Paralos Lifestyle Beach — Hotel in Municipality of Malevizi

Spent 3 nights/4 days at the end of October 2023 in a swim up room, ground floor, with a private large terrace with beach beds, amaca, chairs and clothes hangers, with direct access to the swimming pool shared with other 8 rooms. We were on the set of rooms called Section Earth, just at the beginning of the several buildings spreading from the main road to the beach. Got it at a very special low price (120 euro per night) on Booking, with breakfast and dinner included for 2 people/ 1 room. The hotel is "Adults only", so no kids are allowed, but adult kids (over 16 yo) can stay as well as many young couples. The hotel is located about 30 metres from the bus stop "Hotel Marina" of public bus number 6 from Heraklion airport and town. To go to the airport there is a public bus (number 1) every 30 minutes (cost: 1.50 euro-- buy bus ticket in any small supermarket store along the road ). Located directly on the beach of Amoudara, the hotel also offers beach umbrella and beds included in the room price. Rooms are small, since much place is taken by the terrace and swimming pools, but they provide all amenities (fridge, safe, laundry service, Nespresso coffee machine, kettle with tea & coffee, daily bottled water, slippers, phone, daily cleaning). The entire hotel is full of cats, well kept and clean, but roaming around the terraces, swimming pools and customers : if you like cats this is great but if you, like me, are allergic, better you tell the cleaning staff straight away. Our cleaning lady immediately helped and she provided an ad hoc sheet to put on the terrace beds so that no cat hair could trigger my allergy. Cleaning, fixing and food service is indeed great: a small issue with the TV remote control was immediately fixed by the technician and the cleaning was the most thorough I saw in a hotel. However some improvement is needed on the environmental side: there is no fan in the room so you can only use aircon (though it stops if you open the window= good point ), single use plastic small shampoo /conditioner/ shower gel/body cream are offered in the bathroom instead than big refillable bottles for each room, even though they say there is, unfortunately there is not waste separation in the rooms or the public areas for recycling, no clear how the rubbish produced by the hotel is wasted and how the food is not thrown away = they have a large board before the beach informing of being a blue beach. That is the perfect place where to inform also about the environment impact of the hotel and all the measures they take. The beach is long and water is clean, though the stretch of land is located between a huge factory (or refinery) and Heraklion port. The staff goes above and beyond for kindness, professionalism, hospitality and cleaning. There are 2 restaurants where you can have breakfast and dinner. Food is good though not much seasoned, so it could be bland in salt and spices, perhaps to adjust to the tastes of the International Northern European customers. Particularly the cold veggie section may need improvement, as now it offers individual bowls of veggies for salads, Greek salad, tzatziki and cheese. The addition of typical Greek 'salata', like melitzanosalata, tyrosalata, etc. there would be welcomed. Since almost all is included, and all the staff strive their best, the hotel makes money on drinks (1 bottle Sanpellegrino water=6.5euro) with service also directly on the beach and in the rooms. All in all, a great experience that I...

We have been lucky to have travelled to many places and stayed in many 4 and 5 star hotels and this is one of the loveliest places we have stayed. It's in a quietish location on a lovely sandy beach. NOTE: The entrance to the sea is pebbly and larger stones. You will need beach shoes!!

Positives: The staff - from the moment we arrived to the point we left, we were welcomed and looked after by the team. They really do their utmost to look after you and make you happy. Giogos, Anna and Nantos in the healthy breakfast restaurant were always there to greet us with a smile and a handshake in the morning. Eleni our pool service "hero" who kept us supplied with mojito and Hendricks and tonic. Maria, Anastasia, Annamaria, Matina and many others at the beach bar (apologies there were so many staff who were lovely I could not remember all the names 😊)

The food is exceptional. I have always been a bit dubious about buffet restaurants as we have stayed in a range of hotels with a buffet with mixed quality. This is one of the best. They choose quality over mass catering. The food is fresh and locally sourced. We had a fresh lobster, grilled octopus, prawns, beautiful salad bar and hors d'ouvres, a different roast each night - lamb, fish, beef and lovely traditional Greek dishes. There is a substantial vegan section and even though we aren't vegan/vegetarian, we chose from that section most days.

We chose to eat in the healthy breakfast restaurant. The food there was delicious with fresh omelette and avocado and eggs on toast on offer as well as fresh juices and smoothies. We had one evening meal in Armonia restaurant and the food was a la carte and very, very good. Octopus. Prawns cooked at the table on a hot stone and sea bass with a dessert.

Negatives: can't really think of any. If I was going to be picky, the bed in our room (7103) was a little firm. We had to come back to stay another night when our flight was delayed for 26 hours and we were in a swim up room (6002). The bed was more comfortable, so I do think they would have sorted that out if we had asked. We asked for an iron but they didn't bring a board but the swim up had both in the wardrobe.

There were 2 performances at the theatre next door and our balcony looked over the stage so we had a free ticket to the music gig. It was loud but ended at midnight and was very good.

Would we go back? Yes!! Most...

We absolutely loved it here. It's adults only, a few families with teens (noted teens 16+ are welcomed), the teens that we there were so well-behaved and had zero impact on us. We were here the last week of July into August. We are almost 50 yrs old, and this place had a good mix of young adults (30s) and older. It is very well kept. We observed workers changing out/cleaning the lounge chairs/beds daily. Constant cleaning of the in the pool seating. The food at the main dining room was delicious. The servers were so friendly and allowed you to enjoy the atmosphere without being all over you. Beach was not crowded. Between 12-4ish, it's harder to get a lounge chair at the beach. The beach servers were great. Our last few days we were handed a menu, and I thought damn I could have ordered food this whole time we've been here! Lol Getting a huge beach towel was tough. You can only exchange/ pick up at certain times, and some days, we were out and missed it. Our room was tiny. We are not big packers on trips, but there was little space to put things (room 6108, 2nd floor), 3 drawers, and a closet. Our room also faced an entertainment place. 2 of our nights, the venue had outdoor events. Teen dance party for one, that went until midnight, but for the most part, the venue next door was quiet. It's not something that bothered us. It's just an FYI that it may be noisy some nights. Since this hotel is huge, you may not hear it. There's a lot of little shops around and tavernas. We walked the beach as far we could go each way (about 3 miles each direction), then went out to the streets to explore. The hotel is about a 20-minute drive from the airport. The front desk made arrangements for taxi pick up to the hotel and packed us a breakfast to go since we were leaving before breakfast started. It was so nice of them. Just make sure you drink the water and juice before going through security because they just throw them away! You can go through with food. This is a lovely, quiet area. The food & staff were amazing, and we can't wait to come back...