I was vacationing in Crete in the first half of July 2010 at the Amnissos Hotel. It should be noted right away that this hotel is practically one of the cheapest in Crete, so you cannot expect anything more from it than satisfying the minimum requirements of tourists. The hotel is quite consistent with its level of 3 *. I was settled in a bungalow - these are detached houses located on the territory of the hotel next to the main building. The houses are probably made of foam concrete blocks, plastered and painted with the same light cream paint. The room, at first glance, reminded me of a monastic cell. The walls and ceiling are painted with the same paint as the outside of the house. On the door leading to the balcony there is a simple curtain made of dense fabric. On the balcony, I found a plastic table and two chairs, on which it was later very convenient to dry swimwear and towels. The room has the necessary set of furniture.
Two beds, a bedside table with a single drawer (for some reason, one for two). On the bedside table is a simple light bulb with a lampshade that absorbs all the light (later the lampshade had to be unscrewed, because otherwise it was impossible even to read before going to bed). There is a mirror on the wall. Above it is an energy-saving light bulb, illuminating a light little table with two drawers. Near the table is a low stool with a seat woven from ropes. In addition, there was an armchair in the room with the same seat made of ropes, there was a Frost-type refrigerator on the floor under the feet, next to it was an incomprehensible bench with sharp slats instead of a seat. A TV is hung high on the wall (it turned out to be completely useless, since out of 10 channels there is only one English and not a single Russian). I put the refrigerator on the bench so that it would not hang under my feet, and later on I threw a beach bag on it. A separate song is a three-leaf wardrobe in a niche.
Upon closer inspection, it contained only doors, a crossbar with several hangers, and not a single shelf. Only in the lower corner was a lonely safe (for a fee - 34 euros for two weeks) and under it two small drawers on the floor itself. But, of course, a Russian person will not disappear anywhere, so, having hung my blouses and T-shirts on the existing hangers, I tied several large plastic bags to the crossbar in the closet and put the rest of my things in them. After finishing the job of making the room look livable, I went to the bathroom. It was pleasantly surprised by the presence of a working hair dryer. The absence of a curtain in the shower has not bothered me for a long time, especially since here the shower was separated from the bathroom by a 10-cm ledge on the floor, and water did not spill all over the floor. And I tied the shower with a string to some thing above the window.
Since there was also no shelf in front of the mirror in the bathroom, without thinking twice, I hung up two plastic bags. I put my toiletries in one, and sunscreen and after-sun creams in the other. Shampoo and soap put on the window near the shower. Thus, all placement problems were solved. Unlike other rooms, my air conditioner worked properly. And the hot water constantly flowing from the tap interfered with me only on the first night. Since the hotel staff did not respond to my requests to replace the gaskets in the tap, I decided that it was their difficulties, after all, they should pay for the extra water consumption, not me.
The first week the room was cleaned every day, and the quality of cleaning suited me just fine. Then another cleaning lady came and some friction started.
The new one began to put things in order, shift things from place to place, rearrange shampoos and creams, and even managed to put my hat somewhere so that I didn’t see it again ...So in the remaining three days I had to flaunt around Crete in a cap from newspapers. After a little disassembly at the reception, the cleaner's zeal subsided, although many tourists complained that she was too active in throwing empty water bottles out of their rooms, which we took with us to the beach to drink or rinse our face and feet after swimming.
With food, too, everything was fine only at the beginning, when there were few people in the hotel. The food was delicious, quite varied, hot. On the second week, many tourists came to the hotel and, after that, all the food became constantly cold, and the owner of the hotel began to artificially create a stir around the food, turning the restaurant into a kind of Soviet canteen with its constant queues.
Without warning, the time of lunch and dinner shifted first by 30 minutes, then the delays at lunch began to reach 50 minutes. Instead of the time indicated in the number for the start of lunch at 13.00, the restaurant began to open at 13.40-13.50. at the same time, already at 14.10 the doors of the restaurant were first covered, and at 14.20 they already directly stated that dinner was over. It is scheduled until 14.00
Also, from the second week, constant water shortages began: during the day (before lunch) there was no hot water, in the evening (before dinner) - cold. It became possible to wash your hair normally only early in the morning or late in the evening.
In general, I would like to note that Crete disappointed me. Compared to Bulgaria, only the sea was better here - clean clear water and a fairly clean beach. By the way, we went to the beach not to the El Greco hotel, but in the opposite direction - to the beach of the Vip Mercedos club.
Leaving the hotel, you need to go to the right, go through two separate houses, after the second near the sign "Vip Mercedos" turn towards the sea along an asphalt road, decorated on one side with palm trees, and on the other - with strange lanterns resembling gallows. This beach is quite clean, sandy, with a good entrance to the water. The seabed is also sandy, the depth increases gradually, evenly. The bottom is well visible. To the right and left, the beach is limited by stone ridges. Among the stones come across sea urchins. And in general, the stones under the water are of different heights, so swimming and walking there is not very convenient. But if you swim within the sandy beach, then there will be no problems. This beach was chosen for themselves by the locals, who came there by car in the late afternoon, usually after 18-19 hours. But since we were leaving at this time for supper, we hardly crossed paths and did not interfere with each other.
But sunbeds and umbrellas on this beach are paid, so we sunbathed on our towels.
Regarding the excursion program, I would like to note that the excursions organized by the host, Kalamaki Travel, are unreasonably expensive and poorly organized, which is probably why the guide tries immediately after your arrival to give you a “package of excursions”, the so-called “special tours”. offer”, consisting of three, four or five excursions. Don't fall for this bait. Personally, one excursion was enough for me to understand their quality. Excursion "Chania. Cretan Evening” cost our guide 52 euros. For this, we were offered an hour run through the ancient city of Chania by a crowd of 72 people (combining tourists from two buses). At the same time, the guide Maryana did not particularly try to load us with information.
As I later realized, this is generally a distinctive feature of all guides in Crete - a minimum of information extracted from the briefest guide for tourists. Then another hour and a half of free time. And finally, the Cretan evening, which most of all looked like a village-scale amateur art concert. If you turn on the TV in the room, you can see the same dances in the best performance. And it makes sense to go to the city of Chania on your own, always in the morning, since all the museums there are only open until 3 pm, and you can see the Museum of Architecture and the Maritime Museum, which contains many models of ships, from prehistoric times to modern ships. Then calmly walk along the winding streets of the old city, ride a boat or drive around the city in a carriage, swim on the beach. A bus ticket to Chania from Rethymnon (round trip) costs only 11 euros.
And all intercity buses in Crete are the same as sightseeing buses - soft and air-conditioned. By the way, simple local regular buses are all equipped with air conditioning. Therefore, in Crete you can travel not only by a rented car, but also by regular buses, which is much cheaper. And the guide's story will completely replace the guidebook.
Of the excursions, I can only recommend trips on a yellow train - “Yellow train” - firstly, it is not tiring: in 3-4 hours of traveling in the fresh air on a train and on foot, you will get acquainted with the life of people and the nature of Crete, and secondly, not expensive: ticket price 12.5 - 15 euros. True, on the first route, the famous monastery of Arkadi still required an additional payment (2.5 - entrance to the monastery, 1.5 - ethnographic museum, 2-3 - payment for refreshments in a tavern - but this is usually practiced during all excursions in Crete).
But during the trip "Buck to nature" - "Back to nature" - we were not only shown and told about various trees and plants, introduced to various ancient and modern settlements, but also treated to plums and lemonade for free. The only disadvantage of these trips is that the guides still do not know how to speak in Russian. But my school and university knowledge of English 20 years ago was enough for me not only to understand the unhurried story of the guide, but also to translate it almost simultaneously to my friends who did not know English.
Therefore, I recommend getting to know Crete by making independent trips on scheduled buses or on a yellow train - the “Yellow train”. An advertisement for a train with a brief Russian description of 8 routes can be taken at the hotel reception. These excursions are ordered and paid for there.
It can also be noted that in Rethymnon, a town half an hour by bus from the Amnissos hotel (bus tickets cost 1.2 euros one way), you can take a boat trip on a boat or a pirate ship lasting one and a half, three or four hours (the cost is respectively 15.22 or 34 euros). Long walks also involve swimming in the open sea or in a beautiful bay. These walks start at 11.12 and 13.00. But it must be taken into account that at the slightest disturbance at sea, the ships remain in the port, so I did not get on such a walk. When we were about to go to Rethymno, there were very small waves on the sea up to half a meter high near the shore, which we did not pay attention to.
Thus, summing up, I would like to note that a holiday in Crete at the Amnissos hotel is designed for people who are not spoiled by luxury hotels in Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia.
Two beds, a bedside table with a single drawer (for some reason, one for two). On the bedside table is a simple light bulb with a lampshade that absorbs all the light (later the lampshade had to be unscrewed, because otherwise it was impossible even to read before going to bed). There is a mirror on the wall. Above it is an energy-saving light bulb, illuminating a light little table with two drawers. Near the table is a low stool with a seat woven from ropes. In addition, there was an armchair in the room with the same seat made of ropes, there was a Frost-type refrigerator on the floor under the feet, next to it was an incomprehensible bench with sharp slats instead of a seat. A TV is hung high on the wall (it turned out to be completely useless, since out of 10 channels there is only one English and not a single Russian). I put the refrigerator on the bench so that it would not hang under my feet, and later on I threw a beach bag on it. A separate song is a three-leaf wardrobe in a niche.
Upon closer inspection, it contained only doors, a crossbar with several hangers, and not a single shelf. Only in the lower corner was a lonely safe (for a fee - 34 euros for two weeks) and under it two small drawers on the floor itself. But, of course, a Russian person will not disappear anywhere, so, having hung my blouses and T-shirts on the existing hangers, I tied several large plastic bags to the crossbar in the closet and put the rest of my things in them. After finishing the job of making the room look livable, I went to the bathroom. It was pleasantly surprised by the presence of a working hair dryer. The absence of a curtain in the shower has not bothered me for a long time, especially since here the shower was separated from the bathroom by a 10-cm ledge on the floor, and water did not spill all over the floor. And I tied the shower with a string to some thing above the window.
Since there was also no shelf in front of the mirror in the bathroom, without thinking twice, I hung up two plastic bags. I put my toiletries in one, and sunscreen and after-sun creams in the other. Shampoo and soap put on the window near the shower. Thus, all placement problems were solved. Unlike other rooms, my air conditioner worked properly. And the hot water constantly flowing from the tap interfered with me only on the first night. Since the hotel staff did not respond to my requests to replace the gaskets in the tap, I decided that it was their difficulties, after all, they should pay for the extra water consumption, not me.
The first week the room was cleaned every day, and the quality of cleaning suited me just fine. Then another cleaning lady came and some friction started.
The new one began to put things in order, shift things from place to place, rearrange shampoos and creams, and even managed to put my hat somewhere so that I didn’t see it again ...So in the remaining three days I had to flaunt around Crete in a cap from newspapers. After a little disassembly at the reception, the cleaner's zeal subsided, although many tourists complained that she was too active in throwing empty water bottles out of their rooms, which we took with us to the beach to drink or rinse our face and feet after swimming.
With food, too, everything was fine only at the beginning, when there were few people in the hotel. The food was delicious, quite varied, hot. On the second week, many tourists came to the hotel and, after that, all the food became constantly cold, and the owner of the hotel began to artificially create a stir around the food, turning the restaurant into a kind of Soviet canteen with its constant queues.
Without warning, the time of lunch and dinner shifted first by 30 minutes, then the delays at lunch began to reach 50 minutes. Instead of the time indicated in the number for the start of lunch at 13.00, the restaurant began to open at 13.40-13.50. at the same time, already at 14.10 the doors of the restaurant were first covered, and at 14.20 they already directly stated that dinner was over. It is scheduled until 14.00
Also, from the second week, constant water shortages began: during the day (before lunch) there was no hot water, in the evening (before dinner) - cold. It became possible to wash your hair normally only early in the morning or late in the evening.
In general, I would like to note that Crete disappointed me. Compared to Bulgaria, only the sea was better here - clean clear water and a fairly clean beach. By the way, we went to the beach not to the El Greco hotel, but in the opposite direction - to the beach of the Vip Mercedos club.
Leaving the hotel, you need to go to the right, go through two separate houses, after the second near the sign "Vip Mercedos" turn towards the sea along an asphalt road, decorated on one side with palm trees, and on the other - with strange lanterns resembling gallows. This beach is quite clean, sandy, with a good entrance to the water. The seabed is also sandy, the depth increases gradually, evenly. The bottom is well visible. To the right and left, the beach is limited by stone ridges. Among the stones come across sea urchins. And in general, the stones under the water are of different heights, so swimming and walking there is not very convenient. But if you swim within the sandy beach, then there will be no problems. This beach was chosen for themselves by the locals, who came there by car in the late afternoon, usually after 18-19 hours. But since we were leaving at this time for supper, we hardly crossed paths and did not interfere with each other.
But sunbeds and umbrellas on this beach are paid, so we sunbathed on our towels.
Regarding the excursion program, I would like to note that the excursions organized by the host, Kalamaki Travel, are unreasonably expensive and poorly organized, which is probably why the guide tries immediately after your arrival to give you a “package of excursions”, the so-called “special tours”. offer”, consisting of three, four or five excursions. Don't fall for this bait. Personally, one excursion was enough for me to understand their quality. Excursion "Chania. Cretan Evening” cost our guide 52 euros. For this, we were offered an hour run through the ancient city of Chania by a crowd of 72 people (combining tourists from two buses). At the same time, the guide Maryana did not particularly try to load us with information.
As I later realized, this is generally a distinctive feature of all guides in Crete - a minimum of information extracted from the briefest guide for tourists. Then another hour and a half of free time. And finally, the Cretan evening, which most of all looked like a village-scale amateur art concert. If you turn on the TV in the room, you can see the same dances in the best performance. And it makes sense to go to the city of Chania on your own, always in the morning, since all the museums there are only open until 3 pm, and you can see the Museum of Architecture and the Maritime Museum, which contains many models of ships, from prehistoric times to modern ships. Then calmly walk along the winding streets of the old city, ride a boat or drive around the city in a carriage, swim on the beach. A bus ticket to Chania from Rethymnon (round trip) costs only 11 euros.
And all intercity buses in Crete are the same as sightseeing buses - soft and air-conditioned. By the way, simple local regular buses are all equipped with air conditioning. Therefore, in Crete you can travel not only by a rented car, but also by regular buses, which is much cheaper. And the guide's story will completely replace the guidebook.
Of the excursions, I can only recommend trips on a yellow train - “Yellow train” - firstly, it is not tiring: in 3-4 hours of traveling in the fresh air on a train and on foot, you will get acquainted with the life of people and the nature of Crete, and secondly, not expensive: ticket price 12.5 - 15 euros. True, on the first route, the famous monastery of Arkadi still required an additional payment (2.5 - entrance to the monastery, 1.5 - ethnographic museum, 2-3 - payment for refreshments in a tavern - but this is usually practiced during all excursions in Crete).
But during the trip "Buck to nature" - "Back to nature" - we were not only shown and told about various trees and plants, introduced to various ancient and modern settlements, but also treated to plums and lemonade for free. The only disadvantage of these trips is that the guides still do not know how to speak in Russian. But my school and university knowledge of English 20 years ago was enough for me not only to understand the unhurried story of the guide, but also to translate it almost simultaneously to my friends who did not know English.
Therefore, I recommend getting to know Crete by making independent trips on scheduled buses or on a yellow train - the “Yellow train”. An advertisement for a train with a brief Russian description of 8 routes can be taken at the hotel reception. These excursions are ordered and paid for there.
It can also be noted that in Rethymnon, a town half an hour by bus from the Amnissos hotel (bus tickets cost 1.2 euros one way), you can take a boat trip on a boat or a pirate ship lasting one and a half, three or four hours (the cost is respectively 15.22 or 34 euros). Long walks also involve swimming in the open sea or in a beautiful bay. These walks start at 11.12 and 13.00. But it must be taken into account that at the slightest disturbance at sea, the ships remain in the port, so I did not get on such a walk. When we were about to go to Rethymno, there were very small waves on the sea up to half a meter high near the shore, which we did not pay attention to.
Thus, summing up, I would like to note that a holiday in Crete at the Amnissos hotel is designed for people who are not spoiled by luxury hotels in Egypt, Turkey and Tunisia.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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OTHER REVIEWS ABOUT THE HOTEL
- A hotel that disappointed.
- Dirty, terrible rooms, poor food
- The hotel is beautiful, bright, friendly staff
- Everything you need at 3-star level
- Good hotel for the whole family
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