Arina Beach Resort

“Excellent time in the hotel”

The food was delicious and the private beach was excellent, because there were no high waves. The hotel room was big enough and comfortable. We stayed there for a week. We recommend this hotel. And the tennis courts were great to practice!!!

“Impressive cleanliness, food/drink service, and care from staff”

We had a lovely family holiday, and will definitely be keen to return. The cleanliness, food/drink service, and care from staff is very impressive. Our toddler has a number of severe food allergies which the staff were always so understanding and helpful with - in particular Giorgios who was a grea… Mais

We had a lovely family holiday, and will definitely be keen to return. The cleanliness, food/drink service, and care from staff is very impressive. Our toddler has a number of severe food allergies which the staff were always so understanding and helpful with - in particular Giorgios who was a great help in the restaurants throughout each day. To all of the Arina Beach team - thank you so much for such a lovely week :)

Menos

“Excellent hotel, great location, food + rooms. Evening entertainment let's it down. Better Prosecco needed.”

We absolutely love this hotel we went twice last year. The location is brilliant so close to the airport. Beachfront location beautiful. Rooms are lovely, beds comfortable, cleanliness great. Food is brilliant too. So many lovely staff, who treated us like family. Just a couple not so nice male sta… Mais

We absolutely love this hotel we went twice last year. The location is brilliant so close to the airport. Beachfront location beautiful. Rooms are lovely, beds comfortable, cleanliness great. Food is brilliant too. So many lovely staff, who treated us like family. Just a couple not so nice male staff. Room for improvement on evening entertainment it's just not giving the 5 stars. The saxophonist has no life in her. Female daytime singer on a Friday is brilliant though. Better tasting prosecco please it's undrinkable.

Menos

“Disappointing all round”

Settle in, this is a bit of a long one I'm afraid. Note, we went in middle of August, I've taken ages to get round to writing it! When we were looking for a hotel, we had narrowed it down to 3 hotels, with this one in the mix. Because of the 5 "blobs" on Tripadvisor, this convinced us eventually t… Mais

Settle in, this is a bit of a long one I'm afraid. Note, we went in middle of August, I've taken ages to get round to writing it! When we were looking for a hotel, we had narrowed it down to 3 hotels, with this one in the mix. Because of the 5 "blobs" on Tripadvisor, this convinced us eventually to go for this hotel, however, we did not find it to this standard. I will be honest, I have questioned myself many, many times. I must be missing something, am I having totally different drinks to all these other people….am I seeing different sunbeds not being reserved in the early hours of the morning? Am I the only one finding the main inside lobby bar room unbearable with heat at night time? Trust me, I'm not a negative person, I just found this place a bit "Meh" and not what I would expect from a claimed 4 * hotel. We haven't stayed at many All Inclusive, we have done years of villas in many countries, but last year we had a last minute AI to Grecotel Luxme Resort in Corfu last year, which is the nearest I can compare it to for this, and that was significantly nicer and better than this. I will give some positives Easy to book a restaurant on the app, no issues there. There was always room to book in which was great, gave you really good variation on meals. Before we've had experience where you turn up and people have booked all the restaurants and so you have slim pickings, not here. You can’t book more than 3 days in advance and you can’t book before you arrive. That was excellent. Dutch Mitchell deserves a shout out along with Theodor who mainly worked in Ariana Restaurant. We spoke to these guys quite a bit, and they really seem over worked if I'm honest, but it's probably the nature of Crete where everything is open and then shuts down in winter. Irini at the kids pool bar was great, made great drinks. Adonis at the pool bar by the evening entertainment was also good, I liked his sense of humour. I would recommend upgrading if you can, we really liked the quietness to Ariana restaurant and the friendly staff in there. They were great with my son, joking with him every morning, that was a much more pleasant experience dining in there. Upgrading gives you unlimited in that restaurant. Do that. I found it odd that all the bars and restaurants had little boxes for "Tips" for the staff. Just to clarify, I don't have an issue with this per say, I just found it a little odd when people are coming to the types of hotels because "everything" is paid for and for the ease. You aren't expecting to be then tipping when you had paid significant amounts in the school holidays for a holiday here. We usually tip the cleaners on exit. The wife disagrees with me on this, fair enough. When I have "upgraded" to a Penthouse, I don't then expect to have to pay extra for a "top brand" drink. Again, I'm not an AI expert, but when I'm paying £300 a night, I would expect the drinks to be better than they are. To compare to Grecotel, that was all top brands like Tanqueray. Talking of which, there is absolutely no way the drinks out of the Fanta/Coca Cola/Sprite are genuine ones, and quite honestly I think if anyone arrived from the Coca Cola company, they would be horrified with what was coming out of it. For those of a slightly older age and in the UK, we called it "Panda Pop"….you will know what that is…..or maybe if I quote Peter Kay, "Rola Cola". Even the local juice coming out of the other fountain with their brand on it (can’t remember what it was) was not great. This then lead onto pretty bad cocktails if I am honest. Gin and Tonic, nope, awful. Beer, pretty woeful and the size of the cups are just annoying. When you ask for a beer, you get given a plastic cup which holds 225ml (I know that because it says it on the bottom of the cup when I'm drinking it - I'm not a weirdo with a measuring jug measuring all my drinks), that cup isn’t filled up, it's mainly head and it's just woeful. The beer is significantly better in the bigger cups, but to get one of these you have to ask for a "large beer", and only certain bars have these bigger cups. If you get one, hold onto it!!. Another disappointment was "meatball gate" and the manager. One night we were trying the main buffet, as you do, trying little bits here and there. I got to the end of the line, pick up a couple of meatballs to add to my plate just to try them out. It was just 3 meatballs and a bit of the sauce, no pasta or anything like that. I tried a bit and it was disgusting, the salt in it was just ridiculous. I got my wife and son to try it, just to check it wasn't me, and they had to spit it out. Now to me, that much salt leads me to believe the meat is that bad, it needs covering up. Anyway, this was the final straw after some other pretty boring/woeful options and I spoke to the manager about it, I informed him of the salt levels and it wasn't edible, he then for some odd reason started calling the head chef over, which then caused all the other chefs to start looking over, much like Meerkats. I politely said, there is too much salt in the meatballs and offered him to try it, he and the manager should try it to see what I meant - in my book nothing wrong with that, I taste all my cooking. Anyway, they refused, the chef just spoke in Greek to the manager, he seemed pretty angry. When I asked what he said and presumed it was along the lines of that I didn't know what I was talking about, the manager just smiled and asked for my room number. I didn’t want to give my room number, I was giving simple feedback and just wanted them to try it. Anyway, more refusal of trying it (that says a lot to me) and I just gave my room number and walked off. Manager apologised, said it wouldn’t happen ever again. Probably because I would be home by the next rotation. Next day a bottle of "brut" turned up in our room and some fruit. I don't want to be ungrateful, I just didn’t want it, all I wanted is for the food to be tasted so they knew what I was talking about and for them to address it/change it, I was trying to be helpful. Guess what, the brut/processco (incidentally they charge 25 euros for it) was awful and did a good job of cleaning the drain. I wish I had looked at its location beforehand, this is not any fault of the hotel, more for advice to people. If I was toying with, and having great difficulty over choosing a hotel, this may help you to pick it, or steer away from it. I've seen the planes mentioned a lot, and I agree, it doesn't always cause any issues, especially during the day. Though one morning when we tried the main restaurant for breakfast a plane flew by and it was really loud. I do think it should be noted, they are coming in about every 15/20 mins and are about 950ft high at the hotel (Flight radar App, again I'm not weird at measuring something else) we were on the 4th floor in the main building ("Penthouse") and one night we were just chilling on the balcony. We had to pause the iPad we were watching every time one was coming, which we laughed at, so much, that yes, I measured something else (maybe I do have an issue!) the sound level. It peaked at 72db. My petrol lawn mower is 79db to give you an idea. Weirdly it also seemed like as soon as we woke up, one was flying by, and just before sleeping. Again, made me laugh and still does now. Talking of sleeping, I've seen it mentioned on others, if you can get a room near the end of a corridor I would urge for that. We were near the lift and people coming out of that and slamming doors were disruptive sometimes waking us up. Other than that though soundproofing is good and you don't hear other people in room next door type thing. Beds are massive and comfortable. Minibar is replenished with whatever you drink, but no alcohol in there and as mentioned, the soda isn't worth drinking. The bottles of water was welcomed though for sure. Talking of water, I noticed on a menu somewhere, that if you wanted a bottle of water like you get in the room, from one of the bars, they would charge you 1 euro for it! Yes you can have the water out of the soda machine, but I was shocked at that. Lifeguards weren’t very attentive in my opinion. Again, comparing to Grecotel in Corfu that we visited, that also had waterslides, the lifeguards we really "on it". Here, people are playing and milling about in the pool at the bottom of the slides which I was quite surprised about to be honest. Often (me included) would come flying out of a slide on a ring and if I didn't come off on entry, could easily get three quarters of the way in the pool and be bumping into people. Not once did I hear any lifeguard whistle or any attempt at keeping people safe and away from the slides when they were about 7/8 feet away (there I go again measuring!). I'm not a Health and Safety nut, but it seemed like an accident waiting to happen to me. Talking of the pool, whoever decided putting down black tiles around the pools, in a country with significant sunshine and heat should probably be in a different line of work. They get very hot and not walkable in barefoot, you need to stick to the white ones. Which should have been fitted throughout. Yes they looks slightly jazzy from a photo done by a drone on the website, but not practical. Keeping with the pool……Sunbeds…..ooohhhh sunbeds. Mixed on this. It was August, so yes, was busy. In the first week though we had no problems whatsoever. We would walk to the waterpark at about 09:45 (waterpark opens at 10) after our breakfast and sun lotion session (done separately) and you could take your pick of the double, fully padded sunbeds close to the pool and bar. Lovely. Sadly though, after about 6 days, so creeping to mid August it got worse. Towels were down on these by 8, and lots of them. I will point out, I know this because of walking past on the way to breakfast, not doing it myself. I enjoyed a walk on the beach before breakfast at Avra, that was lovely. However, there was still plenty available further up by the bigger slides, you just might struggle for any shade on those. The beach always had loads available, no problem there. So it depends on your preference if that is an issue or not. I also observed people removing towels from sunbeds, on more than one occasion, because they had put towels down by the pool and hadn't been near it all day. To be fair, people hadn't been near them for a good 5/6 hours so good on them. It also made great, nail biting action for their reaction upon return. I won't comment on the nationality's involved with this, but it wasn't the English. I'm sure you can assume/guess. (Begins with G). Not fully the hotels fault, but I find it a bit off putting that people just walk straight off the beach/pool to Dia for food. The floor gets wet, mucky and people don't have tops/t-shirts on, nor anything on their feet. Not a massive fan of having countless hairy chests, uncomfortably close (trying not to give a measurement!)being adorned while I'm trying to quietly get myself that extra cheeky chicken nugget. The staff in general are great and polite, especially the housekeepers/cleaners. They have a never ending, thankless task. The only "off" ones I encountered were on reception, they were short/sharp/direct and didn't ask how our stay. Probably a good thing looking at this review I have created. I could have been there a while. Actually, now I come to think of it, one of the male bar staff in the main lobby was a bit frustrating. He would spend quite a lot of time chatting and, quite honestly, blatantly flirting with female guests that the queue of guests waiting to get a drink were getting quite frustrated. Leading to queue jumping, leading to more frustration and generally huffing. That said, I think only the English really know how to queue, we have it down to a fine art, and that is noticeable with the lack of English and the high volume of German and Russian guests. Make of that what you will, but as a warning, it's every man for himself. I didn't like the almost daily selling of massages when just chilling out by the pool. They would walk round all the sunbeds asking if you want a massage. I didn’t like the pushy photographers when people were entering the main dining hall for their evening meal, encouraging you to smile and have a family photo. I observed it happening to a lot of others as well. I'm sure some would enjoy it, like my best mate who insists on having "professional photos" at every chuffing Disney park. (sorry mate). I didn't like there was optional cocktails which you could pay quite a bit extra for. It should be all inclusive and that's it. Would I return? No chance, and that's from my 10 year old son.

Menos