Cactus Beach Hotel & Bungalows — Hotel in Municipality of Chersonissos

My partner and I had the pleasure of staying in Cactus Beach at the end of August for a week all inclusive. We are a young couple but we’re made to feel most welcome from all staff. From the moment we arrived, we felt safe & nothing was too much trouble for the brilliant staff working at the hotel. Despite holidaying during the current pandemic, we felt very confident and relaxed whilst in the hotel, noting all the precautions that the hotel had taken (not limited to) all staff wearing mask and gloves, to sanitising stations, paper cups for poolside and cutlery at meal times being laid once you’d been seated. ||The hotel is situated in Stalis, about 5-10 mins from Malia and 10-15 mins from Heronossis. The airport is around 50 mins away on the transfer bus. The hotel is less than a 30 second walk from the beach and towards the end of the Stalis strip of markets and bars. A stunning town and quieter than the likes of Malia etc. Perfect for families and couples alike.||The hotel is a cat lovers paradise. The hotel seem to care for many cats and feed them. They encourage you NOT to feed the cats and everyone observed this and conformed. The cats are lovely and affectionate. They never begged for food from hotel guests and were very happy to be stroked or left to chill in the sun. A special thank you to the lovely 2 gentleman at the door of the restaurant and the lovely lady (sorry we didn’t catch her name) who helped seat guests and lay tables. You were all wonderful and truly made our holiday. ||Food||Food was plentiful and varied . There were a range of choice, catering for any dietary requirements you may have you may have. Food was amazing and very tasty. The restaurant team went above and beyond to ensure you had what you needed. Because of COVID, when you went to food counters, you told staff what you’d like and they dishes It onto a plate (again making us feel at ease as we were never touching anything other people were.)There were small dishes such as yoghurts at breakfast and sliced bread which were wrapped in cling film which you could help yourself to. There was icecream and cakes served from 3-4 which were available at the pool bars. The all inclusive drinks list was great with a range of drinks as well as children’s mock tails. A special mention to the fabulous restaurant team who were exceptionally polite and kind. Please note - the peak times for each meal service got very busy. I’d go earlier or towards the end of service as there were people everywhere and queues for the counters where staff were serving food. Despite the busy spells, staff remained upmost professional and polite at all times. The hotel give you the option to book at their beach front restaurant across the road but we didn’t use this offer. ||Pools||The hotel has a few pools, one located by the restaurant, one called the Dolphin pool (located towards the back of the resort near block 4 of rooms). The hotel is connected to the Cactus Royale and if you walk through the car park you come to another 2 pools. We weren’t 100% sure if we could use these but like a few other couples we saw, we grabbed a subbed and made use of these pools too. We didn’t wake early for sun beds , we put our towels down around 9-10 and there plenty of beds. ||Rooms|We had a room in block 4, situated near the Dolphin pool and bar. These are the most recently Renovated rooms. The rooms are spacious with air con, a fridge , a bottle of water , spacious bathroom and lovely balcony. The room was cleared daily by the lovely housekeeping staff who again were very professional and kind. ||The hotel provided you with a map of where everything in the resort was. If you’re considering this hotel, I’d confidently say you won’t be disappointed. We couldn’t fault a thing about our stay and would love to return next year. ||For any British customers, the hotel doesn’t have many English guests. It is pro dominantly German and Dutch. We however, found most guests pleasant and didn’t have any problem with any guests. Thank you so much Cactus Beach for a perfect holiday. We are...

We are coming to the end of a 5 night stay at the Cactus Beach. It has been wonderful to be able to forget the drama at home but at the same time feel perfectly safe. |Firstly we are the only British people at the hotel, we are told there are 550 people in house - all German except us. However it’s not crowded and the hotel have gone to great lengths to ensure everything is in line with Covid guidelines. We have a standard room - 107. If I was here for longer I would have asked to move. It’s the block nearest the road which is fine but the room is quite dated, the shower is tiny - as if the balcony and you can’t have the curtain open as people sit outside waiting for taxis / airport transfers - incidentally a large number of German transfers are very early - 6am and they aren’t quiet whilst waiting. |However that aside the room is comfortable enough, has Wi-fi, safe, plenty of storage, fridge and air con. ||The complex is very spread out and intertwined with the Cactus Royal. The Royal is not currently open but the pools are and pool bar and we have spent most of our days there. There are a number of pools dotted around - all have pool bars nearby and serve drinks from 10-6. The main restaurant is open for breakfast from 7-10, lunch is 12-2 and dinner 630-9. You are seated by the staff and cutlery is laid then. All good is served to you at the buffet and things such as bread and small salads are covered with cling film. All staff wear masks and gloves, there are sanitisation stations everywhere. The food is ok. I have found breakfast and lunch better than dinner just because of the food available. There is a chef show cooking every meal - pancakes and omelettes in the morning, fish, meat, pasta at lunch and evening. ||The sun beds by the pools are very spread out to encourage social distancing. Pool towels are available for €10 per person from the mini market and are handed in plastic coverings. ||The hotel has 2 a la Carte restaurants. An Italian which you have to stay 7 nights to use and a Greek taverna. They get booked up quite quickly. The Greek taverna doubles as a beach cafe during the day. The beach is opposite the hotel and they have an area with sun beds for the hotel, it’s very small and even now you need to be there by 9am to get one. You can also have lunch at the beach cafe with several choices available. ||The hotel main bar is just outside the reception and has a large courtyard area seating. The bars must currently close at 12, drinks stop here at 11. There is entertainment currently 3 nights a week. ||The spa is open and fantastic! The lovely ladies do come round the pools during the day and offer a 5 mins massage to entice you to book in with them, it worked for us! I had a crest full body massage and aloe Vera wrap. The hotel is currently giving 15 mins for free so I had 2 hours of treatments with the amazing Katarina and it cost €125. I have never felt so relaxed and she managed to work out a lot of the kinks! ||The hotel is in the centre of Stalis so if you do want to go out to it’s easy walking distance to everything. You have to wear a mask in shops but otherwise you don’t. ||We have loved our short break and feel terribly sorry for the lovely locals who can’t understand why British tourists have to quarantine after visiting. I’ve felt a lot safer than the UK that’s for sure. I would definitely return to...

Apartment/Room: ||We stayed at cactus beach in junior suite room. We got renovated/new one in 4* block. The apartment is quite small. The second bendroom doesnt have any windows so it’s dark. Also, both bedrooms share same air condition, you cant control them seperately, so each early morning when sun started shining to our window it became hot in our room, but cold in our kids one. We couldnt lower temperature in our room because our kids in another bedroom would freeze. Tv’s in both rooms are old ones, more than half of the channels didnt work. Wifi in the room and all around the area is terrible, barely working, so had to use mobile data. Room cleaning ladies always were knocking our door at 10am though we were still sleeping. One time they came in the room when we were sleeping. Both bedrooms are seperated by door made from glass so you kind of dont have privacy and noise reduction from kids room. One plus, that apartment is situated away from pools, bars so it’s not noisy.||Restaurant/bars:||This is the biggest dissapointment. The food is so terrible that i still cant comprehend how 4 hotel can serve such food. I’m not even talking about kids menu, there is nothing to eat for them. But me and my wife couldnt find anything eatable too. Except rice and spaghetti. That’s it. Everything else tastes awful. ||Drinks in the bar is another story, where everything is watered and undrinkable. You can drink only water or soda. ||A la carte restaurant in the beach taverna was refreshing. Food was excellent. ||Having such bad experience with food in main restaurant, we were having our dinners in the restaurants around the hotel. Look up in tripdadvisor for recommended ones, they are cheap and good. Dont pay for all inclusive, it’s not worth it. ||Also the beach has many rocks and is crowded. The guy that collects money for sun beds always forgets if you already paid so comes three times to you asking if you paid. What a heck. Write down if you cant rememeber.. ||Last thing about the animators. I read many people were happy with them, but lets be fear. They sing Adele songs, though they better not, it sounds terrible. In all their shows they beat one of the crew member which is always a woman. They bang her to the wall. Kids lough, yes, but what example you show? That it’s fine to beat girls/womans? ||In any case, i cant compare this stay with any other hotel in crete so maybe this one is not that bad compared to other ones, but i would be happy if people would leave honest opinions next time so we would have not chose this hotel for our stay based on the reviews in...