Хороший отель для своей цены. (Как бонус немного про Grecotel El Greco и Krini Beach) Good hotel for its price. (As a bonus, a little about Grecotel El Greco and Krini Beach)

I will immediately write a list of the pros and cons of this hotel, and then I will tell you in more detail.

Pros -

Very large two-room family rooms.
Mini kitchens in the rooms.
Very friendly staff.
Excellent nutrition.
Large three-section swimming pool.
Few people.
Nearby is a rental office, perhaps the most intelligent and inexpensive network Greek rental company.
Nearby is a restaurant with a Russian hostess and reasonable prices.
Huge grassy area behind the hotel where children can play.
Near a mini-supermarket.
Near 2 children's entertainment centers.

Minuses.

Small, not very convenient beach.
No wifi.
There are no Russian channels on TV. (They promised to put the plate in the near future).
Around the village. There is nowhere to go.
The staff does not speak Russian at all.

The beach is really not good, but it borders on the Grecotel El Greco 4 * beach and you can quite legally go and swim there. It's okay there.

{{{ A bit about Grecotel El Greco 4*.

I was not in the rooms, but I was in bars, lobbies, by the pools, etc. A very decent hotel. The rooms have a feeling of spaciousness and proper chic. Service at the highest level. Jeeves even walks along the beach in a white shirt and carries wet and then frozen towels on a tray to cool the top of his head or wipe his face. I would give this hotel 5*}}}

Wai Fai finishes from neighboring hotels. We had an active 17-year-old nymphet with us. He roamed the girls in all the hotels in the area and, in the end, even dragged us a few passwords. So that you can get acquainted with one of ours and solve this problem.
The nearest shopping and bar places are really far away. Bus stop across the road. Tickets and timetable in the supermarket. Taxi to Rethymnon 10 - 12 e.
Judging by the stickers on the doors, until recently ALCYON was focused on serving the Scandinavians.
So, they do not speak Russian, but they get out of the situation by attracting English-speaking Russians for help. Me included. There were almost no problems with this.

{{{ A little bit about the Krini Beach 3* hotel. For 20 days of rest, 5 or 6 times people were brought to Alcyone for 1-2 days from the airport, who were supposed to live in Krini Beach. Once they brought an unfortunate group that had swallowed a lot of trouble. At first they were detained, and then the plane was changed and they rushed from Domodedovo to Sheremetyevo. We spent more than two hours at passport control, because the Greeks were waiting for a medium-haul airliner, and Jumbo arrived. There were only two border guards. And as an apotheosis, Krini did not accept them. When a crowd of tired, furious, drunk people (20 people) surrounded the elderly owner of Alcyone, he sent for me. When I arrived, he literally moaned to me - I don’t understand what all these people want. I talked to people, to the owner. In general, the people calmed down.
They woke up the cook, the bartender (time 23-30), built a dinner for the people and drank without restrictions at the expense of Alcyone. As a result, this group was scattered around different hotels, dividing friends and drinking companions.

When I arrive at the place, I immediately scatter things, create my own comfort. And it would be unpleasant for me to jump from hotel to hotel. If Crini hadn't accepted 1, well, two groups. But 6 in 20 days. This is a serious system failure. Maybe Krini Beach is a wonderful hotel, but if I knew about such an akhtung, I wouldn’t go there. }}}

I will return to Alcyone. The hotel staff is extremely friendly. When I, on a trifling occasion, asked to change the room, they changed it for me within an hour. And they apologized for a long time. When a mother with a 17-year-old son saw what a family room was, they asked for the same one, and agreed to pay the difference. They were replaced at no extra cost.
When the innkeeper saw that one of us had shriveled up after tasting too thick mushroom soup, he became alarmed and began to ask me what expensive Russian tourists do not like in their cook's cooking. I reassured him that everything was fine, but we were used to other soups. As a result, at the request of the owner, I gave a master class to the kitchen staff on cooking cabbage soup. I've never made this much, but it seems to work. The guests (not only ours, but also the bourgeoisie) ate with pleasure. So, in Alcyone they will sometimes cook “rashn shti”. On the first day I lost in dominoes 5.50c. our nymphet. He left at night, came at 3 o'clock and threw up the whole room. In the morning, his mother shyly asked to replace all mattresses and bed linen in a two-room suite. I was ready to pay any amount. The hotel staff reassured her that FSE is normal. Like the first time in the first class.

Everything was replaced for free, and the bartender at breakfast approached the bastard, stroked his head and brought mineral water. (Later I tried to find out from him - how can you get so drunk for five fifty? He bleated something indistinctly, but I realized that he was not alone in kerosene. Having bought decoction, he went to the beach at night with some young girl and judging due to the fact that her parents did not let her go anymore, she arrived at the room in about the same condition. ) But the bastard was not upset. Wherever I went, I constantly ran into him in an embrace with another femina, and when I took our entire company far away, the number remained at his disposal and he approached me and asked me in a whisper not to arrive earlier than a certain time. By God! If I was without a family, I would ask him to take me with him.
Where to go in the evening with children.
If you leave the hotel and go left, then in 7-10 minutes you can walk to a large children's entertainment center. A bunch of kids.
Swing carousel for free. All sorts of attractions for a small loot. Bar for adults. There's also a go-kart. Low-powered karts are allowed behind the wheel, after instructing children from 10 years old. There is one double vehicle. You can ride younger spinogryz on it. They are delighted. It is clear that every woman should have her own cradle. But if you do not have him or he is tired sleeping in the room on his face, then this is not a reason to refuse to ride children. And my wife, and I also saw women, rolled kids on this tandem. It's worth it. And it's absolutely safe. The main thing is to put on shoes with thick soles, do not cling to the steering wheel with a stranglehold (or at least alternately let your hands rest on straight sections) and spread your knees wider, otherwise there will be bruises on the inner surface of the legs from the steering column. I saw how an aged Greek priest was riding on the map taking off his cassock.
And if the local padre can do it, then any Russian (Soviet) madre will definitely cope with this.
If you go from the hotel to the left, then in half an hour you can walk to another children's center. Its owner is a kind, smiling, slightly mournful woman, who only inflated 2 trampolines for my two offspring (one the size of a two-story house). It costs 10 e for two, plus she gives them juice and some toys. This place has a great view of the sunset. The bar only has beer.

Where to go during the day Rethymno. You can go by bus. If you take a taxi, then you need to ask the taxi driver in the city itself to turn right at the roundabout with a flower bed on which there is a statue of a giant grasshopper. I don't know how the grasshopper will be in English and told the taxi drivers “… big mosquito. . ". they did not immediately, but understood. On the embankment it is better to immediately go out and take a walk.
(To the left) At the end of the embankment, already at the very fortress, it turns to the left and you will have to go through the restaurant tables. I recommend family taverna Mouragio. There they will immediately begin to breed for expensive seafood (120 e for three. Really tasty and unusual). But if you are reluctant to spend money, then we can say that you have come in purely to devour. Ordinary dishes are also delicious, but are inexpensive. The main plus of this institution is two children's playrooms, where you can send the bastards and sit quietly. And at the end they give them something else. If you go to Rethymno in the evening in a rental car, in no case do not park in the parking lot at the supermarket. It closes at 2.00 and they pull a cable with a lock at the exit. You need to go look for their administrator - and this is long and dreary.
Where to go far. Knossos, caves, lake (it's wildly beautiful and funny beggar geese walk along the beach. They don't bite.
In one of the cafes there is a mini-museum of the resistance of the Greeks against the German landing on Crete. An amazing multi-kilometer beach between Rethymnon and Chania. Chania. Mixture of architecture from Ottoman to Venetian. (There are 2 mass graves. There are 80 of our soldiers in one, our sailors in the other. I was looking, I wanted to put flowers. Unfortunately, I didn’t find it. The landmark is the church of St. Nicholas. And there are several of them in Chania. If you can, you can find and bow) .
Fur coats. It makes no sense to try to buy a fur coat in the district. Expensive and stupid. On the day when my wife and I wanted to rent a foppish convertible and drive around Crete together, our women persuaded me, rented a dull Kia Rio for me, and I took them to Heraklion for fur coats. Bottom line One long black mink with a hood (worse quality), one is the same but short (super quality), both from the 1900s, for fun, a shaggy autolady from a lynx for 150s.

In response, I sang a folk song in Czech (I had a chance to work as a visual aid in the summer school of the Russian language as a student). The reaction was unexpected. The Czechs, having decided that I knew the language, sat with stone faces. Maybe they blurted out something unpleasant about one of us. I calmed them down. But there was also force majeure. While there were no children and we traveled in large companies, it was necessary during trips that we found ourselves in situations on the verge of a foul. Unfortunately, in recent times, people have somehow podzakis. Rest passes sluggishly and without incident. But here I was lucky. On the last day, a group of Finns arrived and in the evening they sat outside the bar to sour and clamor. And the acoustics are such that the whole hotel listened to their cries. At 2.00 I climbed over the balcony and as I was, in a dressing gown I went to see what and how.
Before I could approach the Finns, our bartender intercepted me and asked me to explain to these people that he set a table for them on the lawn, at the back of the hotel, arranged chairs and even lit candles and was ready to serve them there until the morning. And here you can’t make noise, because people are already complaining, many have children, there are elderly people, and even one man came after a stroke. I sat down with the Finns. Drank with them. I chatted in the sense that Nokia Hakkapelita is super, and Mannerheim is finally an idol. There were 8.2 guys about 25 years old with girls, a man about 45 years old with his wife and a grandfather about 65 years old also with his wife. He was the most sober. I hugged him and explained everything. And about children and about a stroke and about candles on the lawn. He seemed to understand and promised to relocate. I left and tried to sleep. It is clear that it is quite difficult to raise a drunken company - one will finish smoking, the other only poured, but after 45 minutes nothing has changed. The same hubbub and screams.
I again climbed over the balcony and went up to the Chukhons and yelled like shad up, fak of, motherfucker, etc. And while I was yelling, I wound up myself and turned over their table with all the drinks and snacks. I immediately realized that I would get some cabbage soup. The only salvation was in El Greco. There were many of us. And here I am in a dressing gown, barefoot, running across the road and past the guards on their territory. Finns are behind me. Well they were drunk. Almost didn't catch up. A couple of times on the back cracked, but this is nonsense. And when I ended up in El Greco, I yelled on the run - “Russians ! ! ! ! Get up! ! ! ! Finns need to pile on ____lei ! ! ! “I see the balconies are moving. The men began to shout to each other like - “What is it? - Yes, someone is running downstairs, calling the Finns to pi ____t - Ah ...Well, let's go. Who sour in the lobby began to leave. The Finns, seeing such a thing, fled, and the local guards twisted me and dragged me back to Alcyone. Moreover, part of the guards remained to show our peasants that everything is already normal and you can go to sleep.
When I ended up in Alcyone, two cupcakes in Skoda shirts had already arrived there. The bartender must have called. (It seems not the police, but something like representatives of the administration) What is surprising to me, they had no complaints. They spoke rather harshly with the Finns and everything immediately calmed down. I hope that after our departure these crooks did not bother anyone again.

Such a trip, such a hotel. There will be questions - I will answer.