Castro Hotel

It’s easy to get to the hotel from the airport, just tell the taxi drivers the hotel name and they’ll know. Ride was 30€. You can also order taxi at the reception for a specific time during your departure, same price. You can extend your checkout if needed. The beach is roughly 4 minutes walk from the hotel, asphalt road (no hills or steps). Room was well air conditioned, we had a very large balcony, our room was the very end of the hallway, so our balcony was L shaped (big plus). Shower was a bit small, I’m 185cm and if I were a bit taller I’d have to bend my neck, but I know in Greece there are smaller bathrooms overall so we didn’t mind. Maybe the towel and bed sheet could’ve been changed after few days (it was changed in the last day of our stay). Room service in the hotel is daily. Breakfast was nice (buffet). During breakfast there may be cats visiting to say hi, during dinner we had free fruits and shots of raki. The staff were always smiling, and they were very kind, very welcoming atmosphere and we felt welcome as well. Thank you for the time we could’ve spent at your hotel. We have enjoyed Crete to the fullest.

Great hotel with friendly staff who gladly help you out.
I stayed over for six days and arrived around 22:00. I booked a half-board arrangement (so breakfast and dinner) and while breakfast wasn't the most exciting (mostly due to my own preferences, they had different items available, I am just a bit picky when it comes to breakfast), dinner was served from the menu of the excellent attached restaurant (restaurant Maxim).
You get a salad starter, main course (different every day) and desert. While I did enjoy the half-board arrangement, ordering a la carte is a recommendation!
They were even kind enough to let me keep my salad from the half-pension when I did!
Back to the hotel:
Rooms are cleaned daily and the hotel itself looks clean and tidy.
My only note would be the lack of a door between the restaurant and the hallway to the rooms to limit the noise from the restaurant. If you have your room on the ground floor, attached to the hallway to the restaurant and you sleep lightly, you might have some trouble with that.
I personally did not see or use the swimming pool (oops) as I was too busy travelling about and just went to the beach to swim.
The beach is closeby (walking distance), there's a bus stop for the local bus service right in front of the hotel (with the name of the hotel) and there's plenty of small shops nearby to get those last items you need.
Staff at the reception can help you with your questions and if you still want to go on any excursions, they will be glad to help you out via their connection with Tourline.
Overall, just a great experience. Huge thanks to the great staff of both the hotel and restaurant for the great experience.

The island, the place, and the accommodation are wonderful. The staff is incredibly friendly, always smiling and very helpful no matter what your question is. The lady at the reception is a true angel, and the guys are extremely attentive. The kittens are very cute, and I can honestly only recommend this place. ❤️
P.s. The girl who got badly sunburned in July☀️

A wonderful week at Castro hotel. The rooms are clean, the staff is kind and helpful whenever is needed. Food is fresh and delicious. Everyone is smiling and it is the perfect location for families. At the pool of the hotel you can relax and enjoy the great holiday atmosphere. You may also find wonderful excursions. (Haris, a wonderful lady that can help you with these)

We originally booked to stay at another hotel in the area and were redirected here last minute - so we were a little worried as we didn’t pick it ourselves!

However the rooms are very modern and newly renovated. We found the double bed comfy too, which was a relief! Many reviews said they were two singles pushed together and always split with a gap down the middle - but ours was a proper double bed and a good one too. Rooms are equipped with a fridge, kettle and cups, and a good air conditioning system. Staff are very nice and friendly here, their English is also excellent.

The location was good and quiet, away from bars or busy shops. You can easily walk 5 minutes to get to shops in Gazi though, so it was a great location for us. There is a bus stop to get into the main town of Heraklion just outside the hotel. Taxi costs around 14€ though. It’s €20-25 to the airport with a taxi too, which wasn’t bad! The bus also goes to the airport which would be much cheaper.

Shower is overall good if a bit weak on the power side. Takes 5 mins to warm up. The bathroom is very small. Also, due to having no shower door, the water goes everywhere. But it didn’t bother us too much overall, for the price we couldn’t complain!

We also had a lovely balcony which caught the sun in the afternoon!

It was very quiet in the hotel, due to it being out of the main season (May). If it was busier it may have been loud due to our room being over the pool, but at this time of year it was lovely and quiet. I have to say, sometimes we felt a bit watched by the men staying opposite us due to it being so quiet! If it was busier, this wouldn’t have been an issue I’m sure.

If you have children, there’s some nice things for them - a set of swings and a football net with lots of balls around! Also a pool table.

Everything clean in general in our room. However, we found a few short curly hairs in our bed though, on the sheet, which was a bit disgusting. We assumed it happened during the changing of the bed sheets (maybe the cleaner lost a few hairs?). We arrived super late and didn’t have the energy to complain, so we just got rid of them all and it was fine.

Another negative was that a painter came in our room by accident at 7am unexpectedly. I have to say, this really really really scared me. We are two women staying alone in a room and a man tried to enter it unexpectedly. The door makes a really loud noise when someone unlocks it and we awoke to that. It was honestly terrifying for me and I couldn’t fall sleep again.

The only other negative was the breakfast. It was really bad and extra shocking because the restaurant is excellent to eat at of an evening (Maxim Restaurant). It consisted mainly of toast and cereal. The only warm thing to eat was the spinach rolls which isn’t a breakfast food for me, sadly. The small omelettes were really bad and dry, cold and very tasteless too. It would’ve been so much better if they had some fresh scrambled eggs to go with our toast, or some lovely pastries like crossaints or pain au chocolates.

Overall, for the price you can’t complain. The rooms are actually nice and new. The pool looked nice too but it was closed due to bad weather. Good location and lovely staff here. The man coming in our room was probably an exception but it did really upset us. In general, we enjoyed staying here and for the price it was good.

It was our first time in Crete and I had the most amazing time at Castro hotel and thanks to their friendly staff our vacation was without a doubt the best experience we could have had.I recommends Castro hotel from the bottom of my heart! Special thanks to Harris, she made all the reservations for us and they were top!
We cannot wait to return! ❤️

A perfectly fine hotel, after staying here for 10 days I don’t understand some of the bad reviews. Before we arrived the staff were really helpful via email — shout-out to Evangelos! We stayed in a Deluxe room with pool view, in this room type air con is included in the price — you’d have to pay extra for it in basic rooms, but it’s common practice on Crete. Balcony was great, as was the pool area. The only things that could be improved are to add extra hangers in the closet, to refresh toiletries with the towels, and to add some sort of scraper to the bathroom to allow to swipe away water. None of these were a deal breaker or even a source of bad mood for us :’) We’d be happy to stay at Castro again.

Nice little hotel with great breakfast and clean/spacy rooms. The seat is a 10 min walk way. Many restaurants around for dinner.

The hotel staf is very kind, special thanks to Haris in the reception for the good tips regarding excursion. Turn to her in case you need assistance.