Caramel, A Grecotel Resort to Live in Crete — Hotel in Municipality of Rethymnon

This may seem like a negative review but it’s an honest critique of our recent stay. We chose the Grecotel Caramel because of the plethora of positive reviews. I suppose these should always be viewed as objective. This is reported to be a luxury 5-star boutique hotel. It is certainly a boutique with 69 rooms. Overall, the week was enjoyable and very relaxed. The staff in general were great, especially the beach bar team who were fantastic. |We normally only go to adult only hotels but as we were out of the school holiday period we took a chance. Initially there were only a couple of kids but as the week went on more arrived, more on this later. |On arrival all seemed standard fare at reception and all went smoothly. The guest relations manager advised us that we had been ‘upgraded’ to a suite. This was a nice surprise as it sounded great. We were shown to the large room and left to it. We quickly unpacked and realised the ‘suite’ was in fact a family room. The apparent lounge area had two beds, no sofa or TV, it was a second bedroom. It did have two bathrooms which was handy. Storage was sparse with no wardrobes just two open hanging rails and a couple of drawers. Most of our clothes were either all out on show or remained in a suitcase. Furniture was minimal, cheap, nasty and unstable. For a family room this would be a disaster as it would all be knocked over easily (see pictures) Bed was comfy, but the standard pillow was hard and small. The first night was sleepless because of them. I asked at reception if they had other pillows, thankfully they did. There was absolutely no information in the room, such as a pillow menu, no local info, no menus. Some of this was on their app. The app was OK but a bit clunky. It became apparent that the room overlooked the front car park and a busy, noisy road, not the ground floor garden room we had booked. We tried the balcony but with no view and the noise it was a non-starter. We were woken numerous times by loud mopeds. It was obvious this was no upgrade; the room was as about luxurious as a week old McDonald’s burger. We had unpacked so really could not be bothered to complain and move. We spoke to another couple who had the same disappointing ‘upgrade’ experience. We were not offered our original booked room so if you are offered a ‘Grecotel upgrade’ ask to see both rooms! |The pool area was clean and the sunbeds very thick and wide. There was never an issue getting one. The attention from the staff was good with plenty of towels available. Now considering this pool is used by kids (and many older guests) there was only a single set of entry steps to the pool, and these were on the opposite side to the sunbed area. The pool was about 4’ deep across the whole pool so not easy for those even slightly infirm or young to climb out. There was no shallow part for kids, despite being a family hotel?? Shade was at a premium as the parasols were heavily weighted and difficult to move. You must move about to avoid the scorching Cretan sun. Thankfully there was normally available beds to do this. |With the great location, we decided to only book bed & breakfast. There are so many great restaurants locally the [excellent] Levantes opposite was our go to lunch venue. A trip into Rethymnon is a 10 min taxi trip and has everything; bars, shops and more restaurants. We did eat once at the hotel al a carte. This is situation in front of the pool bar in the evening from 19:30. They try to create an ambience of class & romance with a cabaret singer and an attempt at Silver Service (and charge for it too). However, this falls absolutely flat when just behind your table is a full on screaming kids club. They were also running through the restaurant area killing any ambience stone dead. Service during the meal was hit and miss. I ordered a bottle of wine and they insisted they top my glass up….by placing the bottle on a stand 8 feet from our table. A while passed without a visit to our table, so I stood up and put the bottle on the table and poured it myself. The young waitress came over a moment later snatched the bottle and placed it back on the stand. When we had finished, I asked the concierge for the bill. He acknowledged me however 15 minutes later still no bill, so I went to the bar to get it. The food was excellent I will grant that, but they were clearly understaffed and/or disorganised to offer the service expected. It was not worth the €200 paid. |We looked at room service one night, but the menu was limited and steeply priced, e.g. lamb chop & chips €46, Caesar salad €24, chicken soup €20. We laughed and took a walk down the road. |There is a clear issue with this hotel – it is trying to be all things to all men. It can’t be a luxury hotel with kids running around, basic sparse rooms and offering a level of service it can’t quite provide. It seems to me that this was previously an adult only hotel and has tried to widen the target market but at the cost to service and ambience. Such a shame as the bones of a great hotel are here, but their blurred focus, resulted in a lacklustre experience; never really bad but never outstanding.|We have stayed at many luxury hotels all over the world. I respect the positive reviews received as we all have different expectations, but recently we stayed at The Royal River Luxury Hotel, Costa Adeje, Tenerife and for us this is the standard expected at this price point. We won’t be back under the current...

Unfortunately what I had hoped would be a relaxing 3 night stay turned into an unpleasant, stressful 1 night stay. As a Marriott Bonvoy Titanium Elite member and Hilton Honors Diamond member, I rarely stay outside of properties in each of these respective portfolios but made an exception for the Grecotel due to the great reviews and Amex FHR program affiliation. However, I was sorely disappointed. The staff was pleasant and the property’s common areas were beautiful but material problems manifested as soon as I arrived. The rooms were very dated and bare. They had little to no furniture besides the bed - there was no desk, no couch, no lounge chair and sparse room furnishings or decorations. One wooden desk chair was awkwardly juxtaposed in the center… but there was no desk. The rooms had no sound privacy and balconies are easily traversable from adjoining rooms which not only presents a privacy issue but also a security issue (people can easily hop from balcony to balcony and you can see inside other guests’ rooms). Secondly, at 11:00pm children were racing around the pool deck by the bar, jumping on and running across cabana beds, screaming and whining - not at 11:00am in the morning but just before midnight. No intervention by staff and no parental supervision. Similar scenes with unruly children in the morning too. Felt like I was in a daycare. Bed and pillows were very stiff and uncomfortable as if they had been sourced from a discount wholesaler for limited service hotel chains, not five star properties. Wi-Fi service was intermittent at best. I paid over $2,000 for 3 nights and left after 1 and the hotel was unwilling to refund the final 2 nights. Unfortunate circumstances but I was more than willing to pull the plug and eat the cost of nearly $1,500 for 2 nights because of my poor experience. I would not have written this review if the hotel would have been willing to let me pay an early departure fee and recover the room charges but they were intransigent about this issue. I also would not have written this review if the hotel had simply asked me what the issues were and attempted to do anything, however small, to make it right.

I stay at luxury hotels quite frequently and this is the first Google review I’ve ever written. I read a lot of reviews and take all the adverse ones with a grain of salt - as everyone should, including you. Every experience is different and can be affected by varied service levels and exogenous factors. If you select this hotel, do so with the expectations of a mid-scale, family hotel with economy-level in-room accommodations. Again the overall property was beautiful. The staff was generally pleasant but this hotel is not near the standards of a 5-star hotel operating under American luxury flags like Ritz-Carlton, Waldorf Astoria, St. Regis, and certainly not the...

Wonderful time at Caramel. I was surprised to learn that his hotel is 10 years old as it is immaculate. Walking into the reception the lobby area is pristine. Pool area is wonderful and a kids club is nearby should your little ones need respite from the sun (and nice that it's not too far away so you can pop in and see them). The beach area is also nice as it has a grassy area with gazebos for those who don't like sand. The beach is not Seychelles style but there is sand and you can walk along the beach for ages passing other resorts if that is your preference. ||The main themes of my feedback would be the staff and the attention to detail. The biggest compliment I can give to the staff is that I did not feel like I was in a hotel but rather in a luxury home of my own. The staff are incredibly friendly, attentive and welcoming. So many of them were particularly welcoming of our young children. Particular mentions I would like to give recognition to are:||Alexandros from the waiting staff|Elizaveta, Maria and Eleni from the kids club |The two Giorgs (lifeguard and from the beach bar)||We stayed in a two bedroom villa which was wonderful. Great amenities, wonderfully set up for children (the little robe and slippers for kids was adorable). The hotel thinks of so much - they brought milk to us fresh every morning for our young baby. If you are a young family (our children were 5 and c.2 at the time of our stay), I would say this is great in terms of size of the hotel as well. ||So positive is my feedback that I did not want to write this publicly as I don't want other people knowing about it :) but I do this out of credit to the staff. ||My only minor, minor feedback is:|- Lunch service at the main brasserie can be a bit slow |- The food at the buffet is presented very nicely (it doesn't feel cafeteria-esque). My only recommendation is that some of the hot meals are not served in those folding warmers. It loses a bit of the luxury feel (Grecotel's Sounio resort did a good job of this where they often had specials on e.g. a pig being carved). The hot meals in general were very nice but more attention can be made to serve more crispy, dry foods.|- Didn't bother us, but if you don't like hearing music when you go to sleep, there were some instances of the live music being able to be heard from your room (depending where you are...