Panthea Luxury Living

Clean, swimming pool, the view, the bed, the stuff

Nothing

The apartment was clean and the location was nice.

Even though we advised the owner about the uncomfortably low water pressure since day one, nothing was done to fix this problem until our departure

Very clean and lovely location nice staff and great service

No separated cooking facilities did have a toaster maker did have a fridge

I usually pay €70 to 80 a night in Crete. Here I paid around €115 in a smaller, quieter town. Enough to arrive with expectations. I spent three nights trying to work out where the extra money had gone. Some of it is obvious. The bed, which for me matters more than anything on holiday, was genuinely good: two singles pushed together, as every hotel in the Mediterranean seems to have agreed at some secret summit, but comfortable. The room and bathroom are spacious, with a walk-in shower, and everything looks new. The air conditioning is new too, and quiet enough to leave on all night, which in Greece, land of units that sound like aircraft preparing for take-off, is no small thing. There's a pool, the beach is ten minutes on foot, and the lady at reception was lovely from start to finish. Remember her. She comes back. The room is cleaned daily. Except for one afternoon when it smelled worse after cleaning than before, courtesy of a mop that hadn’t been washed properly that day.

But a hotel isn't only what you pay for. It's who you share it with. And on the ground floor, you share it with everyone. The cats first. There aren't many. They don't need to be. They follow you everywhere, including to your table at the restaurant. I sprayed them with water; they left, briefly, and came back. When I asked the staff, someone shooed the cat from our table. It considered the matter and returned. In fairness, they're not freeloaders: every morning a few devoted guests feed them at breakfast. You can't blame a cat for turning up where the buffet is. By night they sat outside our window, by day on the loungers, and one slept on the towels I'd left to dry on the balcony. I don't want cats near my food, my towels or my sunbeds, and I never really relaxed. Then the ants. I met the first one in bed, at night, which is not how anyone wants to be introduced. It belonged to a trail from a crack by the window that I couldn't reach to seal. I didn't report it. I wiped them away every day, hoping they'd take the hint.. They were all over the hotel outside too. By the last night they'd become a campaign, and I didn't sleep. I was too tired to go and argue. In the last day there, I discovered why there were so many: the coffee table was never properly wiped, with crumbs from the guests before. The upstairs neighbours completed the set. Even with the earplugs we take on every holiday, every flush from above and every toy their child dropped arrived in our room in full. On the ground floor you don't just hear the building. You attend it. Breakfast: no vegetables, olives in vinegar that tasted as though they were being punished, pressed ham, the cheapest processed cheese and an entire table of pastries. I bought fruit and vegetables at the supermarket. So Vegetarians get bread and orange juice. In Greece. A country that grows tomatoes the way other countries grow grass.