gemma was absolutely appalling!

We stayed in Svoronata between 7th and 21st October and it was awful. The weather was okay although we had a couple of storms and flooding. We stayed in the Sunrise Village Apartments and all the surrounding Restaurants/Supermarkets closed after a few days of us being there. The nearest Restaurant was a 40mnt walk away. We were having to pay 20 euros a day to get Taxi's to the nearest town Lassi or the capital Argostoli. I wouldn't recommend October at all unless you are able and willing to hire a car. None of us could drive and we had explained this to our Travel Agent and our First Choice Rep. The only good thing about October would be that it is still hot and everything is very quiet so there is no fighting for sunbeds or room on the beach.

I cant quite believe what I'm reading. If British holidaymakers refrained from feeding these stray dogs and cats then the Greek authorities might be forced to give them the help that they obviously need. I was attacked by a dog in the second week of my holiday as I took a morning stroll. There were children in my resort and it could have easily happened to them. We are constantly warned not to feed or pet stray animals while abroad but the British in particular ignore this. And before everyone accuses me of being unfeeling towards animals, I'm a vegetarian and I give monthly donations to various animal charities. I adore animals and would have gladly given up my time on holiday to help the authorities build extra animal shelters or collect money from tourists to provide suitable care for the strays. There are wooden boxes situated all over Kefalonia and we were informed that these are for donations to look after the strays. But in the two weeks I was there, I saw no evidence of the Greek Authorities doing anything to help these poor animals. The capital Argostoli was free of strays but the less well-off resorts were full of them. By allowing the Dogs and Cats to roam free, the Greek authorities are dodging their responsiblities. Not only is feeding/petting these animals foolish and dangerous, it ensures that the Greek Government does not have to do anything about them.