Krini Beach Hotel

I was pleasantly surprised, because the travel agency photos had made me expect worse. The hotel was clean and in a nice location. Inside there’s an elevator, a big pool plus a children’s pool, a spacious dining room, and a sofa area with a TV. There’s also ping-pong and a play area for smaller children. A market next door stays open until 23:30, and there’s a pharmacy, bus stop, and pizzeria nearby. The beach is sandy by the beach bar entrance, but farther along it turns stony. This was my first time in Greece, and I liked the place a lot. I’d recommend it to friends and to anyone checking reviews online.

This is a small hotel with a pretty, clean garden area, and the sea and beach are wonderful. The food was always fresh, though the selection was limited and got repetitive. The beef was tough, and the mattresses and pillows were so uncomfortable that I couldn’t sleep on them. By the end of the holiday, I’d wake up with aching bones. The poolside toilet was horrible, not what I’d expect at a four-star hotel. The rooms weren’t all cozy, but they were cleaned well every day, so I have no complaint about that. For a three-star place, I could overlook the shortcomings. But the hotel calls itself four-star, which is a bit strange.

The pools were good, especially the one for kids, and the rooms were fine. The food got boring and wasn’t great, and we didn’t think much of the beach either. There weren’t enough activities for children, and the playroom could have been nicer and safer. The area around the hotel wasn’t great, but the bus to Rethymno was easy to take, and the town was really nice. We stayed a week with our 1.5-year-old. We expected more from a hotel claiming four stars and would rate it two or three. With a good deal, it’s not a bad place to go.

The sea is right across from the hotel, which is convenient, but the public beach was never cleaned. Rethymnon is a beautiful town, about 15 minutes away by car or 30 by bus, though we had to wait at least 40 minutes for the bus. The hotel’s guests were mostly Polish. There were a lot of problems with the food. The same fish, chicken, or pork appeared every day, along with cooked vegetables and the same salad ingredients: tomato, onion, cucumber, lettuce, tzatziki, mustard sauce, and one other sauce. Rice, potatoes, and pasta usually came with sausage. The juices from the machine tasted artificial, and they had orange and apple. Nearly every time, the green tea bags were gone and only black tea was left. The all-inclusive bar had just one non-alcoholic cocktail. The alcoholic cocktail list was so limited that only one drink had more than two ingredients, which made it possible to leave the alcohol out. The desserts were the same each day. Once we spotted something new, but there was so little that it had disappeared before we finished eating. We asked for more because we saw staff had it in a fridge guests couldn’t reach, but they refused. The fruit selection also stayed the same: apples, oranges, watermelon, and melon. The rooms are old and need repairs. Water dripped from our air conditioner. Wi-Fi was very poor throughout the hotel, making it impossible to work remotely or use the service without trouble. Staff also didn’t know the nearby bus stop location or schedule several times. On the final day, four people in our group were poisoned by dinner and felt very ill. We wanted to extend checkout because of how bad we felt, but were asked to pay 30 EUR, the daily room rate, for three extra hours before the next guests checked in. We could either leave the room and wait somewhere in the hotel for our airport bus while feeling that way, or pay. The next visitors didn’t arrive at check-in time, so the room would have stayed free longer after we left. The staff and boss smile when there’s no problem. When something does go wrong, they try to persuade you it’s not their responsibility and lie to make themselves look innocent.