Fodele Beach & Water Park Holiday Resort — Hotel in Municipality of Malevizi

Location

The resort is situated at the foot of a small hill. It may not look it from the photos, but the hill is quite steep and getting up means climbing a lot of vertical meters. There is a train that runs continuously between the reception and the water park, but if you arrive shortly after its departure, you'll be waiting 10-15 minutes. Moreover, it was immediately full during exposed times, so many people choose to walk instead. There is a beach below the hotel with umbrellas and sunbeds.

However, the beach ends with a rusty wire fence behind which is a lagoon covered with green plants. The view in that direction was not so nice. You can walk further along the beach to a group of not very nice looking houses, but it is a short walk of a few minutes. So forget about romantic walks on the long beach.

I rate the surroundings as definitely the weakest point of the whole resort. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do. In addition, next to the hotel there is a busy main road between Heraklion and Rethimno. When the wind wasn't blowing and there were no waves, you could hear the passing cars quite a bit. But it depends where your room is located. We were in room 308 which is near the entry gate (above the parking lot).

Accommodation

Our room was a renovated Family Superior with two separate rooms. The rooms are separate by a wall with door and small glass window. The back room has no other source of natural light, so even in the daytime it is a bit dark. It looks quite nice in the promotional visuals on the hotel website, but because of the dimness and the small window, this arrangement didn't feel natural and spoiled the impression of an otherwise nice room.

The hot water was not running when we arrived. It was in the evening so we didn't deal with it, but when it didn't flow the next morning I reported it to reception. Everything was fine in the evening. Still, for a 5* hotel, I was surprised.

Another problem appeared the next morning - the water in the toilet started to drain badly. It was not our fault and after about an hour the problem disappeared. However, there was a sewer smell in the hallway leading to our room, which lingered there with varying intensity until the end of our stay. With two small children and lots of gear, we decided not to ask for another room. But again, something we would not expect in a 5* hotel.

What we didn't quite get used to was the way the beds were made. In fact, probably because of the length of the sheets used, the bottom 15-20 centimetres of the mattress were not covered. We found it a little unhygienic, but we managed to cope with it.

We were a bit irritated by the hairdryer in the bathroom, which only worked for about 30 seconds each time, then switched off. What we appreciated was the nice cleaning and regular towel change every day.

Beaches and Aquapark

There were plenty of sunbeds. There was a yellow or even red flag raised throughout our stay. The waves made being in the water fun for kids and adults as well. The water temperature at this time of year was quite sufficient. At the top of the resort is an aqua park with several slides. It was never full and there were a couple of lifeguards to keep it in order.

Dining

We're getting to probably the best part of this resort. The food in the main restaurant was really very good whether it was breakfast, lunch or dinner. There were around twenty main dishes on offer for dinner, some of which varied every day. In addition to this, many desserts and fruits. From drinks we tried only local beer (good) and juices from the machine (rather worse). At the main breakfast and dinner time the restaurant was very full, sometimes you had to wait a while for a table to be vacated.

Overall rating

The restaurant is probably the reason I would consider to return to Fodele some day. I wouldn't hesitate to call it an amazing experience and if you like food, you will definitely be satisfied here. In other aspects, the resort rather failed to meet our expectations, so I give only an...

Our stay has been lovely.

The hotel is in a beautiful location meaning the views are soectacular, all but one member of staff has been extremely friendly, especially with our children (so just a prewarning for anyone with shy kids)!

The water park was really good fun! So many pools, slides, lots of space around the pools, kids section was fantastic, nice little cafe thing to get little bites to eat and drink!

Pools at the hotel were also lovely! The main pool as we called it which is near the plaza was always quite busy, so we didn't sit here. The other pool which is downstairs, we could walk out of our room onto our terrace and were there within 10 seconds, it was great!

The decor in the main hotel building where reception, main bar, lobby, the all day and the basilikos restaurant were was decorated amazingly. It really felt like 5 star quality and walking into the hotel was like, wow!

This did however, leave me to be a little disappointed when we arrived at our room as it was not the same standard at all. Now I don't know if there are other rooms which are maybe newer, but ours was not 5 star standard.

The travel cot provided did the job, but was very grotty, fabric ripped etc. Not the same high standard as the entrance.

Another downside is that there is no bar at the downstairs pool, so had to keep going up for drinks which was a little annoying but not the end of the world!

Beach is nice, good play areas for kids, basic drinks served, plenty of loungers and water activities you can pay for but they seemed quite reasonably priced! Don't expect to find many, or any shells though.

Food in basilikos and the all day restaurant was great! Was all quite similar, but you didn't see the same thing served day after day, with the exception of chips and spag bol but I think that's because if someone doesn't like anything else they'll usually like at least one of those. Puddings were yummy. We didn't eat at Ambrosia, but did eat at Elia, and honestly wished we hadn't bothered. We didn't receive the same high standard of service we'd had in basilikos and the night after we'd eaten in Elia, the same food was served in basilikos so we wished we'd stayed there instead. We were left for over an hour in Elia with just drinks and main course, waited 20 minutes for someone to clear our plates, and after the 6th time of someone walking past we got up, left and had dessert downstairs instead.

Arrival in the hotel was a little strange. Basically they get someone to take you to your room and your luggage too. Which although is a great idea, it wasn't explained very well, so we didn't really know what was going on, and after 12 hours of travelling, we just wanted to sit down. We waited about 15 minutes for someone to drive us down and show us our room when it was quite close, we wouldn't have minded walking in all honesty.

I can see why they do it though as the hotel is massive, and as others have said, built into a mountain! That being said, it wasn't anywhere near as busy as I'd expected it to be when I'd seen the size of the hotel. Busy yes, but always found a seat easily, plenty of space around the pool, at the beach etc, so really pleased.

The mini golf was great fun, and we all enjoyed that, can get quite busy though.

The entertainment seemed great, most nights we didn't go as we have two young children, but we did go to the Greek night which was great fun to watch. There was always something different on every night.

A big thing for us was how rude a lot of the other guests were, from pushing in front at meals, barging past and being very loud in the corridors late at night.

Speaking of loud, the other thing for us as a family, was that the music on an evening is extremely loud, we were on the bottom floor downstairs so I bet it was louder for those above us. I would have expected a little noise proofing in a 5 star hotel, but perhaps that's just me. However we didn't appreciate not being able to sleep due to the volume of the...

In one sentence: Good value for money, with too many small things that are distasteful for an all-inclusive hotel which affect the experience.

Cons: Wi-Fi is extra charge, and it's extra charge per device, so if you want to connect with your laptop and computer, you pay double.

We stayed for 4 nights, starting from the first day of the season (we weren't aware of that in advance) and the hotel wasn't ready for us, with too many things not operational. It improved during the stay and i'm sure anyone coming from May onwards won't experience it.

The bar that serves cocktails and a variety of drinks is only open from 17:30, so there's no option for "serious" drinks other than Wine, Beer and Ouzo in the hotel during day time. The beach bar is open earlier, but charges 5 euros for cocktails (which are part of the all-inclusive deal after 17:30).

Even worse, the all-inclusive deal ends at 23:00. they literally blow a whistle at the bar and say that it's over and from this point on you have to pay. That has to be one of the weirdest things i've seen in an all-inclusive hotel, and it's very distasteful and a bit misleading, especially given the fact that the real bar is basically open for 5 and half hours, from 17:30 to 23:00.

The wifi charge, the cocktails charge at the beach, the limited hours of cocktails and the closing of bars at 23:00 are all small things that feel silly to me, and i believe that the damage to the experience is much higher than the financial gain, but that is my perspective.

The arcade room is extra charge (which makes sense) but only opens at 18:00 PM.

Probably the biggest disadvantage of the hotel is that it''s built on a very steep hill with minimal planning for older people or people that can't basically hike (there are almost no elevators). The hotel does offer, in theory, an internal ride to the top, but it doesn't start from the bottom and one has to go through a lot of stairs to get to the pool, beach and dining room and it was barely operational when we were there, probably due to the beginning of the hotel season. Adults and people who have trouble walking should ask to be in the same floor as the lobby (rooms 168-171, for example).

The food was mediocre, with a relatively small selection for an all-inclusive hotel. Kids should do just fine, but adults might be a bit disappointed.

Usually hotels offer a kit of hand soap, body cream, liquid soap and shampoo. This wasn't the case here, instead there was one built-in device in the shower that had a 2 in 1 soap and shampoo. Not a biggie, but a very weird choice in my book.

The pros: The hotel is surrounded with a very beautiful scenery - it's a great beach with gorgeous mountains and a special and calming view.

The service is spectacular, each and every employee is super nice and friendly and they do their best to help - always with a smile.

The price is very fair compared to the overall value, even considering the cocktail hours limitation.

While the food itself wasn't great, the deserts were very nice and of relatively high quality.

The water park is terrific - the best i've seen in a hotel, with a wide variety of slides that are pretty good.

The arcade room, though at extra charge, is very cool and can be a great experience for kids and adults alike.

The hotel is spacious with many lounges and corners to hang out in.

The beach is really nice and the rooms design is nice as...