Cretan Malia Park

We had a great family vacation at Phaea. We've stayed at two garden bungalow suites in the all inclusive regime (which I strongly recommend). Positives:

• Super friendly and welcoming staff
• Not too big and not too small - it never felt crowded
• Three high-quality restaurants à lá carte: Almyra (Italian), Mezze (Greek), Mouries (Cretan)
• Mediterraneo buffet restaurant for breakfast and dinner with a lot of options
• Two bars (including one by the beatch where they would bring drinks to your sunbed)
• The Crush bar with assorted offering of ice-creams, crepes, coffees..
• Modern rooms, maintained very clean
• Modern, easy to use app to view all amenities and manage your reservations
• Beautiful well-maintained gardens
• Nice beaches (there are some rocks at the edges, but in the center it's fine)
• Close to touristic places such as the Knossos palace and Heraklion

Negatives:

• In one of the pools (the river pool), the sunbeds are reserved for some rooms which makes it virtually unacessible for most of the guests

Overall it was a great experience that I highly recommend.

The flora was wonderful and lush. The room spacious. Great restaurant choices. Staff sometimes not too friendly (with a few being very kind and professional). The beach could ve been cleaned better and more often.

I recently stayed at the Phaea Malia Crete Hotel and had a mixed experience. The highlights were undoubtedly the food and the room design. The culinary offering was consistently very good, with a varied selection and high-quality ingredients, especially at Almyra restaurant. The room was beautifully decorated, combining comfort with a stylish and authentic aesthetic that reflected the hotel's design-focused aspirations.

However, the service fell short of expectations. While the staff were generally friendly, the overall experience would benefit significantly from better organisation, coordination and training. At times, service felt inconsistent and lacked the attention to detail one would expect from a hotel of this category giving the sense of your typical all-inclusive hotel.

The hotel has the potential to be even better if it were less dependent on tour operators and less overwhelmingly focused on families with children. These aspects currently shape much of the atmosphere and experience, which can feel at odds with the identity and exclusivity typically associated with Design Hotels. These elements do not always work in harmony.

Overall, this is a hotel with many strengths and clear potential to be one of the best in Crete. With improvements in service organisation and a more balanced guest experience, it could truly deliver on its design-led promise.