"We stayed at Iberostar Creta Panorama & Mare for our honeymoon with our 2.5-year-old son. Overall, we had a good holiday and there were many things we really appreciated, although there were also a few areas that we felt could be improved.
A beautiful complex
Firstly, the hotel complex itself is genuinely beautiful. The grounds, gardens, pools and views make it a lovely place to walk around and spend time as a family. It is a large resort, but overall we thought it was very attractive and well maintained, and this was definitely one of the highlights of our stay.
A lovely start to our honeymoon
Before travelling, we emailed the hotel to let them know that this trip was our honeymoon. When we arrived, they had prepared a lovely surprise in our room with a cake, swans and rose petals. This was a really thoughtful touch and made the beginning of our stay feel special.
Rooms and cleanliness
Our room was cleaned every day throughout our stay, and we were very happy with the standard of cleanliness and housekeeping. The staff responsible for our room did a great job and this was definitely another positive.
Food and all-inclusive restaurants
We stayed on an all-inclusive basis and generally found the main buffet to be good, with plenty of choice, although we felt there could have been more vegan options.
We were also told that we could use each of the other restaurants twice during our stay. However, this was slightly disappointing. Some of the restaurants felt more like the same buffet food presented in a different setting rather than offering a genuinely different dining experience.
It was also difficult to make full use of the restaurant allowance because the restaurants were often fully booked almost immediately when slots were released at midnight. When times were available, they were not always suitable for a family with a 2.5-year-old child. It would be good if the hotel could improve availability or make the booking system more flexible for families with young children.
Our experience at the à la carte Italian restaurant was also a little frustrating. Not all of the waiting staff appeared to be able to communicate in English, which made some fairly simple requests difficult to explain.
For example, we ordered a red slush for our 2.5-year-old son and were quite baffled when it arrived served in a martini glass( we couldn’t articulate the order because they couldn’t understand our English) . We then tried to ask for a plastic glass instead, but there seemed to be difficulty understanding what we meant. Obviously, serving a toddler a drink in a martini glass is not particularly practical or appropriate, and we would expect a family-focused resort to be better prepared for very basic requests like this.
Pools and sunbeds
The hotel has several pools and we enjoyed them overall. However, the sunbed situation was probably the most frustrating part of our stay.
The hotel has rules stating that guests should not reserve sunbeds with towels between 7am and 9am, but in reality this did not appear to be consistently followed. We initially respected the rule, only to realise that if we did not put towels down early, we could struggle to find somewhere to sit later.
Unfortunately, this eventually meant that we started doing the same thing simply because otherwise we risked having no sunbeds available.
At the Callithea pool in particular, we found the situation quite stressful. The lifeguard seemed to spend a considerable amount of time monitoring sunbeds and towels. We understand why the hotel needs to prevent people reserving beds for hours without using them, and we appreciate that other guests may put pressure on staff when they cannot find a bed. However, at times it felt as though there was more attention being given to towels and sunbeds than to what was actually happening in the pool.
As a family, we did not want to spend our holiday worrying that if we stayed in the pool for a while or went away for lunch, our towels or belongings might be removed.
The hotel really needs a clearer and more consistently enforced system. Either the no-reservation rule should apply equally to everyone, or another system should be introduced. At the moment, guests who try to follow the rules can actually end up disadvantaged.
Entertainment
The entertainment programme was fine and there were activities available throughout the stay and main pool. However, if you are staying for longer than a week, you may start to notice the same shows being repeated.
The children’s mini disco was enjoyable for our son, but it was essentially the same songs and routine each evening. A little more variety would make a big difference, particularly for families staying for 10–14 days.
One thing that did concern us from a privacy and safeguarding perspective was how photographs were handled when the Starky and Stella Starfish mascots appeared.
At the end, parents and guests were encouraged to take photographs, but rather than organising a queue where each family could take an individual photograph with their own child, everyone was encouraged to take photos while all of the children were together.
This meant that strangers were taking photographs containing many other people’s children. We personally chose not to have our son involved in the photographs because we were uncomfortable with the possibility of his image ending up on strangers’ phones and potentially being shared without our knowledge.
We appreciate that this was intended to be a fun moment for the children and families, but we think the hotel could handle this much better. A simple organised queue, allowing each family to take a photograph of their own child with Starky and Stella, would provide the same experience while giving parents much greater control over their child’s privacy.
For a family-focused hotel, we feel this is something that should be considered carefully when organising children’s entertainment and photo opportunities.
Overall
Overall, we had an enjoyable honeymoon and there are many positives about Iberostar Creta Panorama & Mare. The complex itself is beautiful, the honeymoon surprise was a lovely gesture, our room was kept very clean, the main buffet was good, and the hotel has some lovely pool areas.
However, for a hotel of this standard and one that caters so heavily towards families, we think there are several areas that could be improved, particularly the restaurant booking system, some aspects of the family dining experience, sunbed management, entertainment variety and the way children’s photo opportunities are organised.
The sunbed situation was also not a nice experience because holidays should feel relaxing. We shouldn’t have felt that we needed to wake up early and compete for beds or worry about our towels being removed simply because we were enjoying the pool or having lunch.
Despite these frustrations, we still came away with some lovely memories of our honeymoon. It is a beautiful resort with a lot going for it, and with a few improvements to the way some things are managed, the overall experience could be considerably better."
