Grecotel Creta Palace

This is a five star hotel and is as slick and polished as you might expect, with staff on hand to help with any and every enquiry or request, and a large imposing lobby and restaurant area. Grassy areas around the various accommodation blocks provide welcome coolness thanks to sprinklers. It's a sprawling complex with a family-friendly feel and also facilities more suited to adults i.e. the bars and Spa. Room location is a big factor in terms of how quiet or pleasant a stay you'll have as some rooms are very close to the small commercial area or the children's swimming pool. Rooms below ours had a direct view (and noise) of the air conditioning fan units behind the Spa. We had a standard 'Bungalow with Sea View', in reality a small apartment in a two-storey block. Although well maintained, decorated and clean, it is apparent that the concrete on the balcony is breaking down, and in the room the bedhead had a hole in it and the 'mirror' surfaces have degraded a lot around the edges. The door doesn't fit properly either, and you can see that other rooms have the same problem, with light spilling out around the doors at night, and sound travelling further than it should. These may seem petty details but for a luxury brand it is poor. A very comfortable bed and quiet air conditioning meant that we slept well in spite of the occasional sounds from neighbouring apartments. We only had breakfast, which was good but not great. Be aware of €15 a night sustainability charge.

Super friendly helpful staff. Beautiful grounds ! Best beaches are south of the Rethymno.

The most wonderful staff you will meet. I felt truly welcome at the hotel. We will miss Christof and Nefeli.

Loved this place, staff, buffet

Friendliness of all staff, lovely location & food, long sandy beach which was lovely for morning walks, amazing sunsets

Clean comfortable hotel with a lovely beach. All inclusive breakfast offering a magnificent variety of foods. Lots of very attentive staff.

We stayed in one of the villas with a pool. It was amazing!. Great service, very attentive, room staff were fantastic and thorough. The villa was super relaxing, just a few steps to the beach or chill out in our own pool. We enjoyed it.

We loved our stay at Creta Palace, it was our honeymoon and the hotel so kindly upgraded us to a family suite on arrival which was beautiful. The facilities are great and perfect for our 2 year old, she loved the pool and beach. The staff were so kind and friendly - thank you so much for making it so special!

Absolutely incredible from arrival to departure. What stood out for us was the friendliness of all staff, the cleanliness of the whole place, the maintenance of the grounds and the quality of the food. We only did breakfast but wish we had done all inclusive. Absolutely outstanding and exceptional service. A nice touch was the offer of drinks on arrival. The hospitality all around was amazing and we already can't wait to return. Thank you

Great staff, and comfortable room. Breakfast was good, but slipped up on a few points, like forgetting to switch on plate heater, so breakfast soon went cold.

This was our first time staying at a Grecotel after hearing many positive things. We booked a junior suite which was meant to come with a sofa with pillows as depicted in the photos but instead it came with a sofa bed that was as hard as a rock. There was no desk and the bed was lumpy and caved in the middle but fortunately they changed it for us. For some reason every single day they removed the flat sheet off the bed and we had to make the bed all over again ourselves. We asked them repeatedly to stop removing it but nobody listened. The room was very outdated and is in need of renovation. It was impossible to black out the room even after they changed the curtains for us so we were woken up early every day by the light. As mentioned the rooms are outdated so there is no soundproofing at all and you hear all the noises especially children. Generally you would think that during COVID the staff would be upbeat/happy and positive to have work but instead almost all of them (apart from two great staff members) looked grumpy and seemed to be permanently sulking. Even when speaking to them in Greek it didn’t change their mood. The second (kid’s) pool was closed which was not communicated on Hotels.com. This meant the main pool was jam packed full of children. To make it worse, on our first day a child made a poo in the main pool and they had to close it!

The staff was really amazing friendly and kind The room was clean but the cover was ripped and old

We booked the hotel assuming the beach is sandy based on the pictures, however beach strip near the water, including the entrance to the water has about 2-3 meters of stones. We were not satisfied with the quality of the room - our prearrival requests (placed 6 months in advance) for a ground floor room was not honored. The other party in our group did get a room from a lower standard than the one was booked. The children’s room had a vasp/yellow jacket nests and we had 3-4 yellow jackets in the room every day and the staff could not be bothered to do anything about it, despite multiple notices. The staff at the hotel was extremely friendly always. The breakfast buffet is of excellent quality. We received outstanding service every day at the beach bar restaurant which we enjoyed very much!

It was our honeymoon and we mentioned that to the staff, they made our trip super amazing on every level!

A beautiful hotel. Really welcoming and child friendly without being overwhelmed by children. Great kids club. Excellent food.Beautiful beach and pools with plenty of space to sit by them. Evening entertainment was good quality and not too touristy! Staff very friendly and helpful. Couple of minor niggles - sheets on our bed didn’t fit properly so scrumpled up overnight. This was a recurring problem suggesting they had the wrong size of sheet for the mattress. Really sharp corner in our family room by sofa - our daughter cut her foot on it.

It could be very good but at its current state it’s suffering from a huge identity crisis... not a 5 star! If you are going with small kids, read below. Reviews can be very subjective and for the benefit of people who are reading this review, I think it’s important to highlight that we usually stay at hotels such as Starwood, Shangri-La, Hilton , etc. We also stay at small boutique hotels but it would be incomparable and not fair. What’s good? -location- 10 mins taxi to old town and few decent restaurants. -staff- very friendly and helpful. -private beach- decent beach and good facilities but again, not a 5 star. -breakfast- great choice and the quality is good... however they need to change their coffee beans, it’s pretty bad. -adult entertainment - 5 star quality, we loved it! -great fish restaurant and bars. What’s bad? - What they fail to highlight in any of the booking sites is that there are two parts to the hotel- the old building and the new one. They’ve tried to “upgrade” the old rooms but still the same shower, furnitures, etc. We got moved... they did try to charge us extra but I wasn’t having any of it. - The kids swimming pool- simply disgusting! I can’t believe this facility is even open... The hotel is 30 years old next year and I don’t think they’ve touched it since its opening. There was no way I would let my kid in that pool! - There is another pool but it’s more for adults and it’s not heated. - Restaurants- this is good and bad. Sky bar is v

Generally very good facilities. Main dining room good for breakfast although staff appeared rather overcome at peak period, in the evening the buffet dinner was very poor value for money. Other restaurants in the hotel were expensive but much better value for money.

Good pool service. Great breakfasts. Overall would go back

The hotel is fantastic. Staff are very friendly and helpful. Breakfast is excellent. This place is especially good for children. Shop on site is very handy. Only bad thing is we had booked a bungalow room, which in fact is just a room that is not part of the hotel and not very big.

Our holiday surpassed all expectations. The staff at the hotel are extremely friendly and the hotel grounds and beach are kept in excellent condition - very tidy indeed. It was a truly relaxing 7 days and we have no complaints, only praise. Upon arrival we were greeted with a warm welcome, towels to freshen up, and a cool drink - exactly what you need after a long journey. We were upgraded to a more spacious room which was a very pleasant surprise. Breakfast is a delicious buffet, wonderful when you sit outside. The aim is to return next year!