Mitsis Rinela

We had a wonderful stay at this resort! The best thing about it was the massage we booked at the spa ! The ladies did a wonderful job! The room we had was also a sea view room with a beautiful balcony and the restaurants were a great plus! We will definitely book again next year!

"Wonderful experience! Food was delicious, fresh and hot. Staff were very friendly and attentive. Clean, comfortable and great value. Highly recommend — will definitely be back!" Alfred Prendi

We stayed at Rinela for one week in an ocean view room - room was lovely, bed is large & comfy, bathroom was great & our view was lovely. I will say there are no drawers at least in our room which made it a little hard to unpack. Walls of room are also thin, you can hear next door tap running. The main pool area is great, we were worried about getting a sunbed based on other reviews but if you were down at the pool by 10am you would be guaranteed a space, the lifeguard would also monitor and remove towels if left for longer than 1 hour. However, there are more than plenty of spaces at the beach which was also very nice and had its own bar. In the morning the bar service around the pool was great but always noticed this would get less and less as the day went on, didn’t mind as you could easily go up and get one from the bar! Drinks are made fresh infront of you and are great, iced coffees are delicious also. I think the buffet is the biggest let down for this hotel, at breakfast the pastries are so stale and rock hard. Lunch was best time to go to buffet as it had a wider selection on. I found selection to not be great and very difficult to find something to eat at dinner from the buffet - if you like fish you will probably always find something. Secondly the set up of the buffet is strange, we holiday at 5* resorts very regularly and would always be greeted and shown to our table. Here you just find your own table, if you wanted to sit outside sometimes you would queue but then would be ignored by staff. On Multiple mornings I would order a tea with breakfast and it only would arrive once I had already finished my food. At lunch/dinner You would received your first drinks fine but if you want seconds good luck getting hold of someone! Just overall a really really poor experience in the buffet, both food & staff wise. However we really enjoyed the restaurants, particularly the steak house & Mexican for lunch! However at the steak house I really think guests should be given slightly more food… between 2 of us we were given 3 fried potatoes & 4 bits of carrot… desserts were absolutely delicious at all restaurants!

The booking system with the hotel is a bit of a let down also, guests are able to book months in advance for their dinner reservations meaning some guests were really struggling to get a booking anywhere which is really unfair. Any other 5* resort we have been to has allowed us to either show up at the restaurant whenever or only book upon arrival. Additionally, you seemed to be able to book spa treatments at times that they were fully booked.. we booked a couples massage for 3pm and received a confirmation email. We showed up to be told that the time wasn’t available, that despite the confirmation email they did infact email us to say this but we had not saw this (our fault but after receiving a confirmation email we didn’t think to! ) Drinks & entertainment in the hotel each night was great and the crepe station was an added bonus and a nice way to finish off the night. A taxi to Heraklion centre will set you back €35-38, quite expensive, but I heard there was a bus outside that brought you in also if people preferred that. Overall, I would not stay here again as I really do not believe it compared to other 5* resorts that we have stayed!