Phāea Cretan Malia, a Member of Design Hotels

Beautiful property and lovely food - great for families

This is such a brilliant hotel for young families. It’s a really beautiful place with some lovely restaurants, bars & some cute additions like the gelateria & the little on-site kafenio. The staff are brilliant with kids and they’ve thought of everything you need. Malia isn’t the prettiest area, but parts of the Old Town are charming with some lovely, great value restaurants. My only criticism of this hotel how expensive the restaurant are. We chose not to go half board or all-included but I wish we had – I think it would’ve been much better value overall!

Pros Rooms very nice with everything you need Huge beds Staff very friendly Food and setting at the restaurants lovely (especially Cretan and Italian) Kids play area was nice to have especially on a rainy day Design of property is stunning Cat cafe and organic garden were nice places to potter around Cons/areas for improvement Relatively small for a resort and not much to do around the resort. Bungalow rooms are not actually bungalows - our room was on the first floor Balconies small Pools not heated enough to be a pleasant experience in October (24 degrees outside). Daughter was turning blue! There’s a nice splash pool for toddlers but it’s under trees so coated in tree debris all the time - feels like it should’ve been cleaned out more regularly Menus were all on qr codes in the app but you couldn’t order through the app There was a yoga pavilion so I expected to be able to pop along to yoga classes but they only had private yoga classes on offer. Every other resort I’ve stayed in does free sessions once or twice a day Massage was lovely but availability was very limited so recommend booking in advance. Offers were advertised but not honoured. Seemed to be one “experience” available most days but they were pricey. For example Brad making we’d have paid €200 for two suits and a one year old Similarly we paid €23 for our daughter at the buffet (but she was free the second time) Difficult to get restaurant reservations within a day or two Beach not the nicest

This is a beautiful resort with a gorgeous beach and wonderful restaurants. It’s very quiet and has a lot of families with young children. The rooms are spacious with nice balconies and I would stay here again if I ever go back to Crete.