Caramel Grecotel Boutique Resort

I was able to enjoy a 5 night stay here near the end of the season and was literally sad to leave. From start to finish, I felt more like an honored guest than a vacationer. This place is super elegant, and the staff is wonderful. Everyone seemed to take part in making the stay fantastic. Check in, restaurants, pool lunches, everyone was awesome especially Oggy and the very helpful lifeguards at both the pool and beach. Rooms are spotless and nicely furnished. Beach is right on site, crystal clear water although a little pebbly rather than sandy, typical of the area. I thought the pool area was great, and lounged and floated away to my heart's content. Breakfast was awesome, they had everything you could want and more, and it was all fresh and tasty. The town is a short drive away (maybe 10 minutes or so) and is a lively place for a bit of a change up. I loved my stay and highly highly recommend the Caramel Grecotel Boutique Resort, and can't wait to go back someday. This is a first class place with first class people helping make your stay enjoyable. A++.

This Grecotel is definitely among the nicest properties of the chain and also in the Rethymno area. The hotel itself is a nice oasis in the middle of a quite touristy area, 6km outside of Old Town Rethymno. It is well maintained and relatively quiet, the common areas are well groomed, the rooms are clean. One should be careful when booking though, because some of the rooms have views toward the back road and the other hotels across of it, which would probably be unpleasant. Upon our arrival we were offered a paid upgrade, which was nice. The breakfast was excellent and high quality. Lunch and dinner at the main restaurant are more average, though still high quality products are used. Given the proximity of the exceptional restaurants in Rethymno it is a personal matter of choice though, and the cab to town is only 13 Euro each way. The beach in front of the hotel is what one would expect in Greece, the loungers are fine, the service is a bit lacking but overall the experience is satisfactory. Generally I would highly recommend renting a car since there are a lot of nicer beaches in the area not far from the hotel and lot of excellent tavernas too, which will make the experience much more authentic. The staff at the reception are amazing, I have only praise for them, as they went above and beyond to make our stay pleasurable. We received a lot of help from the excellent Irina and Katerina in organizing day trips and many other things, for which we are grateful. There is room for improvement however, for example we were only left one small (500ml) bottle of water per day, so we had to constantly ask the reception to bring more. Considering the temperatures in Crete it is quite strange that such requests needed to be made on a daily basis and the whole thing is basically a nuisance. The cocktails at the bars were prepared with less alcohol than the recipes call for, which I guess brings some extra profit but again, should not be the case in a 5* hotel on the expensive side. A cocktail is in the 10 Euro range so I guess extra 10ml or so of very inexpensive alcohol to bring the taste to what it should be won't hurt the bottom line too much, but definitely hurt the experience a lot. I opted to drink wine instead, but such compromises should not be the case. Overall we were quite satisfied with our stay and would repeat if we return to Crete, however, it would be nice if the hotel management take better care of the smaller details, which often make a lot of difference in the upper scale hotel experience.

We spent 10 days at the Grecotel Caramel. Upon arrivingl rather late we were warmly welcomed with fresh fruit drinks, Surprisingly, but very appreciated because we hadn't eaten for some hours, we were told that despite the kitchens already being closed, sandwiches were already waiting for us in our room. That set the tone for the rest of our stay, superb service and a smile from all the staff. No one personified this more than Oggi who was always prepared to go even one step further. Our room was spotless, comfortable, and quiet. Breakfasts were outstanding with an amazing selection of local and international dishes, including the various types of bread, made in-house. We did not eat dinner at the hotel, preferring to try out the various restaurants in Rethymnon town recommended by the reception and were never disappointed. Other reviewers mentioned the need to wear shoes to go into the sea. It is worth mentioning the beach in front of the hotel was cleaned scrupulously every day. We would highly recommend the Grecotel for couples who are looking for a holiday where they will be properly pampered! Finally, we saw that floods hit the island in October and sincerely hope that Oggi, his staff, and families, as well as the Hotel and its beautiful infrastructure, were not badly affected.