I am sitting on my bed in room 626 of the Amirandes Grecotel resort as I write this. We are here in October. The weather is a bit changeable with occasional rain and large parts of the day with sun.
When it’s sunny, the gorgeous pool seems the right place to be. Unfortunatelly the water turns out way too cold in our opinion. We succeeded in bathing our feet, but we did not enter the pool beyond knee height. Fortunately, the hotel has a private beach with beautiful clear water and, with a better water temperature. We manage to conquer beach beds every morning right after breakfast.
There are several restaurants, of which the main restaurant with a buffet is the largest. Here they serve a delicious breakfast and dinner, which varies every night. In addition, there are other restaurants in the hotel, such as an Asian and an Italian restaurant. You have to pay a litlle extra for these if you have booked half-board or full-board but they offer a discount on the invoice. The hotel handles a very usefull app where you can book all restaurants in advance.
The central part of the hotel, where the reception is located, and the main restaurant are divided by beautiful graphic water ponds that look very cozy, especially in the evening.
The hotel gardens are beautifully maintained with palm trees and other tropical plants. The kids club organizes entertainment for the children, and there is a safe area where they can play.
There is a gym (that I decided not to use during this holiday) and a beautiful spa that unfortunately canceled my massage when I was already at the spa desk. Communication with the spa lady was difficult, but she offered to schedule a new massage 5 days later but unfortunatelly 5 days later wasn’t a possibility because of our check-out. I kindly thanked her for the offer and left the spa with disappointment as I was really looking forward to an hour of me-time.
The last days of our holiday, we had some sunny days and spend them all on the beach. The water is very clear and you can see tiny fish swim around your feet while you enter the water. Many rocks in the water make it difficult to enter the water except for a spot in front of the villas. The service is pleasant. The beach bar serves an easy menu of burgers and fries, and for mama, they do a nice cappuccino.
From the airport to the hotel it takes about twenty minutes by taxi and costs 30 euros. For the same price, you can go from the hotel to the capital of Crete, Heraklion for a day of shopping.
We attempted to visit the palace of Knossos twice. Still, unfortunately, both times there was a line of one and a half hours to enter, which is really impossible with small children. Instead, we visited the Archaeological Museum in the center of Heraklion, which was definitely worth it.
After the museum, we strolled through the city where you could have a delicious lunch or drink coffee. There is plenty of choice in restaurants, there is a car-free street where only restaurants are located. Shopping is no problem at all in Heraklion. After a delicious coffee and an ice cream, we decide to go back to our hotel because our lovely beach bed is calling.
