Thalassi Hotel

The room was a good size and had modern furnishings, a decent fridge and TV, a comfortable bed, a large shower, and a medium-sized balcony. It was mostly quiet, except for a dog barking at night and a cockerel crowing nonstop from around 5-6am. The pool was clean and pleasant. Staff were generally welcoming and friendly, and Eva and Dimitri were helpful. I’d contacted the hotel in advance about a birthday cake for my wife, and they arranged a very nice one. Breakfast was a nice buffet, and the evening meals were freshly cooked and pretty good. The restaurant is by the sea with nice views, though half-board guests weren’t allowed to sit at the tables with the best views. As someone who doesn’t drink alcohol, I appreciated that they had decent non-alcoholic beer and gin. We also booked a few island trips through the hotel’s local excursions company. Eva handled the bookings and payments for us, and the trips were good. There isn’t much around the hotel: a taverna, coffee shop, bakery, and supermarket. There’s nowhere especially nice to walk or have a drink nearby, and the busy road and noisy, dirty dual carriageway make the area unpleasant. The bus stops are in very poor shape, in some cases reduced to burnt-out frames with no seats or glass, and there are no timetables. Buses are hit or miss and don’t reliably follow online schedules, though when we caught one, Rethymno and Panormo were about 30 minutes away and worth visiting. The walk to the evening restaurant takes 5-10 minutes through a grotty, Skid Row-style underpass, which wasn’t pleasant at night. There’s a shuttle at 7.30, 8, and 8.30pm, but if you miss it you have to walk. The half-board dinner was fresh and good, but the buffet was extremely small, probably the smallest I’ve seen, and some dishes weren’t labelled. The poolside bar only served food from 12-3pm. Facilities are limited to a moderate-sized pool, small poolside bar, breakfast area, and reception. There’s no gym, spa, or grounds for a stroll. There are no lifts, so anyone above the ground floor has to carry luggage up the stairs. We were on the top floor and hauled 46kg of bags up four flights. We were told there was a private beach near the seafront restaurant, but when we asked there, staff laughed and pointed to a nearby patch of sea. The beach area is underwater for several months a year and only becomes accessible when the tide recedes. Drinks couldn’t be added to our room tab, so we had to pay each time, although some guests who had got friendly with bar staff seemed to be allowed to run tabs. Room cleaning was irregular, and at one point we went three days without it. Air conditioning cost €5 a night, the safe was another €3, and the obligatory Greek tourist tax was a further €5 a night, payable in cash. Those extras add up over a stay of about a fortnight.