Irelena 1 Studios and Apartments – Stalis – Crete

We stayed in a self catering studio at the Irelena 1 Studios in Crete for one week in August 2009 & had a great holiday but came away with very mixed feelings about the hotel.

The good points: The hotel is in an excellent location set back from the main road in Stalis (so no noise) but only a few minutes walk to the restaurants, bars & shops. We were in a top floor room with a (distant!) sea view & it was a very good size with plenty of storage space & good size balcony. Despite it being peak season the pool area was very quiet & there were always plenty of sunbeds to choose from.

The things we weren’t so keen on: The room was only cleaned once in the time we were there & that was on our second day, so for the rest of the week we had no clean sheets or towels. The litter bins in the kitchen area & bathroom weren’t emptied at all & we had to supply our own loo roll. This isn’t the end of the world but for a 3* rated hotel we were expecting better.

We weren’t planning to cook but if we were, it would have been difficult to make any meals with the limited kitchen equipment provided. The corridors were very echoey so despite trying to close the heavy wooden doors quietly it was impossible not to make plenty of noise.

The reception area is not manned that often so despite there being a snack bar by the pool it was very rare that you could get to purchase something. We had an early morning flight home & had intended to keep the room on after check out but because there was no one around we couldn’t arrange this.

We have stayed in far better studios in Greece & we didn’t feel this one was worthy of it’s 3 stars but on the other hand if we came across a good enough deal we would consider it again.