Esperides Resort Crete, the Authentic Experience

Situated in Koutouloufari, the accommodation provides a peaceful atmosphere with easy access to amenities. Guests praise the friendly staff, delicious buffet breakfast, and well-appointed, clean rooms with scenic views.

We had a magical time at the Esperides resort! We booked with the hotel direct and our 10 day stay was half board, included complimentary airport transfers, 2 days free hire car and 2 x free 15 minute massage in the Spa. Our room was a premium room with sea view on the 2nd floor of the hotel, with a balcony to sit out on. The room was exceptionally clean and has a walk in shower, ample storage space, a fridge and complimentary tea and coffee making facilities. The bed is comfortable and has plenty of nice pillows. The hotel itself is beautiful, has a cosy feel and all areas are spotless. There is a main pool with bar and a smaller, adult only pool with a bar to relax. The main restaurant is amazing, there is a different theme every night, from Cretan, Mediterranean, Mexican to a Greek night. The breakfast and evening buffets cater for your every need. What really makes this outstanding is the great choice and excellent quality of the food and the staff! Everyone is going the extra mile and the atmosphere is relaxed. Some tables are on the terrace overlooking the sea. Just beautiful! The hotel is in the gorgeous village of Koutouloufari. There are shops, bars, restaurants, Tavernas, car hire places and travel agents to book organised excursions. The walk down to the bigger resort of Heronissos is about 15 minutes downhill, although the walk back up is more like 30 minutes uphill! We loved every moment of our stay! ⭐⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Before I go into the negatives of our experience I just want to credit how fantastic and accommodating the staff at this resort was. Super polite, welcoming and could not do enough for you. The hotel is very aesthetically pleasing, very modern and colourful however I would not say it’s worth the money unfortunately. We made the mistake of booking all inclusive. I tend to always book all inclusive just to be on the safe side and know I don’t have to mess about etc. I have an eating disorder and my partner doesn’t drink alcohol. However when looking through the photos of reviews and the resorts photos the food looked fantastic. Main reason I booked really because I noticed food I would eat and thought I wouldn’t have a problem. However the “nice looking food” in the photos isn’t included in the all inclusive, that’s the food you have to pay separate for. On the all inclusive it was selected things only which wasn’t mentioned when I booked it. It was shown on a menu at the resort what was included and what was not. There was one draft beer, one gin, three cocktails max on the all inclusive and the alcoholic free beer has to be paid for. Even though the hotel is beautiful, we definitely wouldn’t not have booked this hotel if we had known this was the case. The all inclusive consisted of three buffets in the day (quite similar everyday). Speaking to other couples who went all inclusive said the same thing to us, it’s not the all inclusive experience you normally get at hotels. If that’s the case that’s fine as everywhere does it different but would have appreciated it being stated because like I said we would have avoided this hotel for personal reasons. The information on the booking I found to very misleading. Another thing I would point out is that the day we arrived, we got there at near enough midnight so missed that full day. The last day for checkout is 11 o’clock however our flight wasn’t till late on at night so once you hit checkout time, the all inclusive stopped for us as well. We were grateful enough that the hotel allowed us to have lunch as we mentioned we didn’t get anything out of our first day. For someone who wouldn’t have said anything, that would have meant they only got 5 days of all inclusive when in reality they’ve pains for 7. We were informed by locals and regular visitors that our mistake was booking all inclusive as there’s so many restaurants around to try. We were struggling to find food on the buffet we liked/ wasn’t repetitive so we decided to cut our losses and eat out. We felt stuck because of how much we paid for all inclusive and felt disappointed with what we got for that but didn’t want to eat the same stuff all the time therefore spent most of our spending money out. There was an al a carte meal on them but they failed to mention to us we only had 3 days to chose from in that week so we went to book it but told we’d missed it because it’s only on set days. Fair enough but might be handy to inform guest