Hotel Garifalo — Hotel in Municipality of Apokoronas

In the spirit of balance, let me say straightaway that I've reviewed a large number of holiday properties, and always with fairness and accuracy, to help travellers decide for themselves. I shall do the same here.||The Garifalo apartments are spacious, good quality, clean, comfy, well-equipped, with plenty of hot water and fair-sized balconies with sea views. The location is excellent, close to everything, 20 yards from the sea across a small quiet road, and good value for money. Breakfast is extra, but a small sum for a good choice of tasty fare. I doubt you could breakfast as well or as cheaply nearby. Leonidas, the manager, is steady, efficient and hard-working.||My low review score is in response to very poor behaviour by the owner, Irina. We arrived for a 7 night fully-confirmed booking [not a last-minute 'free cancellation' deal] to be told our first night would not be in Garifalo, but next door - in a very basic apartment block owned by somebody else. Language barriers may have had an influence on how badly we were treated [we don't speak Russian or Greek], but there was no apology, just conflicting reasons [overbooked; the people in your apartment they decide to stay another day; because if you wait a day we give you better apartment]. Worse, the replacement accommodation was the size of a rabbit-hutch, had limited bedding and no hot water. We arrived very weary after a 3am start. Had we been more awake we would have refused to accept the deal - not that any option was given.||Next morning, we wished we had refused, because the rock-hard beds left us with considerable back-pain, controlled by strong painkillers to help us at least enjoy some part of our stay.||Leonidas did his best to help, but the female owner was very different - rude, sharp, uncultured, and with no skills or sensitivity in customer relations. Our well-justified complaints seemed only to be understood in terms of hard cash - 'you save money, the other place is cheaper etc'. She completely failed to understand that we didn't come on holiday to save 25 euros, had done our research, and had a confirmed booking at her establishment, not at anyone else's. Nor did she understand what bad business practice it is to break a contract and then be callous about it.||So, in the spirit of improvement, my suggestions to Irina are:||1. If you made a mistake and overbooked, then tell us in advance - either by phone, email or through the booking agency. We would have happily stayed in Chania for the first night, in accommodation of our choice, not yours.||2. If a last minute problem, then next time deal with it using sound business practice - accept and declare your mistake, and apologise. Like most tourists, we would have shrugged and got on with it.||3. If you did decide to bump us from our contracted apartment for other reasons, then please re-consider in future. Weary travellers need fair treatment, not a callous, take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum.||3. If you must break a contract, then please take the trouble to provide replacement accommodation of at least the same size and standard as that originally booked. ||4. Reconsider your business attitude, which seems entirely supply-led. The client's needs should come first, not yours. ||||I don't wish to dissuade Tripadvisor readers from booking here, as the apartments are well-located and spacious. But do make sure in advance that the accommodation you've booked is the accommodation...

Irina and Leonidis couldn’t have done more for us. They are very hard working and made us most welcome. ||We had apartment 7 which is semi basement. Have to admit we were concerned on two counts - firstly that it might be dark and also because there was no balcony. We shouldn’t have worried at all as the place wasn’t at all dark but didn’t get full sun in the rooms either. This was a plus as the rooms stayed really cool and we didn’t use the AC once, just kept the windows open 24 hours. This apartment is also bigger than all the others too with a separate sitting room between the kitchen and bathroom. As for the lack of a balcony that too was absolutely no cause for concern as, on the ground floor level (just a few steps up from our kitchen), there was a table, chairs and a parasol. This was very private as no one needed to pass by this area. Great view of the sea and mountains from there too. ||Garifalo have sun beds on a section of the beach and serve drinks and snacks there too. ||Within a short walking distance there is a good choice of traditional tavernas with great food. We particularly liked Il Forno, Mistrali and Simon’s. For the best Greek salad go to Souvlakeri and Icarus served delicious Dakos (the fresh soft cheese was to die for). I could go on but that’s a start. For us it was our first stay on Crete although we were definitely in the minority with many expats and non Cretan residents. ||All in all a great stay and thank you Irina and Leonidis, you deserve all the...

Had two weeks in apartment number 6 which was on the top floor. The accommodation was clean, tidy, adequately equipped and excellently located. There was two balconies, one on the landing at the top of the stairs and one off of the bedroom. The view from the balconies was lovely - straight onto the beach and sea. ||The beach is not more than about 20 steps from the front of the building and the owners have a set of sunloungers with tables and parasols should you wish for some shade. A young lad diligently raked the beach every morning and cleaned down and stored the sunloungers every evening. ||Kalyves is well located too, around 10 miles or so from Chania airport. It's a quiet location and I didn't see any night clubs, discos etc which suited us fine. There are a number of local "super markets" that sold everything you need, a bakery which got restocked around 0900 each morning and a couple of places to buy Gyros. There are also a good number of restaurants and all of those we used served good food at reasonable prices. ||The owners were friendly and helpful. ||I'm sure my wife and I will return at some point...