Daios Cove — Hotel in Municipality of Agios Nikolaos

My family travels extensively and this ranks as our worst experience yet, particularly in terms of value.  I am usually not an all inclusive person (and I did a lot of diligence on resorts in Crete), but ultimately opted for Daios Cove following a strong recommendation from a friend who loves this resort. We have stayed at several other hotels in Crete that were less expensive yet far more "luxurious", welcoming, and atmospheric - I'd recommend these over the overpriced and obnoxious vibes of Daios Cove. Details below.||||On the positive side, the beach is beautiful (but, there are countless beautiful beaches in Crete that do not come with the exorbitant cost of this beach and the other negatives I describe below).||||First, this hotel is not peaceful, particularly when it comes to night-time noise.  By way of background, the grounds are huge, so if you are with young kids (or anyone with limited mobility) you want a room near the central area, which houses all of the "action" (restaurants, kids club, funicular, pool).  But, this area is very noisy at night.  The kids' club plays music until 10-10:30, which is not the biggest deal.  But the bar area plays "club" music until 1-2 AM, and sometimes even has DJs until this latehour.  To have quiet, you have two choices, neither good: 1) close your windows (and not use your balcony, which is a shame when the summer nights in Crete are so beautiful), or 2) choose a room located 15-20 minutes' walking from the central area (this is what the Daios Cove team offered me, when I complained about the noise...but even then could not guarantee that these further flung rooms would be silent).  The music was a huge negative to our experience and I am not even sure who it was serving, as nearly all guests seemed to be families with small kids.||||The number of guests exceeds the team's capacity to manage them. F.ex., during our stay, the hotel was not full, and still the package holiday "towels reserving pool chairs" was happening. Every meal was stressful because it takes ages to get assistance from servers, and forget about getting service at the beach unless you are extremely proactive. ||||The hotel also lacks atmosphere, warmth, and sense of place.  Aside from some of the food offerings, you might have no idea you are even in Crete (calling to mind Caribbean all-inclusive mega resorts).  Unlike the rest of Crete, where service is welcoming and genuine, the service at Daios Cove was impersonal and robotic.  ||||After awhile, the resort felt suffocating, particularly since you cannot leave unless in a car or on one of the resort's laughably overpriced excursions. If you do get a chance to leave, the nearby town of Agios Nikolaus was much more fun than Daios Cove.||||Relatedly,  Daios also misses on small details, which is not acceptable at this price point.  For example:||- There is confusion and sketchy messaging about whether the standard all-inclusive packaging includes breakfast at the restaurant (or just breakfast at the buffet) and/or whether reservations are needed.  I was given the runaround on this from several team members before just going to the restaurant to get a straight answer. Making dinner reservations ahead of time for every meal is annoying in general, but this type of deliberate inconsistent messaging was particularly troubling.||- The evening kids' club sessions are billed as parties to which both parents and kids are invited.  My daughter was so excited to attend - in reality, these evening events consisted of kids running around on the lawn with a few disinterested helpers watching them.  When other parents pointed out to staff that things like games and cotton candy were advertised but not offered, this was met with a shrug.  The lack of "family" evening options feels like a missed opportunity for a hotel that bills itself as family-friendly.  ||- We had an early morning departure, and the takeaway breakfast we ordered ahead of time was not ready. This caused stress as the team had to rush around to assemble the meals last minute.||- The linens are not 100% cotton.  ||- You are asked to add a tip for every small transaction, instead of just adding this to your final bill, which feels very ticky tacky at a...

Wow, where do I begin! We had booked this hotel through LuxAir Tours. It was hidden in the selection of hotels for Greece. It was the last option. But I'm glad we found this hidden little gem.

The hotel is about a 40-50 minute drive from Iraklion. Transportation was provided to and from the airport which was great! We arrived at about 8pm and OMG! I felt like a million bucks... LITERALLY!

We were greeted by a nice gentleman who took us to have a welcome drink where it overlooked the cove and the amazing pool. Everything was extremely personalized. This hotel catered to EVERY. SINGLE. NEED/REQUEST. The customer service was on point! Everyone is soo happy and are very accommodating. Service with a smile.

We were escorted to our rooms after our drink and sign-in via a golf cart. The resort is massive, so if you are not fond of taking long walks, they have a golf cart that will take you to and from different areas of the resort and also an elevator which came in handy. My calve muscles got a nice workout ;)

We were taken to our room and when she opened the door my mouth dropped to the ground. We opted to have a swimming pool in our room, because why not?! We are in Greece! The room was very spacious, bathroom was perfect! There was a stand up shower as well as a bath with shower. So it was great if we needed to hurry and all get ready. They provide you with an abundance of products of shampoo etc. Which was perfect as I forgot my body wash. Our bed was very comfortable. The only thing is that I wish we would have gotten a double bed because the travel mattress was a little annoying at times. The pool was SUPER clean and someone would come every morning to maintain and clean the pool. They were very quiet so they didn't disturb.

We did order room service and it was perfect. Normally we have waited at other hotels 30+ minutes but here it was super quick and your meals were still hot as if you were in one of the restaurants. The restaurants in the hotel were all amazing! Very flavorful, presentation amazing, and your glass is never empty. The buffet had a variety of different foods to select from. Traditional greek cuisine, beautiful fresh salads, meats, fruits, etc, the list goes on. It was great! We did dine a majority of the time at the Beach House because my daughter wanted to play in the sand. It was beautifully lit and everyone is soo friendly. They had lights on the side of the cliff so you can still see the cove at night which I thought was a beautiful touch. We also had lunch at the Ocean House(?) and it was just soooooo good! Everything was very fresh, flavorful, and exceeded my expectations.

The amenities. The swimming pool was massive and the beach was beautiful and private. It was nice that we didn't have to cross a main road or share with the outside public. We were immediately greeted by the towel boys and they fixed the loungers. There is someone constantly checking if you need a drink and/or cleaning. Shows that they respect the hotel as well as the environment. The facilities are amazing and very clean.

If you are into fitness, I recommend joining the bootcamps in the morning! was a great workout and with the breeze, it never got insanely hot.

They offer a lot of different activities at the hotel, such as stand up paddle board, diving, snorkeling, creche, etc. They offered a lot of things that you wouldn't get bored.

I would recommend downloading their app before arriving to see what excursions, events, workouts, etc the hotel has to offer during your stay. The app is very straightforward and easy. We had to book a covid test to get into Santorini and it was great help that there was a clinic on site and very easy to schedule through the app.

We rented a car through the hotel, Hertz. You are driving distance to some of the other nice cities if you wanted to leave the hotel. The Hertz representative at the hotel had some great recommendations.

All in all this hotel was beyond amazing and exceeded my expectations. We had splurged on this holiday and it was worth...

Overall it is an amazing beautiful hotel. The property located in the top of the hill, going down to the beach it makes an outstanding scenery. Walking around the property calls attention. We got a room with a private pool an sea view. The room amenities were great, room was very comfortable and spacious. Note that the bathroom didn’t have the toiletries amenities that we expect in this kind of hotel like tooth brush, paste, razors etc. one of the days I believe they put already used body lotion as the container wasn’t full.

Also, the private pool it is not really very private, we could see the 2 rooms adjacent to ours, as it is really a pool for 3 rooms just with some break in between. Then you don’t have a real privacy in your pool. I got upset as well that our room was a bit far so our view was not clear. I would had liked a sea view with some property view.

We had half board, and both breakfast and lunches were served in their main restaurant. I thought the options were amazing, a very good selection for breakfast and the 2 nights dinner there were considerable variety. I understand they are catering for a more European community but I do think they should have more Greek tradicional options.

The dessert buffet was incredible with amazing options.

At breakfast I would say coffee took too long.

During the day we order just sandwiches one day at the beach bar, was supposed to be a club sandwich, but was small compared to the club sandwich we order in the room in previous day also it was more toasted so not sure. One day we ate the at pool restaurant this was really nice, I had a croque with truffle that was beautiful. My husband had a very nice poke bowl. He really enjoyed the drinks he got at the hotel bars.

The bar by the reception had a beautiful view and also a very interesting decor. Nice cocktail menu as well.

We enjoyed the gym, super well equipped exceed expectations. I can’t remember when I went to a hotel with so large gym as Daios Cove. They have an app and you can track some classes but we didn’t enrol in any. Also, a nice internal pool.

I did one massage at the spa. Their spa is huge as well, with different treatments.

The pool area is nice, but considering the size of the hotel it is too small, as well closing the pool at 6PM, when it is 36 degrees over in peak July summer, and it will become night at 9PM it felt a bit outrageous.

The beach area has many more chairs than the pool area. It is nicely done to enjoy the “cove” area that the hotel is located. I can say that I thought by photos the hotel was sandy beach, but it is small pebbles mixed in sand. It is not so much of a problem, but if you want sand this is not the place.

Considering the size of the property, walk in high temperatures it is a bit hard, but you can use their funicular to move around (in some times of the day was a bit of a wait, bit Nothing too long) as well you can use their car services that are rounding the hotel 24h. I believe mas we wait was 10min and just once.

They have a small kids area and also a game’s rooms for teenagers. I can say paying the price your paying for a night, have to pay to use the pool table felt a bit too much.

When I booked the hotel I mentioned it was my husband and mine 10 year’s anniversary but there was no mentioned at all to this on our stay. At our second night we got a call to ask feedback about our stay, if it was all good. I mentioned that, honestly I was expecting that they would bring something to us during the turn down service of the room. But nothing. When we leaving the hotel, someone from the guests services asked us again about our feedback and I mentioned same thing. She raised that we should had expected something, and offered us a cocktail before leaving the property. At least this was a nice touch at the end.

Even if we had an amazing time, I still give 4 stars, most due to the price we paid for the hotel I would had expected an outstanding service. Staff is friendly, service is great, but it is not...