Palmera Beach Hotel & Spa — Hotel in Municipality of Chersonissos

Me & my partner stayed at Palmera for 10 nights in June, after sitting outside the place last year for a cocktail and thinking it looked a lovely hotel. ||||First off… The Pro’s - ||The location is absolutely brilliant, right on the seafront, a shop next door, superb bars & restaurants either side and ofcourse, a fabulous view of the beach. You can’t get much better than that in Hersonissos. 10/10||||Cleanliness is also 10/10 here. The staff work tirelessly every morning to clean the gardens, pool, the hotel in general. Our room was cleaned to perfection every day. The cleaners and garden maintenance team really are a credit to the hotel. ||||Food… we were all inclusive and most of the food was absolutely lovely. Presentation was on point and the chef was always out checking the temperature and replenishing when needed. The staff in the restaurant were always pleasant, hard working and attentive. The only slight downfall was the repetitive menu. Personally, we would’ve appreciated a Greek night or themed menu’s however there was always something for everyone. The salad bar was brilliant and so were the beautiful array of cakes. ||||We also ate one night in the adjacent seaside restaurant where hotel guests get 10% off the bill. The food really is lovely, fresh and super quick from kitchen to table. The staff are also lovely over there! It’s definitely worth a visit. ||||The Con’s - ||All inclusive bar… you get the standard local spirits and beers included. Also branded Coca Cola and bottled water which is great. It would be nice to see a few cocktails added to the list. Unfortunately we found the bar staff to be generally ok but not particularly welcoming… they serve the All inclusive bar aswell as the seaside restaurant opposite which sometimes lead to long waiting times for a drink. You’d get asked what you want, then an order would come in from the restaurant and they’d stop serving you. Also at night time, they wouldn’t always give you a glass which means sitting on the front with plastic glasses. And if you asked for a glass, you’d get a grumpy face or told simply no. Possibly more staff needed or a bit of training in hospitality. ||||Food… as I touched on it above, the food was a little repetitive for lunch & dinner. Pork chops or skewers every day, pasta, cannelloni, rice and fish. Only on our last day did we get moussaka. We would’ve liked more Greek dishes, themed nights, etc. The food was tasty but just lacking variety on a day to day basis. ||||The pool… is absolutely tiny, I’m not quite sure how the hotel manage the amount of people during peak season. It’s also a short walk from the garden which is a little tedious when they have a huge space there to put a pool. There also wasn’t enough sunbeds for everyone in the first few days. The hotel did however rectify this. The beach also costs €12 for 2 x sun loungers and an umbrella which is the cheapest along the front but when you book an all inclusive beach hotel, you shouldn’t really have to pay for loungers. ||||Unfortunately our last 3 days were ruined by a group of loud, arrogant group of men (approx 20 of them) absolutely taking over the hotel and intimidating other guests and staff. We were 3 girls in the pool and 5 of them decided to scream and shout all day and dive bomb into the pool, nearly drowning us. The pool is so small and shallow that they could’ve injured themselves or someone else. They then proceeded to be blind drunk from 9am, shouting & chanting at the bar, demanding pints and pints of beer and vodka, stumbling all over with no care for anyone else staying there. The manager had to speak with them many times, along with other staff members who they squared up to and swore back at in the staffs faces. The manager then decided to make them sit over in the restaurant outside to keep them from being noisy for other guests… these men then demanded bottles and bottles of vodka with juices to take over to the table, which the hotel gave them, even though they were then rowdy and provoking to the restaurant staff. They had a funnel they were pouring vodka down into each others mouths, urinating on the floors in the bar, swinging off the umbrellas and still taking over the bar so others couldn’t get a drink. No matter what they did, the hotel did whatever they asked for, all whilst shouting at them and it falling on deaf ears. ||||Our last day was the worse as they were running in the middle of the seafront walk way, screaming and shouting, throwing a rugby ball which hit passers by, then one of them decided to drop his shorts for everyone to see. There’s families walking past and no one wants to see this. This was at 5pm!!! The staff were furious and I cannot fathom for the life of me why management didn’t remove them or call the police. I then went to use the toilets/shower room and one was sitting there, door open, having a poo and being sick for everyone to see. He then proceeded to walk back up the stairs with his pants down, completely soaked in urine and nearly went backwards. At this point we refused to use the shower room down there as we’re two young women and felt unsafe, to which the manager gave us a room to get ready in, which we were grateful for. These were grown adults in their late 30s - 50s. It should never have been able to get this far and they should have been removed. The staff had 0 control of the situation which made everyone else feel uncomfortable and unsafe. ||||Overall this is a lovely hotel and we had a good time despite the last few days but management really need to step up for their staff and other guests. It’s a chilled place and it was irresponsible to allow this group to cause chaos for everyone else in such a small,...

Me and my partner stayed for a week in October 2025, we were allocated room 624. Which was a superior double/twin room with a jacuzzi, upon on our arrival we were disappointed to find we received a twin room over a double after confirming prior to our arrival that it would be a double room. And to find our room didn’t look like the photos we had been provided with. This room is located in a building separate to the main complex, which was fine with us, but be mindful that the entrance to this building wasn’t always locked. We booked our holiday through loveholidays as we’ve never had an issue with them, we found images of what we thought would be our room with a large balcony, a jacuzzi and two sun loungers. However, this wasn’t the case in 624, the balcony was small with barely enough room to remove the jacuzzi lid. Which was stuck the first time we came to use it. If images had been uploaded of both the superior and deluxe room instead of just the deluxe, we could’ve lowered our expectations upon arrival to Hersonissos. This was my partner and I’s fault as we were allocated the room we booked, just with inaccurate expectations as to what it would look like. We did request to upgrade our room to a deluxe double with a jacuzzi but we were told that no rooms were available, but even if there was, it would be a €600 fee, which is a significant difference to the price on loveholidays. With no room to access the other side of the jacuzzi, we had to call a staff member late at night to help us remove the lid. The gentleman that attended our issue was prompt and polite and we couldn’t fault him. When we finally got around to using the jacuzzi, we found that it wasn’t the warmest and also wasn’t the cleanest. The thermostat often said the water was 37°, which it definitely didn’t feel like. Granted , we’re visiting in October so the weather may affect the heating of the water. In the guests’ guide it says that there will be no maintenance carried out on the jacuzzi during our week’s stay, which we expected there would be. And that if the water was to become dirty it would be the guest’s fault and cleaning came at a surcharge. The first time we used the jacuzzi, we were greeted with grime along the bottom, hair, sand and other particles floating around. We figured that there must be an issue with the filter as this worsened heavily throughout our stay, by day 3 the water was filthy. We didn’t want to pay a charge to have the jacuzzi emptied and refilled and also didn’t want to lose a day of use due to it heating back up, so we decided to limit usage and deal with the issues at hand. The shower had excellent water pressure, however the water did flood underneath the door every time it was used, as well as the rainfall shower leaking excessively, often leaving wet hair when not intended. The staff are lovely people, along with everyone else on the island. They’re attentive, chatty and nothing you ask of them is too much. We used the ZenSpa during our stay which was amazing. It’s reasonably priced and the service is impeccable. We give many thanks to Demy for booking in our aromatherapy massages and to Nikos for carrying them out, they were both excellent. The only downside we had was that we couldn’t receive our massages at the same time due to lack of therapists. This was due to the season coming to an end, which we understood and was no fault of anyone’s. We paid the extra €30 per person for private use of the spa whilst one another were getting massaged. The facilities were faultless, it consists of a sauna, steam room and a large jacuzzi, all of which were spotless. There’s also complimentary water and towels, along with two loungers which was a nice touch. The food,drinks and service in the restaurant were brilliant and a 10% discount is applied to Palmera Beach residents, we used this twice. However, breakfast was on the poorer side. Most of the hot food was cold, we experienced this at different times throughout our stay, some days we attended earlier than others. There was plenty of choice, but unfortunately the quality was not up to par. We only stayed bed and breakfast but found ourselves skipping breakfast after the first couple of days and opting to eat out or not at all. The main pool is very small, this is the only pool to our knowledge. We had no desire to use it due to our room type and the time of year we were visiting, but if you like to swim then the pool is definitely not big enough. There’s plenty of sun loungers in the garden area, which is what interested us. The location of the hotel is perfect, there’s plenty of shops, bars and restaurants. And it’s right next to the beach. The area itself is roughly a 20 min drive from Malia in a taxi which are fairly priced. The night before our departure, we asked to extend the checkout time on our room as we have a late flight, this was no issue despite us requesting it last minute. We weren’t able to stay in the current room we were in, but a new one was made available at €10 per hour extra we wanted to stay. Overall, we didn’t have an awful stay at Palmera Beach, but things can definitely be improved. Some of those are down to personal preference and some are the bare minimum. We have had a lovely time in Crete, but we probably wouldn’t stay at Palmera...

This is a very mixed review after our stay at the hotel. this review is for both the hotel to be able to improve and for future customers to learn from…i have had to shorten the review i have done on Tripadvisor due to character limit

Positives:. The seating area directly outside the hotel on the street was lovely to relax and have a drink at night or during the day to be able to get a nice sea breeze. Some of the staff were lovely and really helpful when we spoke to them The food in the buffet remained very hot, no matter the time you went into eat and the live cooking station was good with a friendly member of staff We did a private transfer from the airport to and from the hotel, I would recommend doing this as it was speedy and dropped us off/picked us up right at the door. The air-con in the room is brilliant There is a shop and lots of bars etc nearby

Negatives/Improvements: We arrived at around 2am and the guy on reception was great, however when we got into the room, there was 2 very dry sandwiches left out for us and no bottled water left out for us even though we were told there would be. The room was very small with not much room to move and the balcony looked tired and needed painting. We requested a double room but we were provided with a twin room, once we asked about this the hotel said they would provide us with a double bed but when we returned to the room they had put a mattress topper on top of the twin beds with one sheet across the bed which didn’t cover 2 people. Smell of sewage from the pipes for a few minutes You have to pay to access the indoor pool and spa area which wasn’t advertised when booking. As previously mentioned, we had a lovely massage on the first day which we paid full price for. However, we were told by some other people staying in the hotel that they got the massage offered for half price which didn’t feel was fair at all The selection of drinks in the all inclusive is very limited, cocktails are not included as well as premium beer such as Mythos and a lot of spirits Although this was listed as an adults only hotel, we noticed during our stay a few children around the hotel playing in the pool and playing snooker at night The service on the bar wasn’t the best, this was nothing to do with the people working on the bar, there simply just wasn’t enough staff to supply the demand from the hotel and the restaurant across the road There was a young man who worked for the restaurant across the road, who didn’t seem to be very professional at all… he never wore a uniform like the other members of staff and would spend the time throughout the day sitting at the inside bar smoking and flicking his ash on the floor, blaring videos from his phone and shouting around the hotel at the other staff. The reason we noticed this individual is how hard the other staff had to work to cover for him, which we didn’t think was fair at all There is also a lot of building work going on around the garden area where the sun loungers are during the day, this can get really loud and we were previously not informed of this or when we arrived As i mentioned previously the sea view room had an amazing view, however we would not recommend paying for this room if you want a full nights sleep. Every single night of our stay at around 12-6am we were woken up by groups of people outside of the hotel coming back from drinking, as the hotel is on a very long strip of bars. We understand the hotel cannot do anything about this, this is just something for future customers to consider While mentioning the noise in the room, the one thing the hotel could improve on is some sort of soundproofing, as well as the noise outside, you can hear everything from rooms next door, as well as people speaking/shouting in the corridors As mentioned previously the negative comments aren’t all aimed at the hotel, we just thought it would be best to publish these for future customers as we wished we’d have known these before booking and hopefully it will help the hotel to improve for...