Like many others, we selected the Life Boutique for its location near the bus station and the port, in order to catch an early ferry up to Santorini. The walk from the bus station is hazardous and not at all pedestrian friendly. be very careful. When we checked in, it appeared the father of the manager was working, who spoke zero English. we eventually booked a room after he could not find the reservation we had made online. Iraklio is not much of a place to visit, other than Konosos and other museums. Also, be certain to know which ferry is yours before you walk to the port. There is much fencing and we ended up walking much more than we needed to because the directions to our ferry were not clear.

We arrived by bus and were leaving by port the next day. This hotel provided the ideal location, as it was in close proximity to both the bus station and port. Staff were helpful and kind, room was clean, breakfast was good. After reviewing many budget accommodations, Hotel LIfe was worth a few extra euro for its location and recent renovations. Budget travelers beware that Heraklion is not the place to skimp on a room - you may be stuck in a bad part of town in rough accommodations - worth it to spend a little extra in Heraklion.

Be sure to visit the bakery a few shops up from the hotel.

We had a great stay on Crete for 8 days (mostly at Almyrida near Chania). In order to catch an early ferry to Santorini we decided to stay 1 night in Heraklion and enjoy Knossos and the Archaeological Museum for a day (Knossos is great - a must see - go later in the day). I went online looking for hotels close to the port so that we could walk there and not have to rely on a taxi. After viewing a number of hotels on Tripadvisor and other websites, we chose the Life 'Boutique" Hotel very near the port. The photos on the website looked great and the price was right (115 Euro for a triple) so we booked it early in February which was confirmed. Everything looked good. Mid July we received an email from the hotel indicating that they had accidentally cancelled our reservation and would we please make another. This we did. i was a little concerned about this but just passed it off.

On August 19th, after driving around lost for a few minutes, we were directed to the hotel only a block away. We were able to park very near and we went in to check-in. There was no one at the desk but we were eventually able to find someone who got the receptionist. They had our reservation and we checked in. We unloaded our luggage and 2 trips later we got it all to the 3rd floor (the elevator is quite small). The lobby looked just as it was portrayed in the website photos (although smaller) so we were very surprised when we finally entered the room (307 at the end of the hall).

The room looked nothing like the web photos - it was tiny and dark and did not remotely resemble the rooms portrayed on their website. It appeared that a single bed was thrown into a regular double room - the closet doors would not open because the single bed was in the way. There was barely room for our luggage. The bathroom was dim and dirty - moldy tiles, corners in the shower not clean, a large open hole in the ceiling in the shower (home of an internet cam? or just a missing light fixture - after a closer inspection with a flashlight, we assumed the latter). The floors in the corners were not clean either. I went to try and change the room but no one spoke much English and the only reply I got was "full". Judging by the number of other guests we saw - 1 - I did not believe it was full.

Walking outside, we did see what appeared to be the 'nice looking rooms we saw on the internet' at the front of the hotel. They appear to have at least a few renovated rooms.

We felt cheated by the Hotel Life's misleading web advertising. It is not a completely renovated 'Boutique' Hotel - it has B class hotel rooms with a nice lobby and a few renovated room. The woman at the desk in the morning when we checked out did not speak enough English for me to reason with her (and I do not speak any Greek). We paid and left.

On the positive side - the Hotel is very close to the port - a few blocks. And the included breakfast was not bad - better selection than some of the others we experienced