Aquila Porto Rethymno

"My wife & I always look forward to returning to the beautiful island of Crete to stay at the Aquila Porto Hotel, Rethymno. This was our 9th visit & we are already looking forward to returning next year. We were welcomed on our arrival at the hotel by the General Manager, Eftychis Petrakis, & the Rooms Division Manager, Natassa Pontelopoulou, who, along with the Guest Relations Manager, Nefeli, did everything they could to ensure our stay was enjoyable & memorable. All the staff are always welcoming & friendly, & are always happy to go the extra mile. As well as the friendly staff, some of whom have become friends over the 9 years we have been coming here, the other main reason that we enjoy coming here is the location of the hotel, which has easy access to the lovely sandy beach, with ample hotel sunbeds, & staff on hand to provide beach service. Of course, swimming in the warm Mediterranean Sea is wonderful. The old town of Rethymno is a short walk away, & is a delight to visit with its maze of streets with shops, restaurants & bars, & it is a must to walk around the old Venetian harbour with its light house. Our superior room on the 5th floor was comfortable with a lovely sea view, & it was always kept clean & tidy by the housekeeping staff. The buffet restaurant has a good choice of food which was well cooked & well presented, & the Head Chef, Stelios, was always on hand to advise you, especially if you have any dietary needs. We also had the choice of eating in the hotel's a la carte Piazza di Porto restaurant, which is extremely well run by the excellent captain Vasilis Vasilakis, who always made us feel welcome & special. The food & ambience in this restaurant were excellent & memorable. There is something special about this hotel which makes people come back again & again, & we will definitely be back next year."

"ANMELDELSE KRETA TUREN OKT 2025 Vi var på en uges ferie på Hotel Aquila Porto Rethymno, i byen Rethymnon på Kreta, arrangeret af Apollo. Det var en virkelig dejlig ferie. Hotel Aquila Porto Rethymno har en virkelig god lokation, stranden ligger lige over gaden, og den gamle hyggelige bydel ligger i gangafstand fra hotellet (20-25 minutter). Personalet var alle venlige og professionelle, og hotellets morgen buffet er simpelthen fantastisk, uden sidestykke. Vi giver vore varmeste anbefaliber til hotel Hotel Aquila Porto Rethymno, Venlig hilsen JB. REVIEW CRETE TOUR OCT 2025 We spent a week at Hotel Aquila Porto Rethymno, in the city of Rethymnon on Crete, organized by Apollo. It was a really nice vacation. Hotel Aquila Porto Rethymno has a really good location, the beach is just across the street, and the old cozy town is within walking distance from the hotel (20-25 minutes). The staff were all friendly and professional, and the hotel's breakfast buffet is simply fantastic, unparalleled. We give our warmest recommendations to the hotel Hotel Aquila Porto Rethymno, Best regards JB."

"We have just returned from a one week stay at the Aquila Porto Rethymno, our first time in Crete. Overall, I we rated this as a nice place to stay for a one week “second holiday”, although I am not sure it would be my first choice for my “main” 2 week summer break. In more detail: The room was very nice (we were upgraded to a sea view room – thanks). The cleaning was done to a good standard each day. The only issue here was that we wished we had taken our travel kettle – we left it at home because we saw that the room had tea and coffee making facilities but this entails the use of a coffee maker to boil water, which does so, but in very small doses, meaning you had to press the button about 10 times to fill a cup. And it sounds like a jet engine taking off. The room also had 2 cups which were the smallest cups I have ever seen, useful only for a tiny shot of espresso. We asked for some normal sized cups for tea but they never arrived and I think the request was lost in translation. In the end, we bought a new kettle and 2 cups in town. The food was of a good standard, plenty enough choice and all cooked and presented well. My only concern with the meal arrangements was that the buffet restaurant is quite small so space is at a premium. You are supposed to book a slot on the app for your evening meal, which we did, but when arriving at the restaurant you are never checked against your time slot booking, so I didn’t understand at first why you need to book at all. It then dawned on me that its actually genius – all it does is ensure that guests are spaced out because you are unlikely to arrive at a different time to the one you booked. Very good. Being October, there were always sunbeds available on the rooftop sun deck or round the pool but I guess this would be more of a challenge in peak months. However, there are loads of places available on the beach, free of charge, which was great. We loved Rethymno – beautiful old town to wander around and just the right shade of “lively” for us. But I never appreciated just how big Crete is (162 miles wide apparently), so trips to anywhere else would be a bit of a trek. In the end, as we only had a week, we treated it as a nice “fly and flop” break, and it suited us just fine. My only other observation, not a slight on the hotel at all, but given how many locals use scooters as their mode of transport and given obviously that the fumes from a scooter are not filtered, I found the air quality on the main coast road outside the hotel to be pretty poor. There is a constant whiff of petrol in the air. This was another reason that I preferred it on the beach rather than the sun deck because pollution rises in the air, the beach is slightly below road level so wasn't affected much, but the sun deck in the hotel is first floor level, and so smelled like sunbathing on a petrol forecourt. Overall though, nice hotel, successful trip, and we would gladly return."