InterContinental Crete by IHG

Positives: well located hotel, close to sea front and town centre pleasant design, incorporating rock face into hotel architecture well proportioned and spacious room, tea and coffee facilities in the room (we had a plunge pool room on 4th floor) excellent breakfast buffet - large choice of tasty dishes such as porridge, pastries, cakes, breads, variety of egg dishes (poached eggs on spinach were heavenly), bacon, yoghurts, Greek specialties, fresh and cooked vegetables, ham, cheese, juices, sparkling wince, choice of various coffees, etc, etc as well as breakfast dishes made to order if desired excellent dinners - large selection of extremely tasty and thoughtfully put together dishes (we were on half board); the chef is excellent internal swimming pool, sauna and steam room - very pleasant, used every day reception staff - helpful and informative Negatives: wine at dinner was expensive by Greek standards water at dinner was charged for (but free water was delivered to the room every day by room service and also in the swimming pool/sauna) Overall: we enjoyed staying in the hotel very much, will happily return.

This is a difficult hotel to review because our experience was so mixed. Let’s start with the positives. The physical side of the hotel is excellent. Our room was roomy and very well furnished and equipped. The pool area, at least when the hotel was not crowded early in the season, was superb. The location is great - just a 10-minute walk from the harbour, lake and town centre. The view from the pool areas is really nice. Some of the staff are both helpful and friendly (others less so). Then to the negatives - the breakfast buffet is appallingly restricted for choice and dishes that should be piping hot were lukewarm at best. Big fail in this regard. Only on our last day did we discover that an à la carte breakfast menu was available to order - a huge management fail in this respect. The other major problem was sleep quality. Our room (303) faced directly into the entrance of another hotel that caters for a rough crowd and the late night noise was atrocious. Then, very early in the morning, the noise from a nearby building site was appalling. Admittedly, other rooms might not suffer the same dire problems. A further problem is the complete lack of an on-site bar in which to relax, when returning after dinner in the evenings. Finally, we only ate dinner once in the hotel restaurant. It cost over €150 for two, for very indifferent cuisine, served by a brusque waitress, which was twice the price and half as tasty as the excellent meals we enjoyed in a variety superb restaurants downtown. I have given this hotel three stars but, in all honesty, two might have been fairer.

I had the best experience at Aegeo Spa. You have to see Maria when booking a spa treatment. Her touch is very healing and my treatment could not have been better! I feel completely relaxed and restored. Thank you to Maria, Irene, and the whole spa team for such a wonderful experience.

This is truly a wonderful spa where you can relax and unwind. The staff is exceptionally kind, friendly, and helpful—always attentive and available whenever needed. The pool is very pleasant, the sauna is excellent, and both the hammam and the steam bath are outstanding. I can highly recommend this spa to everyone. Thank you very much for the lovely time in this fantastic hotel!

Sunbed wars ! We stayed at the IHG Crete for 10 nights - great location with infinity pools on the 5th floor and 9th floor, However, it soon became apparent that unless you ‘reserve’ a sunbed before 9am then forget your dream of relaxing by the pool for the day. Pool buddies are supposed to prevent this and monitor the situation and remove guest items from sunbeds if not used for an hour - this doesn’t happen. Witnessed two arguments between guests who took maters into there own hands and removed items. Guests were seen reserving day beds by the pool edge and beds under the shade, and they just moved between them during the day – in effect 2 people using 4 beds ! Discussed this issue at reception and the advice was that "we should be able to get sun beds by the pool late in the afternoon – by this time it is generally quieter." By 5pm most of the terrace is in shade – great ! We tried the beach opposite where the hotel also has sunbeds – the same issue with people reserving beds by 8am. Furthermore, its open to the public and they freely use the sun beds (they don’t have the hotel towels) More sunbed wars between guests. Holidays are for relaxing and unwinding – not setting alarms to rush down and reserve beds, we were unable to get sunbeds by the pool all holiday. Our ‘private balcony’ view was of the side road looking directly into someone’s private residence – we requested a room change and advised that as the hotel was full it would not be possible for 2 days. So, we didn’t unpack and on the third day asked for an update and our issue was ‘still be reviewed’ on the fourth day we gave up asking and eventually unpacked our cases and kept the curtains closed and didn’t use the balcony. The situation was poorly manged by the hotel reception team – just be honest – if there was no possibility of changing rooms just say that, don’t keep us hanging on. We used our glasses and cups in the room – these weren’t cleaned for 3 days, just returned to the shelf for us use again – dirty ! We had to raise this with reception and the glasses were replaced – this was a reoccurring issue all holiday. Had to ask several times for the tea / milk to be replenished in our room - we ended up taking supplies from breakfast and storing them in the room. We found a previous guest’s dirty underwear in one of our draws – delightful. Having stayed at IHG’s all over the world – this is a real let down to the group and a disappointment to the holiday.