Panorama Village Hotel

During my life I have had stayed in very different level establishments in various locations starting with hostel in Barcelona ending with 5* hotel in Dubai yet I have never been so disappointed with any of those places as I am with this one. If you state you are 4* establishment (As Panorama clearly states)...please deliver at least 3* as at this point I would rate it as decent 2* hotel, not more. My "superior", "garden view" room had a terrace directly to the stone wall and room smelled of mold. The air conditioning was super noisy as well as WC ventilator. Now let's get to service...you need to download an app to register to hotel?! The heck is this?! Anyways staff is not annoying but animators are super unoriginal including very weird choice of music including songs where half of the song is filled with "f" and "n" words with kids dancing to it. Other activities...like...bingo...srsly I think even elderly were surprised by such a choice of activities..finally the food and drinks...the choice is decent yet nothing to choose from... quality of both drinks and food is close to being unacceptable - overcooked, orange drink is only orange in color, alcohol is I believe the cheapest they could find.
Location - the only close place is Heracleion like 20 km from here besides that hotel is in the middle of nowhere.

With all that said - save your money and go to decent 2 or 3 star hotel and avoid this scam.

My boyfriend and I stayed here for 9 nights in July - our flight out was delayed so we didn’t arrive until 4am. When booking I had upgraded the room to be a superior sea view that specified that it had a balcony. When we arrived the man at the desk pointed in the direction that we had to go in, told us no information about breakfast times etc, and gave us the key to our room. The room was horrific - it wasn’t even a proper hotel room, I think it must’ve not been in use. There were 2 cockroaches on the floor, one dead and one alive. The air con didn’t work, and the room was not what we had booked and paid extra for (pictures attached). I would like a refund for this. Since it was late we went to bed and decided we would sort it in the morning, the people at reception were extremely rude and chucked a key over the reception desk and told us to move rooms. The new room was nicer and had sea views, but still no balcony. We moved rooms at 8 am so not sure why we weren’t put in that room originally? Upon arrival we had been told that due to the Microsoft outage many people were left unable to fly home and had to stay at Panorama, but why should people that booked in March be moved? We were then offered a free night in the restaurant on site as compensation, only to find out from another couple that we met there that it’s included anyway.

The food was mediocre at best throughout, something we were eating kept making us ill, I think it may have been the yogurt as once we stopped eating it we were fine.

Overall the staff were just really rude, considering we paid over £1.3k each for 9 nights and complained as we received much less than we paid for, I don’t think the way in which the staff treated us was justifiable.

The pool was green inside, needed to be properly deep cleaned. There were tiles at the bottom missing and paint from the sides of the pool floating in it.

Another big issue that many people had whilst we were there was the all inclusive ending at 11pm, which no one was informed of. The staff were really bad at actually giving us the information we needed whilst staying there, so any drinks past 11pm were charged for - just something to be aware of as I don’t think many people are informed.

The entertainment however was amazing. Alex had just started and is very, very good at his job. The evening entertainment made the holiday much better for us.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend staying here, other couples that we spoke to also agreed and had similar problems.

Positives:
-Nice new hotel in a quiet location in the hills of Agia Pelagio
- staff are amazing. Reception lad9es are lovely, dining room staff superb (i would note Alia the hardest working Spanish lady, Michael who was also great and Eliza and the others working their hearts out, Alex the entertainment leader is a marvel).
- reasonably quiet at nights IF you are far from the main pool area.
- food, was abundant and well cooked with some local specialities each day.
- car rental was cheap and well worth it if you want to travel around. There are good highways and infrastructure
Fast check in BUT be prepared to fill in you details yourself, something they could have done before you arrive

Negatives:
- impossible to get a sun bed unless it's 4pm or falling apart. I stole one and a parsol one day after watching it covered with towels from 6am to 2pm with no owner
- room cleaning should be every 2nd day. We stayed 10 days and the lady came once after i asked 3 times at reception. The bedside light has 1/2cm of dust on it. Considering you are not supposed to flush toilet paper...well you can imagine.
- 2 beaches - one is 600m walk, lovely secluded beach. The walk backnis 45 degrees up hill. The beach bus leaves 3 times per day to a beach about 2 km away..you have zero chance for shade or a sun bed. We ended up sitting on the harbour wall.
- be aware one of the firsy questiona you get will be how you want to pay the local taxes
-bathroom design is not good. You can't shower properly without flooding the floor

Unfortunate, the staff really save the place and the views are lovely.

Hotel Panorama Review

Food - The food is abysmal. I’ve never been to an establishment that has such poor chefs. Everything is completely overcooked. Meat is dry, vegetables and fruit are NEVER fresh, and the bread is frozen in the centre. Some meals were a struggle to keep the food down.

Drinks - drinks are all included however, they are significantly watered down. You will find a hard time getting a nice buzz off a beverage. Panorama uses classic tactics to save money and costs at every corner.

Rooms. Although the rooms look nice. Once you shut off all the lights, the power for thew whole room shuts off, so your phones, and other electrical items will not charge over night. Incredibly annoying. The rooms are not cleaned, and you are not given fresh sheets or towels either, unless you ask, which is apparently a huge inconvenience for a 4* Hotel to provide for their guests.

Staff - we were greeted by an incredibly hostile man, who was aggressively asking for us to show papers which we were supposed to print (we were never made aware of this). We were then forced to download an app to check in, and then given an unexpected €50 additional tax bill. Most of the staff had no manners are were completely rude (bar a few) throughout our weekly stay.

Leisure - The Hotel has multiple pools, which are quite nice. However, the ‘fitness facilities’ (if you could call it that were incredible lackluster). If you’re into your fitness, you’re going to struggle; they have 1 broken bench, a couple of dumbbell sets, and one bar which is locked in place at bench press level. The flooring is broken and leaks. It is not how it looks on the website at all and hasn’t been maintained in years. Quite disappointing.

If you’re looking for a great experience and to explore Crete, eat nice food, and experience great hospitality and entertainment, I would avoid the ‘4* Panorama Hotel’ at all costs.