Elina Hotel Apartments — Hotel in Municipality of Rethymnon

Review - Elina Hotel

A comfortable hotel but with its flaws, some quite large

On arrival, the exterior of the hotel appeared OK, if not slightly less pleasing on the eye than surrounding hotels. I think a nicer outdoor sign would make a vast improvement.

I immediately noticed the smell of cigarette smoke when walking into the small lobby. This was due to the sports bar/internet cafe connected to the hotel, in which people would smoke indoors.

The hotel itself looked well kept, renovated and modern enough. There is a fairly large breakfast room which was never full ay breakfast so there's no rush. The hotel also had a pool, but it was in a concrete courtyard and received almost no sun throughout the day. I never used it as the beach was about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. WiFi was free but very slow at times, and often cut off every 15 minutes. This was especially bad on nights where the football was on downstairs, and everyone not staying at the hotel was using the WiFi.

The room was generally nice - spacious and modern. As typical, the walls were whitewashed and the light was pretty dim and harsh. The air conditioning was strong and never failed though, which was great. Each room has a balcony too, and the bathroom was nice. The bathroom door, however, was too small so a wooden plank had been added to the bottom, which looked slightly cheap. The room also had a small kitchen area with a sink and crockery and cutlery. Supplying dishwashing liquid would've been even better. There was also a really nice landing and upper floor, which I thought was unique and a nice touch. Ideal if you are a family of 4 but can only afford 1 room. It did get extremely hot up there though, even with the fan provided. Additionally, we asked for a room with a double bed, and instead we were given 2 single beds, pushed together. Upstairs in the annex, however, a proper double bed was there. I found this a bit strange, and would've liked them to be swapped around. The view was nice from the room too - you can see the sea, even with obstructing buildings.

My sleep was generally good. The rooms were pretty good at insulating sound. However, beware when there's football downstairs. The screaming was very loud and kept me awake until around 1am some nights. The pillows were very comfortable. The mattress was a bit hard and had a dip in the middle which was slightly uncomfortable but bearable.

Another frustrating aspect was the water. On 3 occasions out of my 10 nights here, the water stopped working completely. The first time was resolved almost immediately. The second took a little longer, and the third was on the morning of my departure, which forced us to buy bottled water to brush our teeth and flush the toilet. The staff explained that this was because the area couldn't meet the demand of the tourists, but the fountains in the opposite hotel seemed to be working just fine...

The hotel and rooms were always kept well cleaned. However, the cleaners often give us the bedsheets to put on ourselves, which I would've thought would've been done for us considering this is a 4 star hotel. The cleaners also didn't replace soap, and when we arrived, our room had no toilet paper, which was a very had introduction to our room. They also didn't clean our rooms or replace towels/sheets or make the bed on Sunday.

The staff were always friendly and polite, giving us help whenever we asked.

Breakfast was plentiful. There was a selection of hot and cold dishes and pastries, jelly, fruits, cereal, tea coffee and hot chocolate. The eggs were quite oily though, and I stopped having them by the 4th day because it would make me feel sick. Other than that, I have no faults here.

It's location was pretty central, 15 minutes walk from the buzzing old town, 20 from the bus station and 10 from the beach. This was one of the best points...

A group of us stayed here for 3 weeks in April. Rethymno is a really nice area, and the apartments are in a great location so close to the beach, a short walk into the more touristy old town and lots of restaurants nearby. People on reception very helpful if you need anything. We asked about a second key for our room and they got another one cut for us free of charge which I thought was good. ||Doesn’t have a draining board by the sink if you’re staying for a while and planning to cook it can be quite annoying not having anywhere to put wet plates and pans. Very basic kitchen consisting of a 2 ring ceramic job, a sink, some cupboards and a fridge. No grill or oven which isn’t too bad unless you’re staying more for a month like we were as it limited what you could cook. No microwave either which would’ve been handy, but there was a kettle. The fridge has a small freezer section at the top if you wanted to fill an ice tray. There’s a supermarket right behind the apartments. Our rooms were clean, fairly basic but comfortable/slightly soft beds, no duvets just blankets and a sheet which is fine in the summer but was a bit cold at the start of April. Balconies were quite nice and handy for drying clothes, and we saw lovely sunsets most nights. Our kitchen tap was very wobbly and did break, and the last night we were there our shower broke too as the water just trickled out. ||Really weird old “tube” hairdryers in the bathrooms that looked like something from the 70’s. I would recommend bringing a travel hairdryer or your own. ||WiFi has good signal, but sometimes stopped working or was just usually very painfully slow. I noticed late at night it would work so it was probably just because a lot of people were using it. Housekeeping came every other day to change the bins and give fresh towels which was good. ||Our room was towards the front of the hotel and it was noisy at night and early in the morning from about 5am with street noice and traffic. Sounded like the windows were open even where they weren’t! We were on the 4th floor and still heard noise from the cafe downstairs which was open late and more of a sports bar. if you’re someone that is easily bothered by noise, this probably isn’t the best place to stay as you can hear people in neighbouring rooms chatting loudly/moving about very easily. Air con in the dining area of our room but not in the bedroom, just a noisy fan which we didn’t bother with. The main selling point for this place is the location close enough to walk to the beach and...

Firstly; I’d like to say my partner and I had a nice stay. The room was very clean; and the staff were excellent. The hotel itself is in a great location. 2 minutes from the beach and 5 minutes from the start of the old town.||However...beneath the hotel is a sports bar. The sports bar is very nice, full of locals which gives it a nice atmosphere. But every evening the bar is full of locals smoking inside. The smell of the smoke wafts inside the whole hotel. So bad is the smell and the smoke that every night we left out balcony door open to let the smoke and smell out. The noise from the cheering was also an major issue. I think the hotel has to decide whether they are a hotel or whether they are a bar with just a few rooms. ||Another issue; although very minor; is that we could not use the pool. The pool was empty. But the hotel is so close to the beach, its not...