Macaris Suites & Spa — Hotel in Municipality of Rethymnon

Small, friendly hotel just outside Rethymno town. Anything I say that’s negative is really just nitpicking. There aren’t many places I would go back to but I would come back here! Wonderful holiday. Family of 2 adults, 11 yr old and 13 yr old. ||Room: We booked a 2 bed superior apartment with breakfast. We didn’t know this but there was a hot tub on our veranda. It was €150 for the week. You have to let them know before midday, at the start of your stay, if you want to use it. We did and it was a lovely little treat after long days out. The apartment is very spacious! The balcony is superb and also spacious. We were on the 6th floor with fabulous sea views and the fortezza. Very impressed by this! I will add a photo. Both bedrooms have patio doors to the balcony as does the kitchen/diner. We didn’t use the jacuzzi in the bath tub. Nitpick number one: If you use the shower (which we all did) it floods the floor as the shower screen is almost non existent. We just chucked towels down. 4 wardrobes…yes 4!! Bed and pillows were comfy. Slept like a bird. Nitpick 2: could really do with some art on the bedroom walls, some Ancient Greek art 🤷🏻‍♀️ kitchen well equipped (not that we really used it). Tea bags and a filter coffee machine. Fruit plate left for us and a small bottle of wine and water. ||Staff: Our housekeeper was a lovely lady (forgot to get her name) All beautiful and clean, every day! So sweet and friendly. Reception staff, again all friendly and very helpful and knowledgeable. Nothing was too much trouble. Helping us with places to visit. Marking them down on the map for us. As it’s quite small the staff that work in the dining room were often working at the pool bar and roof top restaurant. We ate at the roof top restaurant, most evenings, with a stunning view overlooking the sea! Not a single bad meal was had. Service from the restaurant team was excellent and the food was delivered promptly. What a lovely bunch of people. This hotel has an excellent team and they all clearly get on. Happy fun atmosphere. We would like to say a special thank you to Patagonias for treating us like royalty. We loved our chats with you. Genuinely interested in our days out, full of recommendations. Treating us to glasses of Raki, puddings etc. remembered our names and made our stay that little bit more special!! That’s how you do customer service 👏🏻 But to be fair they were all like this. So, so sweet. Macaris is very lucky to have each and every one of you !! 🤩||When you arrive you are dropped on the road outside then there are steps that you have to take your suitcases up…however…little tip, there’s a ramp next to them 😉 you’re welcome!||You can walk in to town which takes about 20 minutes to stroll or a taxi is €6/7 so we went in a couple of times. Had a posh meal overlooking the Venetian harbour. Not cheap but worth it and the seafood is amazing. We hired a car. Visited lake Kournos and the turtles (get there early to avoid queues) that was a great day, Skinaria, off the beaten track, down some hairy old roads but well worth it. Again get there early as parking is tricky if you leave it too late. Reception recommended we went left for beaches nearer. Went to a taverna called the Salty Goat, young set but there were families there and we had a good time. Matala with the caves, better off season I would think. VERY crowded. Avoided the Waterfall as we heard it was a bit of a hike and queues. We drove through the gorge anyway, stunning and watched the mountain goats hike up the mountain 😱 We booked a 3 hour boat trip which stops in Panorma. Cute little fishing village. Had a wonderful lunch there. Would highly recommend!||Eldest had her nails done at the spa and they were beautiful. We didn’t do the pool until the last day as we were out every day! Had to play the ‘sunbed game’ If you are pool people you will need to go down early and reserve beds and sit with them until breakfast. I got up at 06:45, with my coffee and tablet and got more coffee brought down to me. The first sunbed nabber arrived at 07:30!! Not a game I like to play but we were there until our transfer bus arrived, so it was necessity. 2 hour transfer to Heraklion airport. Tired old airport and very expensive to eat and drink. But it’s just an airport, you get over it!||Sorry to have rambled on but I hope it’s helpful to some!||Thank you Macaris suites and apartments for a wonderful time. It’s quite likely we...

We are here atm for two weeks, as I write this we’re on day 10 😭 Overall this is a decent hotel. BUT don’t come here in high season if you plan on spending some time by the pool. It’s 40 degrees daily so access to the pool is really important as it’s too hot for much else unfortunately. There are less than 40 sunbeds at the pool for a hotel with 44 apartments. That’s not even 1 per apartment and most people have come with families and some apartments have 2 bedrooms!! The pool is also too small and gets very busy with kids etc during the day with no room to properly swim (it’s 1.4m so a decent depth)! ||While, the quality of the pool area, sunbeds (teak with a thick padded faux leather cushion) is high and it’s clean, it’s simply not big enough for the hotel. We have resorted to going to the beach every day and hiring sunbeds resulting in spending more money than we should have needed to. ||We raised this with the hotel mgmt. On day 4 we had gone to the beach as there were no beds in the morning left, we came back at 5pm as my daughter wanted time in the pool and there were still no beds!! The receptionist offered to get us chairs to wait on for when a bed became free! Needless to say we didn’t do this and went back to our room and returned at 6pm when we were able to get beds. The management position is that it’s high season and what do we expect!!! She also suggested that we come at 8am when the pool opens to make sure we get a bed or come back at 6pm when people start to leave, this of course means dinner etc all happens very late. ||Today I was determined to get sunbeds for our family (only 3 of us) and I arrived down at 8.45 and got the last 3!!! There were towels on all the others with only 3 woman dotted around the pool closely guarding their haul of sunbeds!! Most of the people were no doubt either still in bed or in the breakfast area!! I sat and ate my breakfast on our sunbeds while my husband and daughter ate theirs in the breakfast room!!! ||Speaking of breakfast, if you’re looking for healthy options I would not rate it, it’s mostly sugar, carbs and fat, with the only decent protein source being eggs, hard boiled, fried (nope) or pre-made omelettes (alternating between veg or cheese) and egg white omelettes. There’s usually only one hot vegetable option per day and all days except for one they’ve been covered in oil no green veg. Our first day they had fried courgettes which were decent, but we’re in our second week and they haven’t reappeared. There is a section with three daily cold options that are sometimes healthy (Greek salad or a bean salad were the best) There are no seeds (I bought my own chia at the local supermarket), and limited prepared fruit (prepared melons) and the yoghurt has that cheap grainy taste. The cereals are all of the sugary variety, there’s an entire counter devoted to dried sugary fruits and jams etc. the breads are good with a variety of seeded and brown loaves and the usual sliced pan type bread for toast. There’s also a cheese and cold meats section which is ok if you’re into that.||The room is decent, plenty of storage for a two week holiday, so it’s easy for us to keep tidy. It’s very clean and cleaned daily. Our bed is comfortable, but the fold out is not great, my daughter says it’s too hard. We have a jacuzzi bath and the shower is in this with no door or curtain so it’s difficult to shower and not get water everywhere!!! It could do with a separate shower. ||Overall, while this is a decent hotel, it’s in a good location (1.2km to the old town) and is a really good base for exploring (you defo need a hire car) I would not recommend for high season as the limited sunbeds in the pool area really lets it down. This is especially important in 40 degrees when day trips and sightseeing is...

We arrived around 11pm to find a lovely Greek salad, sandwiches and fruit platter in the fridge which was amazing as we’d missed dinner.|The rooms are very clean and roomy. Our one bedroomed suite was on the 3rd floor with a full sea view; most of the other rooms are behind this first block but elevated. The balcony is huge!||I had asked for a high quiet room…we got a room with one of the best views in the hotel but unfortunately it turned out it was directly below the bar area.|As a light sleeper I could hear guests and staff scraping chairs on the floor above sometimes until 12/1am as people moved around and they cleaned up for the night.|Not ideal but no-one else wished to ask to change rooms so I kinda just got used to it and slept fine after the first couple of nights thankfully!||We had the sofa bed out in the lounge for two of us which was reasonably comfortable. |In the bathroom is a spa bath and some nice complementary smellies that were pretty decent. ||Food for half board dinner is pre ordered which if you stay more than a week goes around again which can be repetitive.||Breakfast was ok, fruit, cheeses, cereal and the usual hot items. ||Also our kids (12 & 10) were given full adult portions. Some of the starters were huge and then you got bread and a massive salad too all before the main course so was a bit too much to handle really!! ||Pool area is not big but we enjoyed our time there. Sunbeds are always taken by 9am…we never saw any staff taking towels away like they say they will on the breakfast door. |We tended to go the pool late afternoon/early evening and always found some beds then. |One day we played the game and put ours down before breakfast.||Staff were very friendly and welcoming and you can watch the best sunsets from the upstairs bar area.||If you book any local day trips you tend to be the last on the bus and first off which was a bonus as it’s around 15 minutes walk from the old town.||Generally a really nice hotel and hopefully my review helps...