Hotel Panorama

Great hotel. Well deserved it's 5 star status. Very relaxing atmosphere, the staff are friendly and helpful, working around the clock to ensure the rooms are clean and comfortable. there are a good variety of tasty food and drinks to meet different types of diet. Actually forget about the diet, everyone seems to go for at least a 2nd helping. Why not, it is the best way to appreciate the chief's hard work. The beach is just across the road, so a light stroll along the beach became the perfect solution to get rid of the extra calories just consumed, also give us the pleasure to meet the local cats! A charming ginger cat always greeted us at lunch and dinner time, I never saw him jumping on the chair or table. He just walked gracefully along the tables and the guests, old and young, couldn't help but give him some treats. He is really the iceing on the cake of this holiday. I will definitely come back again, hopefully next year. And I will strongly recommend this hotel to all my friends and family.

Stayed 1st-15th October. The only 2 things negative for us were A) The farce of having to leave pool towels on the bath for the maid to change-if you wanted a day round the pool with clean towels-how does this work..you either have to lie on a sunbed without a towel or use a white bathroom one, surely it would be better to be able to change towels with the life guard/reception? B) we were allocated a ground floor room in the executive area with gorgeous views, but you couldn't sit on the terrace/open the terrace door without being surrounded by cats looking for food, as many guests used to take food out of the restaurant to feed them so the cats presumed every open door was followed by food. We are personally not big cat lovers due to allergic reactions, so this spoilt the terrace views/area for us and found that we had to keep the door closed for the whole 2 weeks, if we went again (which is highly likely) we would request a room in the hotel itself-despite it being a smaller room. Everywhere was clean, we enjoyed the food, it was really good & constantly tasty with a different theme each evening, the drinks were of a good quality-even a choice of dry or medium prosecco & found the staff very friendly especially Thomas at the pool bar & both Georgios & Nicos who worked the inside evening bar. Entertainment wasn't up to much but we are not bothered about that...it is just nice to sit outside with a drink taking in the lovely views. Never a problem getting a sunbed at this time of year. Very good bus service into gorgeous Chania-well worth a visit or two. Well done Panorama-see you again soon.x

Firstly and very importantly, I passed this written feedback directly to a member of the hotel reception staff more than 24 hours before we left, together with their feedback form they’d put under our door. I left this feedback clearly marked for the General Manager and informed the reception staff member, as well as putting in the written feedback, that the manager was welcome to come and discuss any aspect of this with us directly before we departed. To this day, more than 2 weeks later, I have heard nothing. Not a word on checkout, not a follow up email (my email address being requested in the hotel’s own feedback form). Nothing. That’s how much they care about the feedback they ask for and, according to their form, use to “improve their service”. Had I booked a 3 star hotel, I would have been very happy with what we had, however I didn’t. I booked a 5 star hotel and, because the reality fell way beneath our expectations, the price and the listing claims, I am rating this accordingly. This is not a bargain priced luxury option, it’s a very over- priced, average, basic option. Consider this before booking. We would neither return, nor recommend. Food & drink: The buffet was consistently good, although a lack of traditional Greek dishes to try other than the well-known ones. There was always plenty of food and it was well topped-up, fresh and lots of variety. I had emailed the hotel a month prior to the stay to advise of dietary needs/allergies. Being vegan, forced by food allergies rather than choice, I take exception to paying the same price for my food to find that there has been no effort made to substitute alternatives, but just to give me the options that fit in the standard menu. I should be able to enjoy my food, the same as someone who is fortunate enough to be able to eat anything. Generally the indications in catering are that I can live on salad or vegetables which is unacceptable and unreasonable. The hotel has enough awareness to provide soya milk, vegan “butter” and plenty of gluten free options (although the confusion that vegans require gluten free needs correction and I did try repeatedly, it’s a totally different dietary need) but they don’t actually use these as ingredients to prepare something suitable for someone with my dietary needs. I was welcomed in on the first night, having introduced myself and my diet, with “oh you’re the lady that sent the email!”. Happily escorted around the dishes by the chef and the manager, brilliant welcome! Chef did tell me not to rely on the allergen labels on any of the dishes, which was baffling – what’s the point of having them? But told me they wanted me to feel like any other guest, whilst telling me that what was on offer was what I had to choose from. I certainly didn’t want to start my holiday with a dispute and tried to let this slide. Whilst my husband had plenty of selection and enjoyed his food every day, my own options were limited and a lack of information about allergens and ingredients made the task hard. It’s quite humiliating to have to ask for guidance at every single mealtime, I should not have to do this, so I tried to make do as much as I could throughout the week. Things were not topped up - including the vegan "butter" which ran out after 2 days and didn't make a re-appearance until our last day. I had to buy my own. English Breakfast teabags, a very popular option over the Lipton, also disappeared after 2 days - never seen again. Things run out because they are popular, why on earth is a regular stock not retained to make sure guests can have what they clearly like? All-inclusive, it should be noted, doesn’t follow with this hotel. Water, for example, is only available free as a bottle in the restaurant or at a total of three water top up points on the grounds, regularly empty throughout the stay. Drinks were poor, the wine in the restaurant was clearly a very cheap, weak option. Cocktails were pre-prepared, watery, flavourless and just dumped in a glass with no finesse or garnish (again, 3 star acceptable, 5 star poor). The older man who was mostly at the main bar rarely smiled, came across as hostile and unfriendly, it was a pleasure when he wasn’t there and a couple of younger guys were. Room facilities – basic. No tea and coffee facilities, these were available at an extra cost. All inclusive? I’ve NEVER stayed at a hotel that does not provide these basics. An in-room safe, again available at a cost. The only place I have ever paid extra for such an essential is at lower graded hotels. Toiletries provided were minimal, only enough for one shower each day, where on holiday it’s quite often we’d want a couple of washes. Just the very basics of shampoo, shower gel and soap. Never been in a 5-star hotel that doesn’t provide extras like toothpaste, cotton buds and so on. The pool towel system is bizarre and totally unworkable. On check in, we were provided with two pool towels in our room and the info supplied advised that guests should leave their used towels for exchange by housekeeping. All fine until you factor in that housekeeping might not visit until 3pm, there’s no way of knowing when they are coming and in order to leave wet towels for replacement, guests have to go to the pool with no towel, either that or they take the same wet towels which won’t be replaced as they’re not there! We did try this to see if housekeeping would leave fresh towels knowing we were using the ones supplied and realising we would need clean. Nope. Where it really fell down was in the rain. We had 2 days where weather was inclement – hardly anyone’s fault. But we checked weather forecasts and tried to plan our holiday around the rain. Not ideal as the area isn’t well-provided for wet weather activities, but so be it. Where we were baffled was that there had clearly been no fore-planning done for dining and the main restaurant is alfresco. When the heavens opened, guests were running for cover. There’s a small section of the outside area which is covered, about 20% of it, but the other dining area is over the far side of the hotel lobby, meaning that, when this was opened, guests were traipsing across wet floors with plates of food. There were guests even sitting in the lobby with plates on their laps. Food service should never have been set up outside on a day where rain was forecast. Later that day, they had the common sense to set up service in the indoor restaurant, much smaller but under the circumstances the only solution. There should be some basic contingency planning for adverse weather, Crete isn’t immune to it as their own recent history shows. Poor management, poor planning – guests that suffer. There was no entertainment. Nothing to do in the evenings. Once they had an “organist” who was very similar to something you would have seen in a 1970s working men’s club, and played very similar music – poorly. Very old fashioned and outdated, barely anyone was engaged in the performance. Even background music inside and out was 1960s/70s. There was only one night where Greek entertainment was provided for about an hour and a half. That was good, they were very keen on audience participation and it made for a fun evening, but otherwise, we stayed in the hotel lobby playing cards most evenings. No sign of entertainment/animation staff, no pool activities, no water exercise, games or suchlike and no sign of anyone to encourage any guest interaction. There were plenty of sunbeds. That was a huge positive and nobody seemed to be up at 4am reserving prime ones with towels, which is a huge advantage. Sunbeds were comfortable although some a bit shabby. Plenty of spaces to sunbathe away from the pool area and get some peace. The pool is lovely. Staff: Hit and miss. Some of the reception staff came across as quite snappy and unfriendly. We have to give a HUGE shout out to the Porter who was brilliant; he heard us asking for guidance at reception and not getting much and he came running out after us with a handful of brochures. His English wasn’t quite so great but he tried so very hard and was always friendly. On hearing the way one of his reception staff colleagues addressed him, I was disgusted though, it was with no respect at all. We had an early check-out and later pick up. No problem there, they have a luggage room to leave our bags and were told we could use the courtesy room to shower after check out. This was a huge over-exaggeration. The "courtesy room" is not anything of the sort, it's a pool-shower off the games room and there was not even a door to shut for privacy, nowhere to hang a towel or put clean clothes, the shower was old and crusted with limescale, there was nowhere to plug in a hairdryer - I actually ended up going down to the gym to dry my hair which was the only place there was even a plug near a mirror. I took pictures of this "courtesy room", I was that disgusted. By this time, I had no choice as I had to get cleaned up before my travel home. Had I known, I would have checked out of the room at the last possible minute and got myself cleaned up for travel before doing so. In fact we checked out over 2 hours before we needed to, on the mistaken understanding that we could use adequate facilities later. (this was not in my original feedback left at the hotel as we'd not checked out by that time). Had I received any follow up to my feedback left directly with the hotel, I might have been less harsh with this. In my opinion, it’s not what people do wrong that’s the issue, it’s what they do to put it right and there has been absolutely no interest in doing this. I did include in my feedback that I use social media platforms to review and have given it over two weeks to allow more than ample chance to follow up with me and I therefore wholeheartedly feel this review is deserved and justified. What’s the point of asking for feedback if you don’t even care that someone’s experience has been less than positive? I’ll be informing the Greek Hotel Classification department of my experiences too. I have looked up their criteria and cannot find many areas that Panorama meets this so the 5 stars most definitely need reviewing. One final note: It's curious that, during our entire stay, we could not have identified who any member of the management of the hotel was - other than the restaurant manager. Never have I stayed in a hotel where the manager has not taken a direct interest in guests or been visible. My honest opinion is that this is where the hotel's problems lie - nobody senior is interested and the apathy is reflected across the workforce and the hotel's attitude towards its service quality and guests.