We will begin our review with the words of one unfortunate colleague living with us in a hotel from Perm: “Take a large scarf, you will wipe your tears while listening to our story! ”
My friend and I have repeatedly been to Turkey (3*, 4* and 5* ultra), but this time we gathered for the first time in Europe, the "cradle of civilization", as I put it. We decided to start from Greece, we needed a direct flight from Samara, there were two options: Cyprus and Rhodes. "Green Rhodes" has not impressed yet in the pictures. There are only rocks and a complete lack of greenery around. We stopped in Crete. For a long time we were looking for an inexpensive hotel directly on the sea. They offered basically 400 m to the beach and 6 km to the airport (well, this is for those dates when we could take a vacation). We stopped at Neon *** (the town of Stalida near Malia), although in fact it is **. We read the reviews and decided that it suits us: access to our sandy beach, swimming pool, breakfast, modest but clean. But in reality, everything turned out to be much more deplorable.
The hotel is old, without renovation (it just didn't scare), but very dirty. It is kept by a large Greek family, who live in it all year round, meet guests, etc. All they do is that they drink raki in the evenings in the hall, and one full hired girl works: she washes the floors, cleans the rooms and the yard, cooks, washes the dishes, changes the linen and washes it. It is not surprising that there is a mess there! Even at the entrance, I found completely dusty wooden railings, I had to do wet cleaning in the room myself, because. dust was everywhere: bedside tables, cabinet shelves, dressing table, chairs, etc. The room is small, 11-12 sq m, two beds with synthetic linens and a blanket, a TV that was never turned on and a small refrigerator (thank God, otherwise it’s a real disaster! ). In the toilet, instead of a shower, there is a tray (these were always in student dormitories) and an oilcloth instead of a curtain, but these are again trifles compared to the lack of a hair dryer (in principle, we never took it to Turkey and, naively, thought that this blessing of civilization was coming default). Linen (remind synthetic) was changed after three days for the fourth. “Greek hospitality and cordiality” finished off when my friend was given a towel with dirty footprints (well, apparently washed badly), she went to the hotel owner at the reception with a request to replace, he made a real interrogation where she got it from, why we have someone else’s towel turned out to be in the room and got into the computer to check when we should change linen, etc. In short, they argued for a long time, instead of apologizing and replacing the towel. Now about the most important thing!!!
When we checked in, we were given 2 rolls of toilet paper and 2 bars of soap, you won't believe it's ALL for 13 days of our stay there, it's no longer allowed. If you want to wash yourself, if you want to wash your clothes, but no one will give you new pieces, okay, they also guessed to take shampoo with them, and he helped out. Otherwise, one would have to either walk dirty through this "cradle of civilization" or buy household chemicals in local supermarkets.
Well, toilet paper had to be “grabbed” from the public toilet in the dining room, which, by the way, was not cleaned even once during the entire period of our stay, where, as at the station, papers are lying around a dirty toilet bowl and flies). Our departure from Samara was supposed to be at 00.30, at the airport they found out that it had been postponed to 4.50, they cooked there, on the plane (Orenburg Airlines) they fed little and badly (unoiled buckwheat with chicken cutlet, and from drinks only water with and without gas), We really hoped that we would have time for breakfast at the hotel and eat normally, but....It turns out that on the day of arrival and departure there is no food. In general, we slept a bit and went to look for something to eat somewhere.
And one more important feature in Crete that the guide did not mention to us (he told all sorts of nonsense about the kindness and hospitality of the Cretans) - they stop feeding here somewhere by 22.00, the cooks go home, and only cocktails and drinks are served in the cafe.
Of course, we learned about this from our own sad experience. On the first day, we had a late and hearty lunch, and in the evening we went for a walk and worked up an appetite. They dreamed of having a beautiful hearty dinner. What was our surprise when we were refused in all cafes and taverns (the center, by the way), you see, the time is already the eleventh hour and we can only be fed at McDonald's in Malia (25-30 minutes walk to it). In short, we barely had time to dive into the closing supermarket around 23.00, took bread, cheese, beer and ate it all while sitting in the room on the bed. This is the first Cretan evening!! ! What is there to talk about Cretan hospitality and cordiality. This story repeated itself, and when we were late one day from a tour of the island (we didn’t come across nice taverns along the way, but we were reluctant to eat with a view of the dusty highway, we hoped that in a nearby cafe they would definitely feed us out of old friendship, but not fate . . ) .
True, we must pay tribute to the kitchen, fish and other fresh seafood are simply magnificent, which is what they tried to eat during the entire period of their stay in this “hospitable” country. They don’t know how to cook meat, and another feature of the Greeks: for some reason they don’t serve olives at all, that is, they aren’t even on the menu. If you want olives, buy in a plastic bag 1.98-2.5 Euro for 150 grams. No others. Even in a Greek salad, more than 4 pieces will not be put. Again, out of naivety, we hoped that even on our Swedish breakfast table there would be a bowl of olives... No matter how!! ! They don’t even serve dishes, they use greens, peppers and even corn cobs, but not olives.
To my question where are the olives and why they are greedy to serve, no one answered anything. Wine in a bottle (they took white semi-dry) was poured from the supermarket, it turned out to be impossible to drink (vodka diluted with grape juice), this is the same advertised Retsina. Then they tried to take portioned bottles (200g - 4.5 euros) in restaurants - it is delicious, there is even semi-sweet. The dishes are mostly large (hot most often for two), it costs both fish and meat on average from 10 euros and more. We, as already mentioned, preferred seafood.
Only one thing was always pleasing: the distance to the beach, the sandy beach and the magnificent sea. Two sunbeds and an umbrella on the beach cost 6 euros (they say there are more expensive). We made do with a blanket (it's hard to pay for basic amenities after Turkey).
There were no fruits at breakfast at all (except once oranges were cut into slices and the same slices of apples the other time), there were mostly watermelon (sweet) and melon (like potatoes). The rest we bought ourselves in the supermarket, expensive!
Breakfast was the same standard every day, but these are also little things in life, survived: muesli, milk, orange concentrate, 4 types of jam, sausage and cheese (DAILY WITHOUT CHANGE one type), boiled egg, stale bread and tasteless instant coffee. But even here it was not without controversy. Once having talked with the owner of the hotel on the issue of changing the towels, they preferred to shy away from communicating with them altogether. THOSE. when it was time to ask them for a lunch package (we flew away at 5.00 in the morning, the bus came for us at three o'clock), we decided to make sandwiches for breakfast and put them in the fridge in the room to have a snack before the flight (you never know how it will be on the plane again ? ) and did so. By the way, no one stopped us at the exit from the canteen, there were no signs forbidding food from the canteen, and I think we did not commit a great crime. But it was not there. Sunbathing by the pool, we got a huge scandal!! ! The owner’s brother jumped up with our sandwiches, he took them in our room in the refrigerator, from which everyone concluded that this hotel had a habit of climbing rooms in the absence of tourists) shaking them and yelling like a half-cut that he would hand us over to the police, evict us from the hotel ( I don’t speak English, I don’t understand anything, I look at him, it was later translated to me), and in the end he grabbed my hand and waved. Well, then I could not stand it anymore, pulled out my hand and said that I myself would go to the police.
They called a representative of the tour operator in Crete, I wrote a complaint and asked to apologize to me. But even she couldn’t get an apology from them, they all said that the food was not allowed to be taken out and made noise and noise like in a bad series, as if it was possible to climb numbers and beat tourists. In short, she apologized to us, saying that these were “hillbills without education” and what to expect from them. In general, she ordered not to leave it like that, to achieve an inspection of this hotel upon arrival, saying that such people should be brought up. That's why she ordered lunch bags for us before leaving, do you think they gave them to us? What are you, crayfish and an apple for a snack - that's the whole lunch package for the road. We proudly refused.
All the tourists who watched this scene by the pool were shocked, both ours and the Germans with English grandmothers. I think now the number of visitors to the canteen will be reduced even more. And as for the soap (2 pieces), the Cretan representative said that this is the norm in many hotels and that they don’t even put shampoo in **** and soap may not be added. Very interesting note!
Now for the pleasant things: we rented a car, asked the price for a long time, dressed up, finally took an Opel Corsa 1.4 for 5 days, automatic with air conditioning and a full tank (it cost 200 euros + 20 liters of gasoline were poured into 32 euros).
And of course, when going to Greece, every woman dreams of buying a fur coat there, we were no exception. We traveled all over Crete (taking into account the recommendations of friends and our own observations), bought fur coats, although a little more expensive than planned, but with what difficulty??? ? But this is a separate story and in another topic. I will only say one thing, there are no good fur coats there, it’s just that no one brings them to the island (they say they will take what they weigh in stores here) and the prices are also sky-high, they dressed up from 12.00 to 17.30 and bargained for only 100 Euros, but the fur coats are really good, such in You won’t get Samara for this money, but you didn’t want to take cheap fur coats, this “good” is enough at home, since the smart “Chinese” are urging you on.
The conclusion from this trip is this: Respect to the Turks, the Greeks still learn and learn hospitality from them, they looked at Crete, the nature is fabulous, the views are fantastic, the hotel is terrible and there is definitely no more foot. We will not promise, perhaps we will also come to visit Greece, but now not to Crete, perhaps to Corfu, Rhodes, or even to the mainland, to Thessaloniki. But this is the case if there is extra free money, because. a comfortable stay here is not cheap. If you need inexpensive and comfortable - then to Turkey.
I hope our review will be useful to beginners who want to visit the Greek island of Crete and the Neon Hotel in particular. But my advice is to look elsewhere.
My friend and I have repeatedly been to Turkey (3*, 4* and 5* ultra), but this time we gathered for the first time in Europe, the "cradle of civilization", as I put it. We decided to start from Greece, we needed a direct flight from Samara, there were two options: Cyprus and Rhodes. "Green Rhodes" has not impressed yet in the pictures. There are only rocks and a complete lack of greenery around. We stopped in Crete. For a long time we were looking for an inexpensive hotel directly on the sea. They offered basically 400 m to the beach and 6 km to the airport (well, this is for those dates when we could take a vacation). We stopped at Neon *** (the town of Stalida near Malia), although in fact it is **. We read the reviews and decided that it suits us: access to our sandy beach, swimming pool, breakfast, modest but clean. But in reality, everything turned out to be much more deplorable.
The hotel is old, without renovation (it just didn't scare), but very dirty. It is kept by a large Greek family, who live in it all year round, meet guests, etc. All they do is that they drink raki in the evenings in the hall, and one full hired girl works: she washes the floors, cleans the rooms and the yard, cooks, washes the dishes, changes the linen and washes it. It is not surprising that there is a mess there! Even at the entrance, I found completely dusty wooden railings, I had to do wet cleaning in the room myself, because. dust was everywhere: bedside tables, cabinet shelves, dressing table, chairs, etc. The room is small, 11-12 sq m, two beds with synthetic linens and a blanket, a TV that was never turned on and a small refrigerator (thank God, otherwise it’s a real disaster! ). In the toilet, instead of a shower, there is a tray (these were always in student dormitories) and an oilcloth instead of a curtain, but these are again trifles compared to the lack of a hair dryer (in principle, we never took it to Turkey and, naively, thought that this blessing of civilization was coming default). Linen (remind synthetic) was changed after three days for the fourth. “Greek hospitality and cordiality” finished off when my friend was given a towel with dirty footprints (well, apparently washed badly), she went to the hotel owner at the reception with a request to replace, he made a real interrogation where she got it from, why we have someone else’s towel turned out to be in the room and got into the computer to check when we should change linen, etc. In short, they argued for a long time, instead of apologizing and replacing the towel. Now about the most important thing!!!
When we checked in, we were given 2 rolls of toilet paper and 2 bars of soap, you won't believe it's ALL for 13 days of our stay there, it's no longer allowed. If you want to wash yourself, if you want to wash your clothes, but no one will give you new pieces, okay, they also guessed to take shampoo with them, and he helped out. Otherwise, one would have to either walk dirty through this "cradle of civilization" or buy household chemicals in local supermarkets.
Well, toilet paper had to be “grabbed” from the public toilet in the dining room, which, by the way, was not cleaned even once during the entire period of our stay, where, as at the station, papers are lying around a dirty toilet bowl and flies). Our departure from Samara was supposed to be at 00.30, at the airport they found out that it had been postponed to 4.50, they cooked there, on the plane (Orenburg Airlines) they fed little and badly (unoiled buckwheat with chicken cutlet, and from drinks only water with and without gas), We really hoped that we would have time for breakfast at the hotel and eat normally, but....It turns out that on the day of arrival and departure there is no food. In general, we slept a bit and went to look for something to eat somewhere.
And one more important feature in Crete that the guide did not mention to us (he told all sorts of nonsense about the kindness and hospitality of the Cretans) - they stop feeding here somewhere by 22.00, the cooks go home, and only cocktails and drinks are served in the cafe.
Of course, we learned about this from our own sad experience. On the first day, we had a late and hearty lunch, and in the evening we went for a walk and worked up an appetite. They dreamed of having a beautiful hearty dinner. What was our surprise when we were refused in all cafes and taverns (the center, by the way), you see, the time is already the eleventh hour and we can only be fed at McDonald's in Malia (25-30 minutes walk to it). In short, we barely had time to dive into the closing supermarket around 23.00, took bread, cheese, beer and ate it all while sitting in the room on the bed. This is the first Cretan evening!! ! What is there to talk about Cretan hospitality and cordiality. This story repeated itself, and when we were late one day from a tour of the island (we didn’t come across nice taverns along the way, but we were reluctant to eat with a view of the dusty highway, we hoped that in a nearby cafe they would definitely feed us out of old friendship, but not fate . . ) .
True, we must pay tribute to the kitchen, fish and other fresh seafood are simply magnificent, which is what they tried to eat during the entire period of their stay in this “hospitable” country. They don’t know how to cook meat, and another feature of the Greeks: for some reason they don’t serve olives at all, that is, they aren’t even on the menu. If you want olives, buy in a plastic bag 1.98-2.5 Euro for 150 grams. No others. Even in a Greek salad, more than 4 pieces will not be put. Again, out of naivety, we hoped that even on our Swedish breakfast table there would be a bowl of olives... No matter how!! ! They don’t even serve dishes, they use greens, peppers and even corn cobs, but not olives.
To my question where are the olives and why they are greedy to serve, no one answered anything. Wine in a bottle (they took white semi-dry) was poured from the supermarket, it turned out to be impossible to drink (vodka diluted with grape juice), this is the same advertised Retsina. Then they tried to take portioned bottles (200g - 4.5 euros) in restaurants - it is delicious, there is even semi-sweet. The dishes are mostly large (hot most often for two), it costs both fish and meat on average from 10 euros and more. We, as already mentioned, preferred seafood.
Only one thing was always pleasing: the distance to the beach, the sandy beach and the magnificent sea. Two sunbeds and an umbrella on the beach cost 6 euros (they say there are more expensive). We made do with a blanket (it's hard to pay for basic amenities after Turkey).
There were no fruits at breakfast at all (except once oranges were cut into slices and the same slices of apples the other time), there were mostly watermelon (sweet) and melon (like potatoes). The rest we bought ourselves in the supermarket, expensive!
Breakfast was the same standard every day, but these are also little things in life, survived: muesli, milk, orange concentrate, 4 types of jam, sausage and cheese (DAILY WITHOUT CHANGE one type), boiled egg, stale bread and tasteless instant coffee. But even here it was not without controversy. Once having talked with the owner of the hotel on the issue of changing the towels, they preferred to shy away from communicating with them altogether. THOSE. when it was time to ask them for a lunch package (we flew away at 5.00 in the morning, the bus came for us at three o'clock), we decided to make sandwiches for breakfast and put them in the fridge in the room to have a snack before the flight (you never know how it will be on the plane again ? ) and did so. By the way, no one stopped us at the exit from the canteen, there were no signs forbidding food from the canteen, and I think we did not commit a great crime. But it was not there. Sunbathing by the pool, we got a huge scandal!! ! The owner’s brother jumped up with our sandwiches, he took them in our room in the refrigerator, from which everyone concluded that this hotel had a habit of climbing rooms in the absence of tourists) shaking them and yelling like a half-cut that he would hand us over to the police, evict us from the hotel ( I don’t speak English, I don’t understand anything, I look at him, it was later translated to me), and in the end he grabbed my hand and waved. Well, then I could not stand it anymore, pulled out my hand and said that I myself would go to the police.
They called a representative of the tour operator in Crete, I wrote a complaint and asked to apologize to me. But even she couldn’t get an apology from them, they all said that the food was not allowed to be taken out and made noise and noise like in a bad series, as if it was possible to climb numbers and beat tourists. In short, she apologized to us, saying that these were “hillbills without education” and what to expect from them. In general, she ordered not to leave it like that, to achieve an inspection of this hotel upon arrival, saying that such people should be brought up. That's why she ordered lunch bags for us before leaving, do you think they gave them to us? What are you, crayfish and an apple for a snack - that's the whole lunch package for the road. We proudly refused.
All the tourists who watched this scene by the pool were shocked, both ours and the Germans with English grandmothers. I think now the number of visitors to the canteen will be reduced even more. And as for the soap (2 pieces), the Cretan representative said that this is the norm in many hotels and that they don’t even put shampoo in **** and soap may not be added. Very interesting note!
Now for the pleasant things: we rented a car, asked the price for a long time, dressed up, finally took an Opel Corsa 1.4 for 5 days, automatic with air conditioning and a full tank (it cost 200 euros + 20 liters of gasoline were poured into 32 euros).
And of course, when going to Greece, every woman dreams of buying a fur coat there, we were no exception. We traveled all over Crete (taking into account the recommendations of friends and our own observations), bought fur coats, although a little more expensive than planned, but with what difficulty??? ? But this is a separate story and in another topic. I will only say one thing, there are no good fur coats there, it’s just that no one brings them to the island (they say they will take what they weigh in stores here) and the prices are also sky-high, they dressed up from 12.00 to 17.30 and bargained for only 100 Euros, but the fur coats are really good, such in You won’t get Samara for this money, but you didn’t want to take cheap fur coats, this “good” is enough at home, since the smart “Chinese” are urging you on.
The conclusion from this trip is this: Respect to the Turks, the Greeks still learn and learn hospitality from them, they looked at Crete, the nature is fabulous, the views are fantastic, the hotel is terrible and there is definitely no more foot. We will not promise, perhaps we will also come to visit Greece, but now not to Crete, perhaps to Corfu, Rhodes, or even to the mainland, to Thessaloniki. But this is the case if there is extra free money, because. a comfortable stay here is not cheap. If you need inexpensive and comfortable - then to Turkey.
I hope our review will be useful to beginners who want to visit the Greek island of Crete and the Neon Hotel in particular. But my advice is to look elsewhere.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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