Castello Infinity Suites (Adults Only) — Hotel in Municipality of Malevizi

Looking for somewhere warm to just kick back, relax and do as little as possible we probably looked at 100+ boutique hotels and resorts around the Med, until we came across Castello Infinity in Ayia Pelagia and something from the pictures and reviews said "this was the one". And it certainly did not let us down in a delightful and relaxing week. Everything we could have asked for and more.||The Hotel is only twenty minutes around the headland from the airport at Heraklion and we’d strongly recommend a taxi transfer that delivers you to the door. 20 minutes from walking out of arrivals at the airport. The hotel is sited at one end of the calm bay and beach-front of Ayia Pelagia, which itself is a small but delightful village nestled against the clear blue waters of Crete’s north coast.||A very slick, friendly and professional welcome, but more about the fantastic staff at Castello later.||We had booked quite late and had an Aquamarine mountain rather than sea view suite, which turned out to be a stroke of luck due to the hotel’s position within the local topography. And thus we found ourselves in room 1201 on the second floor, and being the first room on the corridor enjoying an expansive and more spacious balcony area. The room was a very good size, with fairly minimalist but fitting decor. Important points about any hotel: Pillows - excellent; mattress - verging on the firm side of firm but very comfortable; Shower Pressure - excellent with both a waterfall and hand held shower; Hot Water - plentiful. Add to this plentiful wardrobe and shelving space; coffee machine; safe; a wonderful standalone full length mirror, effective air-con; excellent wi-fi, electronically controlled black out blinds including bedside controls; and the ubiquitous large TV - not that we flew to Crete to watch television. Lovely bathroom; both room and beach towels provided. Everything pristinely clean. Big tick.||But somewhat pales in comparison when you step out onto the west facing and spacious balcony. Two very comfortable sun loungers, a spacious area for the table and two chairs; and the piece de resistance the plunge pool glistening in the sun. A good size being probably around 3m long and 1.75m across. 180 degree view from the balcony taking in the fairly steep hillsides rising up from the village and giving a spectacular view of the beach front and much of the bay. Given the aspect somewhat shaded in the morning, but the table and plunge pool picked up the sun from mid morning, and the whole balcony not long thereafter until the sun started to set behind the mountains. Whilst not the more premium suites offered by the hotel we’d much prefer this over the ground floor mezzanine suites. On the tick list: Balcony even bigger tick.||The restaurant and bar area is mainly outside on the first floor of the hotel with tables set to offer a wonderful view of the beach front and sea. Breakfast has a fairly extensive and delightful menu, plus a buffet for fruit, savouries etc. “Pie of the Day” may all sound a bit Lancastrian but it is far from it. The evening half-board menu still offers a good choice - half-dozen starters and a similar number of main courses, and with a single desert choice that changed each evening. That said the a la carte has a wider selection for all courses, and we did dither over that when booking. Something of a coin toss in the end. All the menus can be viewed on the hotel restuarant website. Suffice to say though that the food is delightful - our standout favourites probably the mushroom risotto, and thinly sliced pork with a potato puree from the starters, but harder again to pick just one or two from the mains as almost all were true standouts in terms of flavour and presentation. Cabbage risotto might sound like something more at home in the gulag but it was delightful. One small critique might be that the menu wording for that and the chicken could be more enticing for any less inclined to take a leap of gastronomic faith. Both of these dishes looked and more importantly tasted great. As for the desserts - yummy!||Greek and even moreso Cretan wines are not really that mainstream in the UK. So having a wine list largely made up of Cretan and Greek wines was a delight to explore. We are no great lovers of Rose (wine), but the Moni Hilandariou was a quite divine revelation (no pun intended) and whilst we were more likely to have a red or white with dinner each one we tried was a treat for the palette. The wines were also reasonably priced being mainly in the 27 to 35 euro per bottle range, although the number with a single glass order option was limited. There was a fine range of cocktails - including low alcohol and non-alcoholic options - and spirits. The latter, although we only had a post dinner drink on a couple of evenings - served with delightful chocolate buttons, nuts and dried figs. Food and drinks therefore another massive tick.||Which takes us to the third critical element in any great hotel - the staff. The staff at Castello Infinity Suites are way beyond 5 stars. Positively galactic in their stariness. Housekeeping, the unsung, and often by the guest, unseen heroes in any hotel were wonderful leaving our room perfect every day; reception could not be friendlier or more helpful, even apologising for the weather on the one afternoon when we had rain. The restaurant and bar staff who of course we saw most regularly deserve the most fulsome praise. Always welcoming and smiling; great service; simply brilliant. There are not enough words to do them full justice or name check each and everyone one of them. SIMPLY BRILLIANT will have to do.||Beyond the hotel Crete has of course lots to offer and whilst not something we wanted to do on this trip there seemed to be plenty of car hire options for those keen to explore more of the island. Ayia Pelagia is fairly quiet - it's never going to be the setting for an Inbetweeners movie!, or attract the typical Stag or Hen party crowd. If bustling nightlife stretching well into if not beyond the early hours is your thing then neither Castello Infiniy nor Ayia Pelagia itself are going to be the places for you. The beach front is lined with restuarants so plenty of choice if not dining at the hotel; no obvious pure bars, and no obvious nightclub, let alone nightclubs. Or if there is one it was remarkably quiet. At the other end of the beach there is a large resort hotel / complex - Out of the Blue - which seemed a more gated community, and with far more than the maybe 30 rooms that Castello Infinity has. The beach itself is quite narrow and does get fairly busy - but not oppresively so, though this may be different at the height of the season in July and August, Sun loungers plus a shade are a quite reasonable 10 euros for the day, but on most days we were there were pretty much all taken by 11:00. Although we had no problem finding one heading out just after 10:00. The sea is definitely warm, and with the bay being fairly sheltered the water is clear and ideal for snorkelling. It also has a lifeguard station and very clearly demarcated lines of buoys to keep the small motorboats that could be hired separate...

I am writing this review at the end of June/start of July 2022.

This hotel is beautiful. It is cut into the bedrock of the cliffs, and the hotel has some impressive architecture. The cliff face is actually used as a ground floor wall along one of the corridors.

The restaurant is on top of the cliff almost adjacent to the hotel. This has a terrace with a majestic view over the sea, the bay and the moored boats, but (early July 2022) can get a little windy.

The hotel is north facing, as is our room. This means, in early July, we get sun almost all day as it passes overhead. The rooms on the west side, the mountain facing ones, seem to get the sun after midday. Our terrace is a suntrap so if you love the sun you can sunbathe all day if you want. Likewise, there is adequate shade if you have had too much sun.

We are staying in room 1008 on the ground floor. Its lovely. Our room is well decorated, there is great air conditioning, a few gadgets, and coffee machine which is restocked daily with black coffee and decaff coffee pods. Outside is a nice but small plunge pool, a small patio area and your own sun loungers. Leave your towels inside and you don't have to set your alarm clock, these are all yours!

One of the reasons I give this hotel only three stars is the location. The hotel has no main pool and no gardens. It has no bar. It is wrapped on two sides by a public car park. In fairness, the car park, although busy, is not noisy and has not really detracted that much from our holiday. However having stayed in luxury hotels set in a few acres of well-kept greenery, I know there are better hotels out there.

One particular negative about the car park is that our terrace is not adequately screened, so members of the public can see us in our pool and on the loungers. Now, if you go to any hotel with a public pool this is what you get everyday, but when you expecting luxury you expect a little more privacy.

A further negative is the hotel's walkway along the back of our room. Rooms 1008, 1009 and 1010 suffer from this. Our pool is about 3 feet above the walkway. People walk by your terrace literally a metre away from you. Our terrace is not screened by vegetation at all, so it is not private.

We have only been to the restaurant for breakfast. The staff are great, and there is a good selection of food on the menu. Some of it, especially the pancakes (even the savoury ones) are very sweet. You get plenty of drinks - coffee, water, juice. Great views across the harbour.

The resort itself is very small. It's got a good selection of restaurants and a few supermarkets. It's reasonably cheap and cheerful. I'd recommend staying with the local Greek food, especially the Greeks salads and the moussaka is to die for!

If you're a beach person, you might be disappointed. There is a thin strip of very coarse sand. There are many sun loungers but they always seem occupied and it could get competitive to find one!

I'm summary, I have no regrets coming here. The hotel itself is great and the staff are also great. It's let down by its location and lack of grounds. There are better options out there, but if you want to come here for a relaxing break you will perhaps be a little disappointed but you...

I just wanted to write a review to express my gratitude for all you and the team did to make my Grandmother and my stay as special as you could. Sadly, I didn’t manage to catch everyone’s names, but I’d like to pass on my thanks to each of the team that made our stay spectacular.

Firstly, a special thank you to you Pela, for organising the incredible room we had, I truly was shocked and it was all we could have hoped for and more. That alongside the drinks and fruit on arrival and in the room really surprised my Grandmother and she was very impressed, so thank you so much.

I’d also especially like to thank the lady on reception, she could not have done anymore for us and was always smiling and happy to help with any questions we had, she even rescued us when we managed to lock ourselves out on the terrace!

The gentleman that looked after us for the Easter BBQ and at meal times, again I didn’t quite catch his name but he looked to be a senior position and I know he had a daughter and 2 dogs! The effort made to greet us each day and time spent talking to us about the easter traditions on the day of the BBQ was greatly appreciated and we really felt welcomed by him.

Marco and Kris were a couple of the names I did manage to catch, however there was also a lady (that wore a blue jumper) and another male waiter, all of them waiting on us hand a foot, they really enhanced the luxury feel to our stay and again always met us with a smile and polite conversation, which was again greatly appreciated, and my Grandmother appreciated particularly!

Yannis the bar man was exceptional, his cocktails we’re also some of the best I have ever tasted and his vibrant energy really created an enjoyable evening! He also managed to get some blankets for us when my Grandma became chilly whilst in the bar area which was a lovely touch (and meant we were able to sample a few more of his delicious beverages!).

Every single one of the room attendants/ cleaners greeted us with a friendly Kalimera and did a lovely job keeping our room tidy and beds made, always a nice touch to have on holiday.

I’d like to pass on a special thanks to Manos who drove us to Knossos when the excursion was arranged for our private guide to show us around, Manos was so polite and helpful we felt very safe with him, and he looked after us well walking us to meet the guide and waiting for us when we finished. I appreciate that this would not have been the usual practice for the hotel to take guests, but truly without your team organising it my Grandmother would not have managed to get to Knossos Palace and experience the rich history of the site, so for this I am eternally grateful to all involved!

This was a true luxury holiday, all that I could have hoped for from my Grandmothers first time abroad in over 16 years, I’m not sure we’ll ever manage to top this one- you’ve set the bar very high! 😊

Many thanks to you all again, I hope to see you again...