Hydramis Palace Beach Resort

This is an honest review with no axe to grind. In the interest of fairness let's start by saying what the hotel does well. Nice grounds, great wifi and they clean your room daily. That's it I'm afraid. Let's start with the rooms. The rooms are extremely dated. You have no complementary robe, trouser press, iron, mini bar and the safe, which I have never come across, you have to pay for. 10 days will cost you just over 33 Euro. The curtains didn't fit the window properly, so when the sun which came up directly opposite my window around 6am, the light flooded in. The standard in the rooms really is not good as are other areas of the hotel and I will upload images. Activities and entertainment. None and little. So the weather took a turn and there was five days of rain and storms. Obviously not the hotels fault but if you don't have a vehicle to get out then what are you going to do? No indoor pool, sauna, steam, massages didn't start until May 1st, which by the way looked like it was an outside company from my enquires, no yoga/pilates, zero kids clubs, literally no activity coordinator. As for entertainment this was about 2/3 times a week at the pool bar. The only bar. Maybe further into the season they have entertainment nightly. I could forgive all of this but not the standard and choice of the food. This was below average. Everyday the fruit was the same. Apple and oranges at breakfast, apple, oranges and pineapple with banana at lunch and dinner. Never any berries, kiwi, melon, grapes, nothing. They had a meat stand where they cooked 2 meats a night. Every night one was liver and the other chicken or lamb chump chops. I'm working class and brought up on liver but I don't expect it at a hotel purporting to be 5*. The other meats were always tough and over cooked. I love seafood and they often had calamari in various forms but then I spotted the crab sticks. Yes, the ones which have no crab in and we get in the UK. 5*? I don't think so. There are no other restaurants or themed nights like a bbq night. Therefore, you eat here or eat out. I was all inclusive and started to eat out in the evenings which added to my holiday expense. Oh btw, as did the 15 Euro nightly tourist charge for a 5* hotel which I wouldn't have minded if this was actually a 5* hotel. On another note the red wine is like vinegar. I tried it once. I did come away with a gift of a small bottle of the red bearing the hotel name. I gave to to my friend who promptly messaged me with expletives. Just wanted a second opinion. This could be a nice hotel if they invested in better quality and choice of food, had a spa fitted, update the rooms as well as an activity coordinator for adults and kids alike. Honestly, I get the feeling they just want the money and couldn't really care. Shame because some of the best holidays I've ever had have been on Greek Islands.

Very nice and nice staff. Location is beautiful. The hotel is comfortable and relaxing. Good for family and a lot to do. Crete is beautiful

Very bad hotel and very bad management. They refuse a hotel to my brother in law who got cancer and started chemotherapy. Keep away from these heartless people

This is a beautiful hotel set I n an idyllic setting. We stayed here for a week. The staff every where we're friendly and attentive. Rooms were large and clean. Very nicely decorated. We found the bed too hard and the hotel put a topper on the bed for us which totally solved the hard bed problem. Nothing seemed to be too much trouble. Food was excellent quality and plentiful. Drinks were free flowing and the waiters filled glasses immediately upon seeing them empty. Waiters were fast and very helpful. Sweet smelling flowers everywhere. Loved this place and totally recommend it.

This is the third time we visited Hydramis Palace (of the 6 times we visited Crete in a time span of 10 years), we've visited many hotels and also a lot of places. Practically visited the entire island north-east-south-west, we've seen pretty much all. This hotel in particular left a very good impression on us the first time we visited and then during corona was our second time that we stayed. That stay was also very good. In september 2023 we returned to Hydramis Palace by booking via phone with Maria. The price-quality ratio is very good, we've also noticed that the hotel has undergone some changes during the course of these years. There's a renovated pool bar, the entire sunbeds location is renewed and increased in size. The restaurant (buffet style) has improved bain-maries so the food stays warm for a longer period and preserves it's quality better. The gardens are still very lush and full of colors, well maintained. The brushes that were trimmed in the shape of faces are gone though, it was a nice touch but probably the work to keep them in very good state wasn't worth it. We didn't miss them to be honest, it was a nice thing to see but if you didn't know they were there to begin with, then it was a non factor. Instead there are beautiful flowers there now, etc. This time we had a room on ground floor (totally different place than what we had before) , we had a private pool which was a nice addition. The room and all it's facilities were very clean. I've been told that the rooms will be receiving a renovation somewhere soon (if not already). Honestly the rooms were still good but I understand the move to make it more modern and update the style to be more in line with the new pool bar and main bar. Overall they are improving the hotel to be a tier higher that it used to be so far. Which is good, progress is always good but I have to mention that it might come at an increased price in the future. Not sure though, this is something that we'll have to discover in the future and update in a future review. There were still plenty of events and there was animation even in september (almost all the way till closing time if I recall correctly). This hotel also has a very good location in terms of reachability of certain places on the east and south side of Crete. Georgioupoli is a beautiful small town, this hotel is located in Kavros though. A very small touristic hub, it used to be very very small, now there's more shops and other stuff organized near and in Kavros. Kavros is an ideal place to stay and use as your 'main base' to start from with the car. You can go towards Rethymno and from there on scout the entire south side or stay near Rethymno. You can opt to go to Chania and enjoy Chania or drive a little bit further to Falassarna beach or to the port in Kissamos to take the 'cruise' to Gramvousa island and Balos beach. This is definitely a must if you're in the neighbourhood. Falassarna also. You can drive towards Chania and go further