Creta Star Rethymnon

We visited the Creta Star as a Party of 8 with one infant. Our first impressions were very good with their well presented reception area and nice rooms, but were a bit disheartened in the morning when we realised the lack of english families and staff who could understand us. Also there wasn't even an english flag flying outside, quite unwelcoming. The location was very disappointing also. There were only 3 bars around so the only way to go out was to get a taxi or bus. However the bus service was quite reliable. The food was nice but a bit repeatative so got boring after a while but the Italian A la carte restaurant was a bit on an aquired taste. The swimming pool was a nice size but the flooring around was extremely dangerous for young children as it got very slippery. The beach was nice and sandy but once in the sea you have to dodge the huge rocks which wasn't too much of a problem. The animation team were mostly friendly when they could understand you. We many a good laugh over at the shows especially when my sister won miss Creta Star 2006 :). Overall this hotel would have been perfect if situated nearer Rethymnon or even Plantanes. Still had a great time though.

I visited the Creta Star in October last year for 1 week. I found the rooms to be very clean and above average for Greece. The views were wonderful and the beach superb.

The food wasn't brilliant, most of the time I ate Pizza which is freshly made. There was a lot of fresh fruit and salad though which was a plus. The only night I really enjoyed the food was when they had a buffet of shellfish and paella.

The Entertainment team were fantastic, they were all very friendly and there was a disco every night in the pool bar. It was a shame we went so late in the year because there was a big open air stage for the entertainment but this wasn't in use while we were there as it was a bit cold in the evenings.

There were only a few English people while we were there and I thought this would be a problem at first but the entertainment team got us involved and soon we were mixing with the Dutch and Germans. Everyone was so friendly at this hotel that it really made my holiday, you just need to make sure you get involved in the activities and meet people.

We were very disappointed with this so called 4 star hotel. It is very over priced for what you get. The hotel's administration is much to be desired and a week before our departure we were told by Airtours the hotel had double booked our room. We arrived to find other English families had exactly the same problem! We were crammed into a double room with a double bed,sofa bed and camp bed for a family of 4 with no room to walk round the bedroom and the children with bruises where they kept knocking themselves on the bed. Even the My travel rep agreed it was in breach of health and safety. We were finally given a bigger room 5 days later after having to complain at reception every day! (Not a good use of your holiday).

The hotel was full of Germans and Italians and Dutch which made communication very difficult. The restaurant was like a bun fight in the evenings as you had self service for drinks,meals and puddings.This made it very chaotic with people walking back and forth with no waiter service.Lunch times were worse as you had to be lucky to find a free table around the pool area and then you got the same food each day with cold frankfurters for the children.

The only nice things I can say is that the rooms were clean and the beach nice and sandy.The entertainment team did try hard.

I would never return to this hotel or recommend it to anyone as the hotel need to learn about customer service and politeness to all clients not just the Greeks.

In july we went to the Creta Star Hotel in Rethymnon, for 12 days. So we payed a lot of money and we hoped to have a royal vacation. The place was crowded with Italians. Even the animation team was for 99% italian, there was one person from Finland. (hello Sanna)

We had the all-in option, but ... the drink machine near the pool (in the snack) gave only WARM drinks. There was also some kind of an Ice drink...when you wanted some in the afternoon - well bad luck becouse they didn't fill the machine again when empty. (nice all in huh?)

As for the food: no much of variation was offered. Lots of pasta's and pizza. The same goes for the evening - every day the same. The greek food was almost hidden in a corner. Not the pasta's of course! Even the wine was too warm. I saw people doing Ice cubes in their wine?!

The swiming pool : In the future we will try to avoid Salt water. There is no fun with salt water. The pool itself was showing black spots - obviously it needed to be cleaned and desinfected. Also to bad there was no supervision, so kids could easely jump from the bridge into the water, endangering the others. The swiming pool on the inside was filled with sweet water, but it was too cold.

The people behind the reception desk, well they could be a bit friendlier. We had to take our bus at 8.45PM, but we had to leave the room at 12.00. Several times we asked if there was a possiblility to keep the room a few hours longer. The only thing they did at the reception was laughing with us.

Another day we asked for an early breakfast (6.00AM). The reception said it was no problem! The only thing I coud eat was bread with marmalade. no eggs, no bacon, no cornflakes, ... Thank God there was coffee.

The animation was okay, good job for Bepe and his crew!

The personel, especialy Nikos was very friendly! The pregnant woman on the other hand was constantly complaining.

We will avoid Creta Star in the future. Becouse could have had more for the price we paied.

I visited the Creta Star Hotel on 23 July for 2 weeks with my parents and my 23 yr old sister. I am a teenager so these comment are from my point of view.

This hotel was amazing. Great range of food, activities and the atmosphere was also fab. We started off on a bad foot - We booked 2 separate rooms but were given a "family suite" which consisted of a double bed, a tiny single bed and a broken camp bed. Not suitable for 3 adults and a teenager. They soon apologised and 2 days later they gave us 2 separate rooms (NB - Generally the Greeks are VERY laid back so dont expect things done in a hurry).

Breakfast - wide range from crepes, fruit, toast, cereals, chips, English fried breakfast etc etc.... "Orange juice is just squash and should be avoided at all costs!

Lunch - quite busy and occaisionally no-space to sit down at the small restaurant so you may have to wait about 15 minutes. There are the basics - chips, salads, pizza, hotdogs but also specialities of the day.

Drinks - Below standard during the day but excellent at night! Wine was normally fizzy because they put soda water in! soft drinks (coke, fanta etc etc) are NOT fizzy and if they are, they are only fizzy because someone has added in Soda Water which tastes aweful! Coctails were very nice and so were the childrens mocktails!

Dinner - A bit too early - 6.30-9 but again the food is excellent! Puddings - fabulous. amazing. most delicious cakes/puddings you will every taste. Rooms- As said before, family suite is not suitable for 3 adults and a teanger! Double rooms are reasonably spacious, always very clean and sea view is incredible!

Animation - Absolutley fab! I cant say 1 thing bad about the animation team! They are all so friendly and are genuiley intersted in wanting to talk to you. They do an amazing sport programme during the day and atr night get all the little kids up on stage for the Mini Disco. The Night time shows they put on are outstanding - this particular choreographer was amazing and everyone put in 300% into EVERY show. They really made my holiday excellent!

All-Inclusive - Drinks during the day were average. Didnt use any watersports facilities because the waves were too dangerous. Unlimited icecream - watch out for the green one! Its marzipan NOT mint! very average, limited small cakes avalable and small sandwiches which were nice.

Beach- Sandy - very nice. "Save the Turtle Beach" whoch means you arent supposed to walk on beach at night incase you scare them away and there are many cages on the beach sheltering turtle eggs. You must pay for sunbeds but it can be avoided. At a certain time (was 11.00-11.15 when i was there), someone comes around the beds to collect mopney. If you see him/her coming, go into the sea and you dont get charged. Most days the waves were too rough to be allowed even to paddle in the water. Unfortunately, the incompetant lifeguard always went for 30 minute tea breaks! When i was there on the beach, i saw 4 rescues involving all ages , children and adults because the waves pulled them out too far. The holiday tourists ended up having to swim out to save them, or on one occaision, an animator! So basically, use your common sense and only go in if you feel you can handle to waves. Also, accomany your child at all times when they are in the sea!

Service - Good but slow.... Location - 5 minutes walking didstance to "Mostra" night club which has amazing music after the Creta Star Hotel music stops at 12. 20 minutes drive from Rythmenon centre and the market in on Thursdays. Beautiful bar which is also not- alinclusive which is down over the sea.

Bus - DO NOT TAKE BUS! Very unreliable!!!!!! took 1 hour 45 mins for the bus to finally arrive at the hotel after we were told it was "every 15 minutes!". We saw many of them drive past but they were too full they wouldnt stop. 1.40 euros per way for a cramped stand up mode of transport isnt recomendable! Crickets - Every day and night you can see hundreds of huge crickets. They are very loud and quite annoying but you do get used to them. Some were 2-3 inches long!

Tourists - one of the main low points was that there were NO English people. For the first week we were there, there was 1 Enlgish family i think. Then on the second, there were more, about 8 but it was OK anyway because everyone (even the little 5 yr old german girls) spoke English very well!

Overall- i would highly reccommend this hotel but would sugest going later rather that sooner during the high season as there will be more English people!

If you want anymore information about the hotel, please email me. Hope this help some of you to make decisitions about going to this resort or not, Kim

As far as the public areas, accommodation, presentation and quality of food I cannot find fault, BUT the hotel lets itself down with the management's failure to supervise their guest behaviour to ensure it does not affect others.

Too many inflatables allowed in the pool and people laying games with bats & balls at times quite dangerous, they did finally put a stop to children jumping in off the bridge and off the ropes, notices where simply ignored and adults failed to supervise their children.

The restaurants where chaotic at mealtimes you could go in at any time so it became a free for all trying to find a table then having to get someone to set it again from the previous occupants use. You had to leave a personal item on the table to mark it as yours other wise it would either be taken of any drinks or food cleared away. It reminded me of a busy market place, hot, noisy, pushing, shoving, and grabbing. For a 4 star hotel I wanted a nice peaceful relaxing quite holiday the Creta Star did not provide this at all. The pool was also noisy with loud music blaring out from a huge speaker by the doors of the indoor pool so much so we made sure we sat as far back as we could bordering on the grounds of the 5 star Creta Royal to get some piece & quiet. The bar in the evening had loud house music often playing instead of a nice easy on the ears background music which got on your nerves after a while making it difficult to have a conversation.

The food although excellent and plenty of it with lots of variety tended to be the same variety every night and lunchtime and after about 5/6 days got so boring we started to eat out as we wanted a change and to eat in a civilised quiet manner without feeling rushed. Breakfast was the best as we got down very early and it was peaceful then lots on variety including hot freshly made pancakes, it was the only mealtime I looked forward to the whole time.

The animation team where mainly Italian and the majority of guests seem to be Italian so us poor Brits were a token gesture and it was difficult to understand what was going on most of the time as any English spoken was quite broken and mixed in with a translation of German and Italian. The sate light TV had no English speaking channels, bearing in mind the London bombings etc we had no idea what was going on at home until we got a paper the following day this was disappointing as sometime we just wanted to chill out and relax with a bit of telly in our room when the temperature soared in the early afternoon something we cant do with are busy 9 to 5 lives. There are very few Brits staying at this hotel apparently this is the norm which explains the lack of providing more for the English speaking guest. The few Brits we spoke to felt the same we did so did a Dutch party and some Germans we chatted to which was a relive as I wondered if it was just me being picky but the general opinion was 1 week was fine after that you couldn't wait to go home by the end of 2 weeks we had had enough.

Even our last night was marred by noise as we thought we would lounge in the foyer and relax until we were collected at 1.10am the next morning so we settled down from 10.00pm that evening to catch 40 winks only to be driven mad by half a dozen unsupervised children some quite young maybe 5/6? Who screeched jumped all over the furniture threw there flip flops at each other and generally made an awful lot of noise from 10.00 pm until 12.45am, at no point did reception intervene by sorting this problem out God knows were their parent where all this time, drinking in the bar I suppose. We felt quite agitated and stressed by the time the coach came bearing in mind our flight was not until 4.45am we needed the rest. Just the final nail in the coffin before we left.

If you need to have an extended stay in the room due to a late flight it will cost you 6 euro per hour and the use of a safe cost us 42 euro for 2 weeks with no refund for returning the key. The Italian restaurant which is advertised as being open 5 days a week and you only need to book 24 hours in advance was in fact open only 3 days and you were only allowed one visit per stay. The Mistral beach bar advertised and promoted and book in advance? We were told that it was not for us only Creta Royal (not what it said in the hotel info!!) so we didn't get to have a lunch in there overlooking the sea. They do have English newspapers in the shop but only 4/5 delivered about noon so you had to get them early to ensure you got one, there was a shop just outside the hotel which we used as there was more choice and they did not seem to be an expensive as the hotel shop. Rethymon was about half an hour away a taxi costing 10 euro each way or use the bus 1.40 euro which we did. Its very in your face in the town you cannot look in shop window or at a menu without being grabbed and almost bullied into buying from them, in the end we just avoided eye contact but it was impossible to shop I piece so you tended to just move on to get away from them.Watch out for the fake perfume the packaging is identical but the contents are nothing like the real thing. Heraklion airport is the pits it cannot cope with the amount of passengers it gets, up to 3 hours to get your luggage inbound and on the journey home you have to wait in the sweltering heat outside no were to sit in one of many queues waiting to get into the queues inside to the check in desk only to get in to the departure lounge (eventually) to find it was full to bursting no where to stand let alone sit bodies all over the floor. The toilets are vile only 3 cubicles (2 working) for hundreds of female passengers. It's a filthy dirty hellhole that you would expect in a third word country.

So all in all we got a noisy un-relaxing stressful holiday in a beautiful hotel with such potential trying to be 4 star but note quite there unless it gets its act together and sorts it noisy, rude, ill mannered, Italian guests out and their uncontrolled unsupervised children. Sorry Creta Star won't be coming back to you or you country (not until they sort out the airport) and not until you make you English speaking guests more welcome.

i've got no words to explain!!!!!it was fantastic: a great animation, good food, a good atmosphere.... i would like to go back right now!.!

This Hotel was one of the best hotels i have ever been to. the animation crew was hilarious, and extremely friendly. the food was great and so were the drinks. i think ill go back next year...

What can I say! BRILLIANT BRILLIANT BRILLIANT!!!! First class service, nothing too much trouble. Plenty of beach and pool games in day, night time animation team were second to none. The food was out of this world, even down to the presentation/decoration. The rooms were spotless, as was the whole hotel complex. We were a party of 20 and everyone agreed it was fantastic.

the creta star was the most fantastic holiday so farentertainment was the best hospitality great cant fault anything apart from having to leave to come home