Elia Stalos Apartments

I would not recommend Elia Stalos Apartments as a self-contained unit. The apartment itself was okay and quite spacious but it was certainly not a full kitchen and had only two burners, one saucepan, one frypan, a milk pan, kettle, sandwich toaster, at least 4 plates, bowls, glasses etc but very limited cutlery and cooking implements. We had to ask reception for a spatula for cooking eggs. In the end we only used it for making breakfast and ate out for all other meals, so we may have well stayed at a place with breakfast included. One of the hand towels provided was really dirty and when the towels were replaced they smelled like kerosene. It turned out that the towels were stored next to gasoline! There is a daily cleaning service and they made the bed and changed the kitchen bin lining each day but not the bin in the toilet. In Greece you can’t flush your toilet paper down the toilet but have to put it in a bin so it was really disgusting that they never changed the pooh bin (as we called it!). I ended up changing it myself on the last night when it was getting too full. The television was tiny, not much bigger than a laptop screen, but we never watched tv in Greece anyway so not really an issue. The hotel is situated at the end of a lane and a bit difficult to find - google maps took us to the next laneway over. The carpark is just a patch of dirt. There was quite a lot of rain the first two days there so there were large puddles and mud in the middle of the carpark. The pool is on the top level and very small. We went to the Rose Supermarket directly opposite the lane on the main road on our first morning there and the owner (who also owns the Rose Hotel, Opa restaurant, beachside bar, beach lounges etc) offered us to use their pool for free, even though it is usually only for hotel guests. The accommodation next to Elia also has a good pool and a cafe and we heard families having breakfast and swimming in the pool there every morning. There are several different accommodations in Crete run by Elia and they may be better perhaps. If you are looking for budget accommodation it is probably okay but don't expect to be able to make anything but very basic meals in the kitchen.