Thunderroad

Thanks, david. And I certainly understand and appreciate your thoughts and perspective.

DC777Fan

Completely agree with your take, Thunderroad. Overall, a very fair assessment that mirrored our experience almost exactly.

Thunderroad

Thanks, DC777. Your very useful review and others came in handy in tempering our expectations beforehand.

banzani

@thunderroad, thanks anyway. Your review is most helpful to determine whether the significant extra charges demanded by the hotel to accommodate children are worth it...and it appears some of the staff attitude is lived top down. Very untypical for Greece.

christianj

I'm really suprised by all the nit-picky comments on this hotel. We stayed there in June and were overall pretty happy with the stay. Is it perfect?.....no but what hotel is? I think people need to keep in mind that this is a foreign country and service standards vary especially when you are dealing with seasonal workers which can also be from other countries. We did have some issues during our stay but nothing major that I would get upset about.

As for the discussion about kids in the room and being charged or not charged for pull out sofas, etc. I lived in Europe for years and it is typical for hotels there to charge based on the room occupancy. Why would this hotel be any different? If a suite allows children for free then that is the way to go if you want to not be hit with extra occupancy costs.

EuropeanPete

We're not all Americans who have never left the country, and it's rather patronising to suggest that's the issue here.

christianj

Issue I was trying to point out is that service levels vary period! I made no comment about being a specific nationality...that's your assumption!

Thunderroad

You're very welcome, banzani. Have a great trip!

As I mentioned in my review, I can see how folks might view the resort more favorably. And not having stayed in other resorts in Greece or Europe, I can't really offer an apples to apples comparison. Still, my overall point was that, in our experience, in most ways other resorts in the world and other hotels in Europe offer far better experiences than BP does for the roughly same amount of money or points. I'll acknowledge that we've been fortunate to have lots of miles and points to burn in being able to explore such places.

Doing a lot of traveling for work and play in a lot of countries where service and efficiency standards might not be what I'd find at home and/or where seasonal workers are employed, I take the point about tempering one's expectations. But as I noted, even with that caveat I've found the service and perhaps especially friendliness at many other hotels in such countries considerably superior to the BP.

EuropeanPete

That's not really true (period) for luxury hotels though, nor is it true for Greece in general. I don't have a huge amount of experience of Crete specifically, but others have suggested it's not true there either. I do have quite a lot of experience of similarly positioned hotels on other Greek islands, where it's certainly not true.

The reference to "foreign country" was something that could would only make sense to someone coming from a large country with a lot of SPG properties. As an EU citizen, Greece isn't a particularly "foreign" country, despite not living in Greece myself.

david55

I have traveled Greece and Crete extensively. I make it a point to stay a smaller, first-class family run hotels where service is both friendly and personal.

I stayed at the BP once for 3 nights to try it out...as a Gold we were upgraded to an unheated pool room.....and I agree with most of the comments with regards to service and staff attitude. I found it perfunctory, adequate, and slightly arrogant. Certainly none of the charm or warmth of a smaller Greek hotel.

banzani

so in the end we decided to go ahead (based on a mixture of SPG loyalty, laziness, and 10k extra points expected from M4U promo) and spent a week at the property.

My overall verdict is definitely mixed feelings, and this property does not live up to the expectations considering the price point and it being a LC property. SPG recognition was underwhelming, and this hotel seems to focus on package tour business and was humming with travel agents on Fam trips. So it came across as a high-end tour voucher joint that happens to be SPG. Totally different from other LC properties I've experienced.

Positives
- the location is truly beautiful, as Plaka is more or less the end of road and there is very little traffic. The views are wonderful.
- The water is always nice in Greece, and here it is at it's best due to the pebble beach. Crystal clear.
- Our Junior Suite (more on that later) was actually pretty spacious and a true 1 BR layout, so I was positively surprised. It also had sea view which supposedly it didn't (can't imagine this hotel has a room without sea view)
- staff was very friendly throughout, and any service requests (broken lamp, feather pillows, earlier turndown service) were promptly followed up

Negatives
- the hotel seems to try to save and nickel and dime wherever possible. examples: (+) at breakfast they allegedly serve 'French Champagne', and they make a big fuss about that. Not that I would want alcohol for my breakfast, but what they serve is sparkling wine of the cheapest sort. some of the coffee (they use different machines) is horrible and tastes like Nescafe. There is only one kind of fresh juice (Orange). (+) there was no coffee machine in our room. When I asked I was told that the hotel did not have enough Nespresso machines, but they could 'waitlist' me for one. In any case, a Nespresso capsule would be EUR 2. Just unbelievable for a hotel of this price point.
- We had one lunch at Isola, and as expected it was expensive (about double compared to the local joints). But quality was not good and service was slow.
- the quality of the bedding was unsatisfactory, and not in line with LC brand standard. Our mattress was very soft, there was no duvet provided, and the rollaway beds for the kids were of cheap and low quality. Sleep was not great.

My biggest disappointment was the handling of SPG recognition (and perhaps this causes a bias in my overall assessment). The hotel insisted I buy up to a Junior Suite in order to accommodate the children, for an extra EUR 117 per night. They did upgrade us to a Junior Suite with pool. However, part of the deal was that I kept the SNAs in the system, and once confirmed, I could use the EUR 117 as an upgrade charge towards a better suite (such as an Island Luxury Suite). Now what they didn't say is that they had reduced inventory anticipating seasonal closure, and there were no more Maisonette Suites (they went from 9 available to 0 pretty much one week prior to our stay), hence the SNAs could not confirm (I have no proof of that, but that's pretty much what the FDA said in a conversation). Consequently we stayed in our Junior Suite, and despite Island Suites available, no effort or offer (for $$) was made to upgrade. I wish they would have been straightforward. Of course this is up to the hotel, and they are not obliged to do anything, but as a guest paying directly, I am sure we paid the same, or perhaps more, compared to what they are getting from the Tour Operators. It was all spiced up upon check-in, when next to me a family was checking in, presenting a tour voucher, and were greeted with 'we've upgraded you to a Deluxe Suite'.

I know many folks here will say the hotel acted correctly, and perhaps that's true, but this was a long story overall (with a few more tweaks that I'd rather keep to myself), and in summary I do not feel I got recognized as a loyal SPG guest, compared to other properties I've staid at. It's the same old story, most stays of the year I could not care less, but for the one family holiday, it would be so nice to get the benefits and that great room, and there simply was no love in this case.

I would recommend this hotel for it's wonderful location, but it's too expensive when staying with kids, and don't expect true luxury or outstanding SPG recognition.

Thunderroad

A fair assessment that's consistent with our experience, banzani, though we are a couple and not traveling with kids.

A tendency to nickel-and-dime, a property that falls short of the Luxury Collection label and the standards of similarly priced hotels, and as david4455 suggests none of the charm of a smaller Greek establishment while few of the positive features one can often get from a larger chain. Still, the setting and Plaka are very nice, so I hope you had a good trip regardless.

kamel123

Well, I guess that's the shortcoming of the SNA system - you can never be sure if they clear, not least because hotels seem to be quite free to game the system (such as randomly taking out suites of inventory). So in case you need/really want a suite, such as for a family holiday, there is no other way than to book it. Which is of course disappointing, because what's the use for suites on work stays...

In your specific case, I would have pulled the SNA once I had noticed the maisonette suites inventory going from 9 to 0 and not getting a straightforward explanation for it.

banzani

@Thunderroad: indeed, and yes, we still had an enjoyable time although I should say I was fuming a little initially after arrival. During the trip we spoke about Fuschl, which would have been our other trip option, and these two properties seem at opposite ends of the LC scale. But not as warm in October !

We did take a look at Domes (the property and beach, not the rooms), and the beach there is not half as nice, so in that regard we were glad we chose the BP.

And indeed this my first failure of SNAs so understand much better the frustration voiced here.

I forgot to mention that in Plaka we liked the Carob Tree restaurant (on the 'square') and had a bad experience at the Spinalonga tavern.

Happy travels !

UA-NYC

Heading there next week, SNA to the Maisonette Duplex Suite cleared right at the 5 day mark (3 night stay) ^