The Royal Blue Resort

I was first of all not going to write a review as there were too many - admittedly small - things which just added up to keep me on edge during the holiday and made it feel … not too relaxing or 5*. Let’s start with the positives: a very well planned layout and a beautifully planted up and gorgeous looking resort right by the sea. Most of the staff were friendly and smiley: particularly the people who ushered you to your table and the lady in the Spa were great. The cleaning staff also did a very prompt job and we appreciated that the room was usually done by midday. Crete is a beautiful island and the history at Knossos is mind-blowing. Another big plus was that there were always free sun-beds and always the ones we liked. No morning-reservation sprint. The food selection was fine (though the labelling on busy nights sometimes was just inaccurate or missing which made me think just as well the allergy-sufferers in my family were not there).

If I compare this hotel and experience to other 5 star hotels around Greece and Cyprus, where we went over the last 7 years, I can’t find much enthusiasm to recommend it and we will definitely not return. I just didn’t get the feeling of the generosity of spirit as from other places. This starts with no replacement evening meal when you arrive late, so you could use it for lunch on departure day - yes, there were some work-a-day sandwiches in the room which we looked at and were like “Nope!”, it continues with a huge mark-up on drinks (€5 for a bottle of still water which you pay €1,50 in a restaurant in town for: come on!). I also think some of their administrative systems need sorting out: we got charged the wrong tourist tax on arrival, probably to do with the proximity to midnight but: train your staff - the guests don’t know how the system works, particularly not at 3 o’clock in the morning. No one wants another €20 on their last day when you think the bill is settled. We paid everything cash as we didn’t understand the €50 per day block-out explanation, similar to other guests on here and yet, turns out somebody had used our room number to have lunch: yet another palaver to go through on departure day with the restaurant manager being called who luckily remembered us and could confirm it wasn’t our meal or bill - fair play to him for remembering my actual order! We did speculate if that had to do with staff’s understanding of English? We had that at the dining area where we said 36 and the guy understood 26 which I realised quickly then. There were other things like not getting the room type we booked for the first day and despite a room upgrade for a night and a lovely free meal (the hotel did try hard to make this up to us after seeing my very annoyed face - fair play). When you work hard during the year for a luxury holiday, you want to arrive and not sit on a packed suitcase the first day of your holiday because you know that you have to move again in a few hours. Dinner was good but sometimes on the salty side and by comparison to other hotels nothing to shout about. The pool towels just looked really worn and could do with a refresh. The rooms were smaller than at other hotels, too, though in general well laid out with a few scruff marks on the curtains in the case of our room. There were another couple of things which were sorted out promptly by the hotel, so won’t mention them - thank you for these anyway. Maybe this holiday just didn’t happen under the best of stars? We were finding it quite funny in the end and we were joking if we had suddenly turned into “Karen’s on tour”, at least this is how the whole experience made us feel and I am usually quick to compliment about things done well. We could have a laugh about it with the people at reception who were mostly great (minus one lady who just walked away mid-conversation… hello?). In all honesty, I wasn’t quite sure how happy the staff were working there and if something was going on behind the scenes: just my gut-feeling in reaction to some of the aloof service here and there and the little issues. Don’t let this put you off from booking though: other people seemed to fare better than us and visually, it is a stunning place where you probably can relax if not a lot of small, unfortunate, odd things happen. Never had that before 😅!

Overall a very good stay at the royal blue in crete. Service was excellent , food excellent. Three niggles first why charge for water at meals times and then leave multiple bottles in the room?. Secondly , virtually unable to book any trips out unless you are prepared to pay lots and lots of money. Outside agency are much better deals and a lot less money. Thirdly , there is only one place to have lunch during the day, no coffee shop with snacks ( despite the app saying that lunch time snacks are available at the Elixer Bar near reception.)

Lovely hotel - nice layout, very clean and well-presented. The different pools and area round the beach are really pretty. Our room was really nice; but what would have made it better would be the option of a proper triple room with a double bed and a single bed (especially considering you're paying a fair bit to stay here) - we stayed as a family of three, and a sofa bed for 5 nights gets a bit uncomfortable after a few days. The spa was really relaxing! And the spa team were really friendly. Reasonably priced spa treatments. Food was quite good to be honest. But my only reservation was that vegetarian and vegan options were quite limited on some evenings (there were different buffet options each evening). And allergen/vegetarian/vegan labelling was not great tbh - this could really do with a good look at and improving. Location-wise, the Royal Blue is a beautiful resort in itself. Beautiful view of the coast. But the hotel does feel a bit out to the way. The local buses take about an hour into Rethymno (approx 20-25 mins in a taxi) and an hour into Heraklion. And there's not really any restaurants nearby, only a little mini-mart. So this is something to consider if you like to go out and about during the day.