Elounda Residence Resort & Waterpark — Hotel in Municipality of Agios Nikolaos

In a nutshell, a mixed review: we had a nice holiday, good food and drink, great views, friendly staff, spacious room, horrible small bathroom, not as pictured at all. One pool beautiful the other not so much and looks much nicer in the photos. Some lovely parts of the hotel and others quite run down or looked half closed/abandoned even in high season. Almost felt like two different resorts in some respects. Most things above reception were lovely but the aesthetic and noise of the lower pool with the slides meant it wasn’t for me.||STAFF:|Lovely warm reception at 2am, immediate transfer up to room up the hill on the buggy, and they kindly said we could sort out the tourist tax when we got up for breakfast. Sandwiches and fruit in the fridge in our room was a nice idea. |We also lost our son’s comforter when the beds were changed, which they found and delivered back to our room for us which was much appreciated.||Thank you to Maria at the top pool bar who always remembered your order with a smile, and Valentina who helped with organising a vegan menu for my son and I for the night we booked the meze restaurant. ||LOCATION: |It was a straight and easy drive from the airport on good roads (we rented a car) about an hour at 1am|Directly above Elounda where you can do boat trips etc, about a 15 min drive to Plaka beach which I highly recommend visiting.|Wonderful panoramic views from all over the resort especially the top pool, restaurant and seating areas above. ||ROOM:|We had room 32 which had a fantastic view and as mentioned wasn’t far at all to walk up the slope from the main pool/restaurant level. We booked the ‘family room’ through Love Holidays and, after careful checking and some misleading information from Love Holidays which implied a 1 bed room, we discovered we’d be randomly allocated either open plan, sliding doors or two room lay out, I emailed the hotel to request anything but open plan (my husband snores and we don’t sleep in the same room at home either!) and was kindly told by the manager they can’t guarantee but they would do their best - we got the 1 bed (ie 2 separate rooms). Lovely spacious room, plenty of storage and comfy beds, kids beds a little firm but fine. The room was great with calm decor, and a nice balcony with glass wall to expose more of the a fantastic view. Parking space also right outside. ||The shower room however was a complete horror show… absolutely tiny, such that there was a folding door as it was so close to the sink and toilet. More like a wet room as hard not to drench the floor when showering, and being right next to the main door to the room, with leaves and dust blowing in (Crete is a windy place) if you wanted to step out of the shower on to a clean dry bath mat you had to carefully plan this to angle shower head in to the corner and have spare bath mats to hand. No thought had gone in to design at all, even to the toilet roll holder being too low on the wall when you sat on the toilet. Considering they didn’t want you to flush any paper at all down the toilet, it was pretty grim that the horrible plastic white bin (still with stickers on) provided had a broken foot pedal. So had to wash hands every time you put something in it and due to the heat it was very smelly in the bathroom. No where to hang towels apart from one hook for hand towel which meant the towel then covered the soap dispenser - which by the way was empty when we arrived although promptly filled up when requested. ||CLEANLINESS|Not fantastic in room. Dirty in corners. Why even higher end hotels can’t build regular detail cleaning in to their schedules I have no idea (skirting boards, behind the taps etc). So this hotel was no different. But even for day to day cleaning - I cleared the whole (very small) sink area one day hoping it would get wiped down (along with the mirror) as both were dirty, but alas, no. ||FOOD/DRINK|Very good; there were local Greek dishes every day as well as other good dishes. For my fellow vegans: as you’d expect food was better some days than others but always something. It was great when they had cooked mushrooms for breakfast but that was only once in 10 days whereas they have eggs and something meaty every single day but at least there was plant based milk and tahini everyday to go on your bread. (How many days the same huge pot of it was out for and not changed I don’t know, same question for the jams.) Same with lentil and bean dishes. Sometimes vegan, sometimes with sausage in, usually not there at all. It would be so good if a vegan staple could be included every day and not left to chance!! But I could always make a meal out of what was there - I knew what I signed up for at an all-inclusive and things are slowly improving.||I was a bit disappointed with chopped fruit salad and tinned peaches in favour of fresh fruit. Prunes and jams would benefit from being protected from the flies. Snack bar down at the lower pool was better much than the top one. The little spinach pies were lovely!||POOLS AND RESORT|My 5 year old enjoyed the small blue slide in small doses; however it was ever so noisy down there with loud music and gushing water sounds from one of those fountain things. They also do water sports etc down there and activities which lots of people were enjoying. However you may be disappointed with aesthetic from this pool. Felt a bit let down by views of flood lights and electricity pylons next to it: Lights light up the kids area below in the evening. You couldn’t see any of that from the top pool. Very long steep walk up from this pool to be aware of, which is right at the bottom. There were smaller terraces to sunbath down there set back from the main action, but a lot of the main terraced bar areas weren’t in use with stacked chairs and tables which wasn’t a nice vibe.||The top pool was far nicer, lovely views (I’m all about the surroundings) with a very shallow young kids pool, and a decent size main pool. It was on same level as restaurant, bar, snack bar toilets etc (although no lock on the doors which was not ideal!) unlike lower pool where all this was on different levels, and wasn’t much further up to our room from there, either via steps or via the steep road. ||Some broken edging round pool potentially sharp and cracked glass in a screen which could have been replaced. ||There were some beautiful small seating areas above overlooking the pool, with stone walls around trees and plants, nice seats and nice lighting - accessed by steps which took you progressively upwards which was really nice. Felt like a very different experience and aesthetic to other parts of the hotel (ie the lower pool)||Salt water in both pools. Lower pool was extremely salty and did hurt my skin so don’t recommend to anyone trying to navigate this with sun cream alongside skin complaints but there are showers by both pools to rinse off thankfully. Top pool felt slightly less salty.||Sunbeds: we did grab ours early doors but generally could always find some which was great. I think people moved between pools and didn’t hog sunbeds which was great. Always seems to be spaces around or near lower pool.||Queuing for drinks at the pool bars was a shame when they could have just had coke, sprite and beer etc. on tap! Beer was decent though, a local brand I believe, and basic cocktails and mocktails also good and hand made each time. You could pay c.€6 for a ‘proper’ cocktail and we had a great mojito with fresh mint etc once as a treat. Maze bookable night was also good for a change and did feel like a little local restaurant on a hill top.||THINGS TO DO|Water slides: good and fast, unfortunately a deep landing area so not great for my 5 year old (my bad for not researching properly) but older kids who could swim clearly loved the slides. There is also an area with sunbeds opposite so you can keep an eye on your kids if you want (but I wouldn’t want to lie there myself as you couldn’t see anything but the slides)||Evening entertainment. Not great from what we saw so if this is your thing you may be disappointed but we don’t usually bother with it in any all inclusive so wasn’t a problem for us. There was also live music on Friday nights in the main restaurant but on the second Friday we were there, there was none.||Elounda town also nice, check out the boat trips and go up to Plaka if you can where the stone beach is just gorgeous but quite busy. ||Would I go back - yes. Probably for a week instead of 10 days, as it’s a small resort and would start to get bored if you just stick to one...

We stayed here with 11 of us in 3 family rooms, with a mix from ages 8 to 15. On paper this hotel could be brilliant but it’s lacking the extra touch. Some of the reception staff was unbelievably rude, we had to go numerous times to ask for our towels changing as the cleaners was very hit and miss, our beds was only changed once in the two weeks. When you told the receptionist they hadn’t been they had a shoulder shrug attitude about it, as if they were aware this was a problem! We had 3 family rooms but on arrival was put in two family and one twin, but after having to complaint and multiple trips to reception been asked to come back tomorrow this was sorted (this seemed to happen to lots of guests) the 3 rooms we had was all very nice in the new block. Our main problem with this hotel was the food, some of which was ok on a main not very good. The restaurants lacked care and presentation. The evening meal wasn’t set and was often sat around dirty tables. There was nothing that had a wow factor at all just all very average. The snack bar wasn’t horrendous but not great. Most of the chips/snack food was cold but they was stack the trays high and left it to go cold rather than filling little and often. One day I asked the staff member if the had and more chips because these was all flat cold she said yes they go cold fast, so went to get some and filled them on the cold chips 🤯. Lots of the staff were young summer jobs. And although polite they didn’t really seem to care. Two of the men and woman who worked in the day that worked on the top pool bar was really nice, had great hospitality! If the hotel was run by these it would be brilliant!! A older woman who worked on this bar was rude though, could be heard many times having run in with guests, I think she just had an abrupt manner. She gave me the wrong drink once when I said oh sorry I didn’t ask for that, she tutted and said go drink that come back for another. The all inclusive drinks were the worst I’ve had ever in a a 3*, the quality wasn’t great. Cocktails served in cheap tiny disposable cups. Unless you bought them. Glasses were like gold dust in this hotel. I understand that of your in a pool area it can’t be glass but if you bought the drinks they came in a nice beer or cocktail plastic cup but the all inclusive was terrible. Round the pool in the day not one cleans through the day round so you end up with lots of rubbish around.

This hotel is n a quiet pretty town, it’s 15/20 min walk down to the town with children and a very steep walk back up so we got a taxi which wasn’t a problem. We ended up eating out lots and didn’t have a bad meal in the town was beautiful. The hotel is on a hill, so not underestimated how many steps and climbs there are. It’s not for the faint hearted! Pools are salt water so you need googles and don’t take white as it colours them. Entertainment was in French even if it had of been in English wasn’t great on a night. Highlights were the Greek night and BBQ night. There are plenty of facilities in this hotel, but the service, entertainment and...

Just spent a pleasant week at Elounda Water Park Residences. In terms of location, this is probably the best thing about it, with the incredible views out to sea and the mountains around. It is on a steep hillside, which makes getting to and from rooms a challenge, but more on that later. It is about half a mile from the edge of town and there is a shuttle minibus up and down once every 2 or 3 hours. We ended up renting a car for 3 days to explore more of the island. Definitely worth doing if you can.

The food was somewhere between passable and good, depending on what you had and what was on the menu. We were on a half-board basis. There was always a decent variety on the buffet, sometimes a little repetitive, but the desserts were always nice. The kids selection didn't look great, to be honest. I tried a fish finger one night and it was quite grim...grey and processed to death.

The staff in the restaurant and bar were very good. Cris and Ilias were always pleasant and chatty and full of good cheer. They obviously work hard but are efficient and nice.

As for the rooms...we booked a family apartment and it wasn't as big as I expected from photos. Jet2 need to be clearer in their brochures. It had 2 sofa beds in the lounge and we had to ask for housekeeping to set one up for my teenage daughter, who I was travelling with. This wasn't too much of an issue. There were ants and millipedes and so on but again were dealt with quickly. The air conditioning in my room was faulty but was sorted again without much fuss or delay. I was amused by having pots and pans in the cupboards but no means to cook anything, despite the room description saying there was a cooking ring. Good job we were half-board. At least we had a fridge to keep stuff in for lunch.

One only minor gripe was the transportation issues getting to and from the rooms. I have had a triple bypass and am well recovered but would have liked to have felt more relaxed about asking for lifts in the mini bus or golf cart but on occasion it felt like an imposition on the chap who was doing it most of the time. I realise he has a tough job ferrying people up and down around the resort and down to the town, but his customer service smile needs a bit of work.

Other little concerns...some of the pool areas need some refurbishment. The ladders in the pools are a bit wobbly and some were even taped off and looked like the metal tubing was broken. Some of the tiles around the upper pool are quite slippy too, so care is needed. Some of the parasols need attention too. We did enjoy the big slides in the bottom pool though.

Entertainment was pretty good, run by a very friendly and upbeat German guy who encouraged participation in various things like Karaoke, water polo and ping pong.

Overall, I'd say the standard of the resort is a high 3 star, maybe 3.5. Certainly not a 4 star. Either way, it's maybe splitting hairs. We had a very nice holiday and would love to return to...