Lesante Cape
Lesante Cape Resort & Villas is a five-star cliff-top hotel of suites and private-pool villas on Zakynthos, one of the Greek Ionian islands. It's built as a recreated Zakynthian village, with its own square, taverna, café and small shops set among olive groves above the sea at Akrotiri, a few minutes from Zakynthos Town. It holds a Michelin Key and belongs to The Leading Hotels of the World, and families come for the space and privacy of the villas, a children's pool beside the tiered infinity pools and a kids' club.
On this page
Is it worth it?
The quick read before the detail: who it suits, what a booking includes and the one thing to weigh first.
Lesante Cape is one of Zakynthos's most design-led five-star stays, and it's a boutique hotel rather than a big all-inclusive. The base rate is bed and breakfast, meals are mostly paid for as you go and the real draw is a villa with its own bedroom, kitchen and private pool rather than a packed activity programme. The single thing to weigh before you book is the site. It's built into a cliff, steep and stepped, with the private beach down dozens of stairs, so a family relying on a pushchair will find it hard work, even with the golf buggies the resort runs to ferry guests around. Families who can carry a baby, or whose children are walking, get a quiet, spacious stay with a proper separate room for naps and some of the best sea views on the island.
Best for
You want a spacious villa or family suite with a separate bedroom and its own private pool, you like a design-led five-star stay and you're happy to pay for meals as you go rather than have everything included.
Maybe not for
You'll rely on a pushchair all week, you want to walk straight onto sand or you'd rather one price covered everything.
Best ages
Babies who can be carried, and walking toddlers upwards. The kids' club takes children up to 10, and there's a shallow children's pool and a playground.
What stands out
The cliff-top village setting and infinity-pool views, the villa privacy and the staff guests name in review after review.
What to check
Whether a private pool will be heated, the kids' club minimum age and any baby equipment, so ask about each before you book.
Where is it?
Akrotiri, on the east coast of Zakynthos in the Greek Ionian islands, a few minutes from Zakynthos Town.
Quick facts for families
What the resort is like
The village layout, the steep site and how you get around, plus a word on that "adults-only" tagline.
Lesante Cape is designed as a recreated traditional Zakynthian village. There's a central square where the events and socialising happen, its own café, a taverna, a handful of small shops, a folklore museum and a church nearby, with tall arches, white stone and wooden and woven touches, set among olive groves and vineyards above the Ionian Sea. It's a boutique hotel of suites and private-pool villas rather than a sprawling resort, with fifteen room and villa categories in all.
The setting is a hillside one. The hotel is built into a cliff above the sea, so the grounds are steep and stepped, the private beach is down dozens of stairs and getting between the rooms, pools, restaurants and beach means slopes and steps rather than a flat stroll. The resort runs golf buggies, its own small electric vehicles, to ferry guests around the site, and it's worth asking for one on arrival. That layout matters most with a pushchair, and we cover it in full below. Within the grounds everything is walkable if you're happy on your feet; for the rest of the island a hire car helps, with Zakynthos Town only a mile or two away and Tsilivi about ten minutes by taxi.
One thing to clear up: the hotel's website cycles through a strapline that reads "an adults-only haven", and it can make Lesante Cape look as though it doesn't take children. It does. That same line runs word for word across all three hotels in the Lesante Collection, and it really describes the sister property, Lesante Blu, which is the adults-only one. Lesante Cape has its own family page, a kids' club, a children's pool, a playground and babysitting. The only adults-only spot here is the top of the three main pools.
Every restaurant and bar
The breakfast base, the à la carte dinners, the bars and how half board and booking work.
Lesante Cape is bed and breakfast as standard, with a half-board upgrade, so it isn't all-inclusive: breakfast is included, and most other meals are paid for as you go. There are ten places to eat and drink, from the breakfast restaurant to fine dining, a beach bar and a traditional café.
Elea Restaurant is the main restaurant and the one your rate is built around. It serves a breakfast buffet and à la carte from 7:30 to 11:00, with traditional Greek and international cooking, and it's the base for dinner on bed and breakfast or half board. It's smart casual. Guests rate the breakfast, with a good cooked-to-order egg section, though service can be slow at busy times.
Novita Restaurant & Bar is the all-day poolside restaurant, à la carte Mediterranean and Ionian cooking with fresh local fish, open for lunch from 12:00 to 17:00 and dinner from 19:00 to 22:00. It overlooks the main pool and is a guest favourite.
Fiore Fine Dining is the flagship, high-end à la carte with panoramic sea views, open for dinner from 19:30 to 22:30, with menus from chef Giannis Binkas. Some UK operators describe Fiore as adults-only, but that isn't stated on the resort's own page, so if you'd want to eat there as a family, check directly rather than plan a dinner around it. The Michelin Key the hotel holds is an award for the hotel, not a restaurant star, so nothing here is Michelin-starred.
Bostani Farm to Table serves farm-to-table Greek dinners cooked over wood embers, using produce from the resort's own garden, from 19:00 to 22:00. One thing worth knowing: the wood fires are lit in the mid-afternoon, and one guest found the smoke drifted into their room on the wrong wind and asked to move, so mention it when you book if you're near that end of the resort.
The Village Taverna is the à la carte Greek taverna on the square, open for dinner from 19:00 to 22:00, with live music and cultural evenings on some nights. The resort frames it as its most sociable, family-friendly restaurant, and it's the one most geared to eating together with children.
For drinks and lighter bites there's the Novita Pool Bar beside the main pool (10:00 to 18:00) for cocktails and light bites; the Kyma Beach Bar on the steps down to the beach (10:00 to 18:00) for drinks, snacks and light seafood; The Noble Bar, the lobby lounge, open late from 18:00 to 02:00; and Kafeneio, a traditional all-day Greek café serving coffee, cakes and spoon sweets from 14:00 to 22:00. The Wine Cellar runs sommelier-guided tastings by reservation from 12:00 to 18:00, a tasting experience rather than a meal.
There's no kids' menu, high-chair arrangement or early-dining policy set out officially, so if any of those matter, ask the resort before you go rather than assume.
How dining and half board work
Elea and the bars are walk-in. The à la carte dinner venues, Novita, Fiore, Bostani, the Village Taverna and the Wine Cellar, all take reservations, so book the evenings you want. Half board, the resort's Dine Around upgrade, covers breakfast and dinner at Elea, the Village Taverna and Bostani, though the exact terms can vary a little by booking channel and season, so check what your operator includes.
Rooms and suites
Every category with its official size, then the pools and the beach.
There are fifteen room and villa categories, split into suites and villas, and nearly all face the sea. The table below is the full line-up with the official sizes, given as indoor plus outdoor space; the guidance after it is which suit a family with a baby or toddler.
The resort doesn't publish a total room or key count anywhere on its own site, only the fifteen named categories. Independent estimates split rather than converge: some put the total at roughly 60 to 65 keys and others at roughly 85. Treat the fifteen categories in the table as the confirmed picture and any overall total as an estimate rather than a fact.
| Room | Size | Private pool | Sleeps | View |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deluxe Suite | 45 + 15 m² | None | Up to 3 | Inland |
| Deluxe Sea View Suite | 45 + 15 m² | None | Up to 3 | Sea |
| Spa Sea View Jetted Tub Suite | 45 + 15 m² | Jetted tub, no pool | Up to 3 | Sea |
| Signature Garden View Pool Suite | 45 + 25 m² | 20 m² | Up to 4 | Garden |
| Signature Sea View Pool Suite | 45 + 25 m² | 20 m² | Up to 3 | Sea |
| Family Garden View Pool Suite | 90 + 50 m² | 40 m² (two pools) | Up to 7 | Garden |
| Family Sea View Pool Suite | 90 + 50 m² | 40 m² (two pools) | Up to 6 | Sea |
| One Bedroom Sea View Pool Villa | 60 + 35 m² | 25 m² | Up to 3 | Sea |
| Premium One Bedroom Sea View Pool Villa | 80 + 35 m² | 30 m² | Up to 4 | Sea |
| Two Bedroom Sea View Pool Villa | 130 + 45 m² | 90 m² | Up to 5 | Sea |
| Comfort Three Bedroom Sea View Pool Villa | 150 + 60 m² | 70 m² | Up to 7 | Sea |
| Three Bedroom Sea Front Pool Villa | 170 + 130 m² | 100 m² | Up to 7 | Sea |
| Cape Three Bedroom Sea Front Pool Villa | 200 + 100 m² | 120 m² | Up to 6 | Sea |
| The Edge Three Bedroom Sea Front Pool Villa | 180 + 45 m² | 100 m² | Up to 6 | Sea |
| The Edge Six Bedroom Sea Front Private Residence | 360 + 90 m² | 200 m² | Up to 12 | Sea |
For a family, the choice is about getting a separate room for naps and bedtime. The two Family Suites, Garden View and Sea View, are built for this: each is two suites joined by a connecting door, with two bathrooms and a king bed in one suite and twin beds in the other. The two small private pools together make up the 40 m² shown in the table rather than one large one. That gives you a proper separate room without moving up to a full villa.
The villas go a step further. The Two Bedroom Sea View Pool Villa, for instance, has two king bedrooms, a separate living room, a full kitchen and a dedicated villa host who can arrange in-villa dining, alongside full use of the hotel. A villa gives you independent bedrooms and a semi-self-catering setup with more privacy, while you still use the resort. The larger three-bedroom villas and the six-bedroom residence scale that up for bigger groups or two families together.
One point to weigh on the villas: their private pools have an official heating policy, up to 24°C depending on the weather, while the suite pools don't mention heating either way. That heating is worth knowing about, but treat it as a check rather than a promise, because more than one guest has reported a private pool that stayed cold and unusable even in warm weather. Don't count on a warm private pool, especially outside peak summer. The official pages also don't confirm cot setups by room or which rooms are step-free for a pushchair, so if either matters, contact the resort before you book.
Pools and water features
There are three tiered infinity pools set into the cliff, one above the other, each looking out to sea. The top pool is adults-only and has hammocks; the middle pool is for everyone and has a swim-up bar; the lowest is the family-friendly one, so children can swim in two of the three. Beside the main pool is a dedicated shallow children's pool the resort calls The Big Splash, built for young children. One aggregator puts its shallowest point at around 30 cm, which is a useful steer for a baby or young toddler, but it's a single unofficial figure, so check the depth yourself on arrival rather than rely on it.
There's also an indoor pool in the spa. A couple of operators describe it as heated, though the resort doesn't say so, and one guest found it full of children in the mornings, meaning families do use it too. There's no splash pad or separate water-play feature beyond the children's pool.
The beach
The resort has its own small private beach, and it's the everyday swim spot rather than a public beach. It's rocky and pebbled rather than sandy, reached down a flight of stairs, around forty steps by one guest's count, with the Kyma beach bar part-way down and only a limited number of sunbeds, so getting there early or reserving one helps. A wooden pier runs out over the water with loungers on it, and people swim from the pier or the rocks rather than off sand. The surrounding cliffs put the beach into shade by mid-afternoon, which is useful to know if you're planning a beach morning with a baby.
This isn't a sandy toddler-paddling beach. It suits a scenic, quiet swim from the loungers or the pier, and a family comfortable carrying a baby down and back up the stairs. If you want walk-on sand and shallow paddling, the sandy public beaches at Tsilivi and Alykanas are a short taxi away, covered below. It's a private hotel beach rather than one of the island's Blue Flag beaches, and there are no watersports run from it.
Babies and toddlers
The kids' club and babysitting, what's confirmed and what isn't, then the steep-site question, things to do and the area.
The kids' club takes children up to age 10. The resort doesn't publish a minimum age, and third-party sources don't quite agree, with a couple suggesting around 4 and one saying 3, so treat the lower end as unconfirmed and check when you book. It runs from 10:00, and it's commonly reported as free, though the resort doesn't confirm a price. If you book a villa on the Family Getaway offer, the club hours can extend into the evening, up to 22:00, as part of that package. The one repeated grumble is practical: with the hillside layout, the club can be awkward to reach with a pushchair.
There's an outdoor playground for younger children, and a teen room with a foosball table, board games and a PlayStation, which is an unsupervised hangout rather than a staffed club. Babysitting is available on request, so you can get an evening out. The official site doesn't set out a notice period or cost, and the only figure in circulation, around a week's notice and from roughly €30 an hour, comes from a single UK holiday specialist rather than the resort itself, so agree both with the resort when you book rather than turning up and hoping.
A few things are worth going in knowing. There's no crèche or dedicated baby facility, so the kids' club and babysitting are the only childcare. No baby equipment, cots, high chairs, sterilisers, baby baths or stair gates, is named on any official or third-party source, and neither is any baby-food or weaning service. That doesn't mean none exists, but it isn't confirmed, so if you need any of it, ask the resort directly before you book rather than assume it'll be there.
The steep site, with a pushchairGetting around on a hillside site
This deserves its own word because it comes up in review after review. Lesante Cape is a hillside, stepped property built on a cliff. The grounds are steeply sloped, the private beach is down dozens of stairs, and the kids' club can be hard to reach with a pushchair. The golf buggies help a lot, and they're there specifically to move guests around the site, so ask for one on arrival. What isn't published anywhere is which rooms, if any, are step-free or on the ground floor, or whether there's lift access between the levels. So if you'll rely on a pram rather than carrying a baby, or anyone in the family has trouble with steps, contact the resort before booking and ask exactly where your room sits relative to the restaurants, pools and beach.
On the resortThings to do
There's plenty on site beyond the pools and beach. The Armonia Wellness & Spa, a floor below the lobby, has the indoor pool, three treatment rooms and a massage suite, a sauna, a hammam, an indoor jacuzzi and a fitness centre, with a robe, slippers, fresh fruit and herbal teas for treatment guests. The gym is well equipped, with cardio, free weights and a cable machine, and personal trainers are available. There are daily yoga sessions in the grounds and one premium padel court, padel being a racquet sport played in an enclosed court, with private lessons; note it's padel rather than conventional tennis.
The resort also arranges guided hikes through the stone villages and coves, guided cycling, scuba diving through external instructors and horse riding through forests or along the beach, which the resort frames as suitable for children. There are private culture tours to the Venetian Castle, the Byzantine Museum, the house of the poet Dionysios Solomos and St Dionysios Monastery, turtle-spotting boat trips to Gerakas Marine Park or Marathonisi to see loggerhead turtles in season and private yacht excursions from the resort's own pier.
Beyond the resortThe area and days out
Akrotiri sits between Zakynthos Town and the Tsilivi family strip, so it's a workable base rather than a remote spot. Zakynthos Town is a mile or two away (2 to 4 km), a few minutes by car: the rebuilt post-earthquake capital, with arcaded streets, the Church of Agios Dionysios, the waterfront and Solomos Square, an easy half-day. Above the town at Bochali, the pine-shaded ruins of the Venetian castle (Kastro) are open Wednesday to Monday, closed Tuesdays, on uneven paths that suit a carrier better than a buggy.
Tsilivi, also called Planos, is the island's main family beach resort, about a mile away (1.7 km). The walk isn't an easy one with a pushchair, so treat it as a short taxi, roughly ten minutes. It has a sandy Blue Flag beach with a gentle shallow entry and the island's densest cluster of family things to do. Further out, Gerakas Beach (about 25 minutes) is the island's best toddler-swimming beach, sandy and knee-deep a long way out and Blue Flag, though it sits in the National Marine Park's Zone A, with access from 7am to sunset and a five-metre rule at the water and no toilets on the beach. Alykes and Alykanas (about 35 to 40 minutes north) are the flattest, most pram-friendly strip, with the shallowest bay on the north coast.
Askos Stone Park in the north lets toddlers hand-feed fallow deer across a 124-acre wildlife park, a good slow morning. The Blue Caves at Cape Skinari (about 50 minutes) are worth a short boat trip, one of the more toddler-friendly ones on the island. One to know about: Navagio, the famous Shipwreck Beach, is closed to all landings until at least the end of October 2026 after a cliff collapse. Boats can approach to about fifty metres offshore and the clifftop viewing platform is open by car, but any 2026 trip sold as a swim at Shipwreck Beach isn't accurate.
For shopping, the nearest big supermarket is the island's single Lidl on the Zakynthos to Keri road, closed Sundays, with an AB Vassilopoulos nearby; both need a car, and village minimarkets cover top-ups. Zakynthos General Hospital, Agios Dionysios, is in Gaitani, about 2 miles (3 km) from town and a similar distance from Akrotiri, and it takes a UK GHIC, the card that replaced the EHIC.
Loves and gripes
What families praise and what they flag, how it compares, the journey and the weather.
What families love
- The cliff-top village setting and the infinity-pool views over the Ionian.
- The concierge and personal service, with staff named again and again in reviews for sorting bookings, cars and trips.
- The kids' club and family setup, where families used it.
- The space and cleanliness of the rooms.
- Grounds and pools that rarely feel overcrowded, even in peak season.
Common gripes
- The stairs and hillside terrain, especially with a pushchair, the most repeated practical complaint.
- Private-pool heating that didn't always deliver, with more than one guest reporting a cold, unusable pool in warm weather.
- Half-board dining that varies by account, and a Greek-led menu a few found repetitive over a week.
- Inconsistent service in places, from slow drinks to room cleaning, though plenty of guests report the opposite.
- The private beach being rocky rather than sandy.
- Smoke from Bostani's wood fire drifting into some nearby rooms in the afternoon.
- One detailed critical review reported staff waking a sleeping baby and a final bill that needed correcting, a single account but a specific one.
One reviewer hoping for a quiet couples' break found there were "quite a few kids" about, which is a fair reminder that this is a resort families use rather than the couples' retreat the shared strapline might suggest. Across the review sites the picture is consistently strong, though the sample sizes are all fairly modest for a resort of this size: TripAdvisor has it at 4 out of 5 from 363 reviews, ranked 9th of 328 hotels in the Akrotiri listing; Booking.com puts it at 9.4 out of 10 from 208 reviews; HolidayCheck, the German-market site, rates it 5.9 out of 6 with all 15 reviewers recommending it; Expedia has it at 9.8 out of 10 from 84 reviews; and On The Beach's own TripAdvisor-sourced figure runs a little higher again, 4.8 out of 5 from 340 reviews. Scores and review counts move, so treat these as a rough steer, and note the number of reviews specifically from families with very young children is smaller than the totals above.
Against the alternativesHow it compares
Its own sister hotel is the clearest comparison. Lesante Classic sits right on Tsilivi Beach, flat and sandy with walk-on access and an indoor heated pool, which is an easier setup for a family that wants to walk to sand with a pushchair. Lesante Cape trades that for its Michelin Key, its Leading Hotels of the World membership, the cliff-top setting and villas with separate bedrooms and kitchens that Classic doesn't match at the same scale. For flat, walkable, sandy-beach access with a baby, Classic is the easier choice; for a villa with real space and privacy, and if you're happy with stairs or the buggies, Cape has the edge.
The third Lesante hotel, Lesante Blu, is adults-only, so it isn't a like-for-like choice here; it's worth naming only because the shared website can confuse the three. Away from the group, Domes Aulus Zante at Kalamaki is ultra all-inclusive and flat beachfront, with a Montessori-style kids' club, but only two unheated pools and a much larger scale, so it suits families who prefer everything included and flat ground. Atlantica Eleon at Tragaki is an all-inclusive resort with a waterpark and a huge review base; Cape is smaller, pricier and design-led, with no waterpark and a hillside site, a different kind of holiday.
The journey and the seasonGetting there and when to go
Zakynthos airport (ZTH) is close, about 15 to 20 minutes by road; one guest put the taxi at around €35, though get a current quote when you book, since fares change. Transfers aren't automatic, so arrange one through the resort or your operator ahead of time; one guest was met at customs by a pre-booked private car, a meet-and-greet that's either paid for or included in a package rather than confirmed as complimentary. The airport bans take-offs and landings overnight, roughly 10pm to 5am, to protect the island's turtle beaches, so there are no red-eye arrivals or pre-dawn departures. UK flights run in the summer season, from about early May to late October, on Jet2, TUI, easyJet, British Airways and Ryanair, taking roughly three and a quarter to three and three-quarter hours; there's no winter service. A hire car opens up the island, though the resort itself is walkable inside its own grounds. The resort opens seasonally, roughly May to late October in line with the flights, though it doesn't publish exact 2026 dates.
When to goWeather
Akrotiri shares the same climate as the rest of Zakynthos's east-coast resort belt, so the figures below are the island's. July and August are reliably hot and dry with 12 hours of sun a day, and modern summers run a degree or two above the long-term averages in the table, into the low 30s by day, with the warmest sea of the year, but they're also the busiest and priciest weeks. June and September give you almost the same sea temperature with fewer people and only a handful of wet days. May is pleasant, but the sea at around 19°C is really only for paddling with a baby. October is a much wetter month, with rainfall jumping sharply, so it's not a safe bet for a beach-focused stay. April sits before the resort's own season typically gets going, so it's included for context rather than as a realistic travel window.
| Month | Daytime high | Overnight low | Rain | Wet days | Sea temp |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May | 25° | 14.5° | 14 mm | 3 | 19° |
| June | 30° | 18.5° | 14 mm | 1 | 23° |
| July | 33.5° | 21° | 3 mm | 0 | 26° |
| August | 33.5° | 21.5° | 5 mm | 1 | 27° |
| September | 29° | 18.5° | 58 mm | 4 | 26° |
| October | 24.5° | 15° | 95 mm | 6 | 24° |
Typical monthly averages from weather-station records. Sea temperature is the open-water figure, so a sheltered bay can feel a degree or two warmer. The resort opens roughly May to late October, in line with the summer flight season; April is shown for context.
Questions
The things families ask most, the official pages worth a look and when this guide was last updated.
Is Lesante Cape adults-only?
No, it takes families. The impression comes from a marketing strapline shared across the whole Lesante Collection, and the adults-only hotel it describes is the sister property, Lesante Blu. At Cape only the top of the three main pools is set aside for adults, so if a booking site flags the hotel as adults-only, that is the shared tagline rather than its policy.
Can we all eat at Fiore, or is it adults-only?
Where this comes up is Fiore, the fine-dining restaurant. Its own official page sets no age limit, though a couple of UK booking sites tag it adults-only, most likely echoing that same collection-wide strapline. If a family dinner there matters, email the resort to confirm it will seat children before you build an evening around it.
Will a private pool be heated?
Treat it as a maybe. The villa pools carry an official heating policy while the suite pools mention none, yet more than one guest has found a villa pool cold even in hot weather. Confirm heating with the resort when you book, and don't pay the villa premium on the strength of a warm private pool alone, particularly early or late in the season.
From what age does the kids' club take children?
Ten is the confirmed ceiling. The resort publishes no minimum age and outside sources disagree, so the youngest age it takes is best settled with the resort at booking, along with whether there is a charge. With a toddler in particular, check they are old enough before you count on the club for childcare.
Can we get a babysitter for an evening out?
Yes, on request. The resort confirms the service but publishes no rate or notice period, and the only figure in circulation, from a single UK agent, is roughly a week ahead and from about €30 an hour. Book it as early as you can and get the current cost and lead time from the resort direct, rather than treating that figure as fixed.
Is the beach good for a toddler?
Not for the usual bucket-and-spade morning. It is a rocky, pebbled cove down a stair climb, with swimming off a wooden pier or the rocks rather than a shallow sandy shelf. For paddling and sandcastles, take a short taxi to the sandy bays at Tsilivi or Alykanas.
Can we get around with a pushchair, and are there step-free rooms?
This is the resort's biggest practical catch. The grounds climb a cliff on steps and slopes, and the buggies shuttle guests about without removing every stair. Nowhere confirms which rooms, if any, sit away from the steepest paths, so if your week depends on a pram, or someone finds steps hard going, speak to the resort first and ask them to place you within easy reach of the main pool and the restaurants.
Can we walk to Tsilivi Beach?
You can, but most guests advise against it with young children. It is a little over a mile on roads that aren't built for prams, so a taxi of about ten minutes is the sensible call, more so in the heat or with a buggy loaded up.
What baby equipment does the resort provide?
Nothing is listed publicly, on the resort's pages or anywhere else, which is not the same as nothing being available. Cots, high chairs and the rest aren't confirmed, so email the resort with your exact list and get each item agreed in writing before you travel.
When is the resort open?
Roughly May to late October, the same window as the island's summer flights; the exact 2026 dates aren't published. If your trip falls right at the start or end of that window, confirm the opening and closing dates with the resort or your operator before you commit to flights.
See more Lesante Cape photos
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Useful links
- Lesante Cape: the resort's own site for rooms, dining and the family facilities.
- GOV.UK Greece travel advice: entry rules and safety updates before you travel.
- Zante with little ones: our guide to the wider island, its beaches and when to go.
Last updated 16 July 2026.
