Elounda Palm Hotel - Elounda, Greece     

For our last two days in Greece we decided to splurge a little and stay in a junior suite in this hotel. The room was lovely, the verandah huge and the pool area very attractive. Oddly though, I found this hotel had more problems then some much more inexpensive places on other islands. There were holes in the sheets, it took repeated requests to obtain shampoo from the front desk staff, the internet terminal which was clearly set out for guests didn't operate and the staff indicated that this was the normal state of affairs. Also this hotel was the first that charged for use of the inhouse safety deposit box. The breakfast was ok and extensive but not particularly good ie very watered down juices. It's too bad as physically the place was so attractive. Other then the front desk staff, the rest of the staff were pleasant and helpful.

We have returned today from a weeks stay at the Elounda Palm. We were fortunate enough to have one of the better rooms that had a fantastic view (room 303), but heard plenty of other people complaining that they had either no view or looked over the car park. We booked half board but wished we had just gone b&b as the food was very poor. We ended up eating out most nights just to get a decent meal. We highly recommend The Ferryman, typical slow Greek service, but fantastic food and wine. We also recommend the All In One cafe/creperie in the main square which is fantastic for drinking a late night coffee and watching the world go by. The breakfast at the hotel was exactly the same each day and was not particularly appetising. The bar area by the pool is nice, expecially if you get one of the seats in the covered area. Be careful of any added extras as we were caught out by the charge for the room safe even though there was no information in the room. Also rececption never told us anything about meal times we had to chase them for this information. One little tip, hire push bikes and cycle across the causeway and follow the road round to the right, about a mile along on the right there is the most fantastic sandy bay which is very hidden. A great way to spend a couple of hours. Be aware though that the party boats use this as a swim stop and it may get busy. All in all, a lovely hotel but was let down by the restaurant.