Eleni Palace — Hotel in Municipality of Malevizi

We returned from our stay at The Eleni Palace Hotel in the early hours of this morning and we were that impressed by the hospitality extended to us throughout our stay that, apart from making a start on the copious amounts of washing, leaving a review was our priority.||||We landed later than planned so our arival at the hotel wasn't until 10pm. We were met by Eleni and she swiftly booked us in and told us how to find our room. We stayed in room 106 and this was a large room which overlooked the pool. There were twin beds in the separate bedroom and a further 2 single beds in the lounge area (standard beds, not pull out sofa beds). There was a kitchen/diner, a good sized bathroom and also a fair sized balcony for us to enjoy.||||Breakfast is from 8am until 10am and cold food only is served; bread, salad, cheeses and cereals. Coffee, tea and juice was available.||||There is a lovely clean swimming pool with plenty of sunbeds, none of which are 'pre booked' by the early morning towel brigade 😀 making our poolside days very relaxing for us and our children. There is a small snack bar next to the pool which serves all drinks and limited snacks - all very reasonable priced and on a par with any other snack bar/bar in the town.||||The hotel is situated just off of the main road and we were delighted to see that 100 metres one way was the beach and 100 metres the other way was the main street. The beach is sandy and there was plenty of space to set up camp for the day. There was a really refreshing sea breeze which was very welcome as the temperature was 34 degrees each day. The town has everything you need; lots of shops, restaurants and car hire offices etc (the main road does seem to get extremely busy after 8pm when the town is at its busiest so caution and/or assertiveness is needed!). There is a regular bus service into Heraklion on the Main Street although we opted to take a taxi and this cost us €10.||||Our hosts could not have done anything more for us during our stay. They were frequently supplying us with free home grown grapes, nectarines and cucumbers and nothing at all was too much trouble. They were so friendly and welcoming that it really felt like a wrench to have to leave there yesterday.||||I stumbled upon this hotel quite by accident via a search engine and even though it does not appear to be advertised through many (if any) of the main UK tour operators I cannot speak highly enough of it. We did not see any other English people in this town but all of the visitors and shop owners did attempt to speak English to accommodate and assist us.||||This family run hotel absolutely had the family feel to it and they are fiercely proud of their establishment .... And so they should be! I feel that we stumbled on a hidden gem and we will definitely return to this...

Dirty, smelly rooms with flies and furniture and equipment fallen into disrepair.

We booked our room with a travel agency and were supposed to stay there for 9 days, but we only managed four. Upon arriving, we noticed a strong smell in the room as well as several hairs: on the pillow, in the bathroom cupboard, and in the freezer. The floor was also dirty. There were many flies usually found in places with poor sanitary hygiene, ansld the water taps were crusty with limestone. The freezer compartment in the fridge had no door, so it was wasting energy building up a block of ice. There was fly excrement everywhere in the pantry kitchen and many surfaces were sticky with dirt.

As it was late, we told the manager in the morning. He was skeptical and wanted to see the reason for our complaints, so we showed him the room. He claimed that the room would be cleaned again - when we returned, some superficial cleaning had taken place in some areas, but, for instance, they had just put an icecube maker on top of the hair in the freezer. We decided soon that we could not stay there.

Breakfast is a low-quality disappointment.

Also, there are quite a few mosquitoes around, especially if your room is next to the pool, but of course the hotel is not accountable for those. You will get many...

My friend and I have stayed here for a week. We were in one of the ground floor, twin bed apartments that had it's own kitchenette and shower room. Everything was clean and well kept you could smell the cleaning products. The room had a wardrobe to unpack your clothes, flat screen TV which accommodated a fire stick. The kitchenette and bathroom supplied your basic needs. Please note that there is no complimentary shower gel/shampoo or hair dryer.

On our chill days, we spent some of them by the swimming pool. Which was also clean, well kept with no sunbed rush. On our last day, we were looked after and we're kindly offered not only an extension to our check out for also the option to use a room for the day. Luckily, we didn't need either of these but I thought it was kind to check. While we were out and about our items were kept safe too.

I want to come back to Crete and will definitely come back here. It is everything you need, clean, safe and easy to access. Thank you...