We had very relaxing and wonderful two weeks with my wife here at Apladas Beach. Couple fairly minor issues didnt spoil the overall experience and we can warmly recommend this hotel to couples and also to families with children.

To my eyes the main thing is that the hotel, the facility itself and staff at the hotel are second to none. Garden and grass is well kept - you can see that the gardener is real pro. Similarly pool area was always clean and sun beds were in good shape.

Our room was at the ground level close to the pool and as upper level rooms do have balcony, we enjoyed the terrace - im sure both are nice, and probably at upper level rooms you may even have a view to the sea..but never mind, we didnt spend that much time in hotel room and Im sure its not a big deal for majority of the travellers either.

Building (corridors, reception area, lobby, terrace bar etc) is clean and in good condition (especially compared to many other hotels in the area - ofcourse not 100% trustworthy analysis, didnt obviously check all the hotels in the area, but what I personally saw couple of them only Minoa Palace can beat this).

Room was quite large and air conditioning worked really well, also housekeepers did wonderful job throughout our stay. TV is small and old, but again didnt come to watch telly so it didnt really bother us. Bathroom was very ok. What I loved the most was our ground level rooms terrace at the evenings. Perhaps good to mention one minor issue was that the noise (very common problem pretty much every hotel in Greece, the building technicue just isnt the best in this) comes through from the corridor and upper floors. Especially east european kids cant behave and they yell and scream all night, all day.. but I got used to it, but having said that I can undersand it may bother some people a lot. I also hate bad behaving kids, especially when their parents dont have any sense how to keep them in order or worse dont even care - ok, i better not go into this.. hotel cant do much about it.

Huge thanks and respect for the staff in the reception and in the restaurants. Also hotel managers are top notch - both seem to work long days and are always available if needed. These all people at Apladas Beach Hotel really do amazing job and hotel has succeeded in getting really good people working there. We had this all-inclusive package (as I guess pretty much 90% of the guests there) and I have to say it worked really well - pool bar offered a variety of soft drinks and other drinks (and at afternoon icecream and coffee and some sweet bread etc.) while at the pool or at the hotels beach area, as well as at the evening the terrace bar similarly. Good service, good attitude!

All in all very nice experience and if we would travel again to Crete this would definately be our choice.

Highlights in good and bad:

+ facilities are clean and in good shape, fantastic lobby and nice restaurant and amazingly comfortable pool bar
++ staff second to none, really special thanks to them!
+++ pool area and beach area is fantastic

- they mention they have fitness room..dont think you can train there at all, extremely poor equipment and they shouldnt mention this in any marketing material. Not a big deal, but again I think its good to mention if someone chooses this hotel in idea of training there at the mornings or so on, this isnt the place and it dissapoints a big time then - forget it.
- - WiFi is slow and unreliable, doesnt reach very far..to use it you basically have to sit at the lobby and yes it costs also some euros, which isnt a big deal at all, but the functionality and the price = these days you could expect better. Good thing is that you pretty much tend to forget your computer and during vacation its healthy not to use internet.
- - - Level of food at the restaurant was nowhere close to the level of the hotel and its staff. I think its actually ridiculous they offer so crap cuisine, feels like the kitchen has totally lost their motivation. Ok, close to the hotel you can find fantastic restaurants like Stavlos, but many of you may get a bit dissapointed especially if you calculate you would eat almost every time in hotel restaurant. Its far from traditional well made Greek cuisine IMHO. We many times just had the lunch and went out for the dinner.

+++++ Sun,beach and pools and just simply perfect sea.. thats something which nothing can beat, its really worth it.

- - - - - Platanias itself is quite boring, dont expect too much.

Hotel is all in one. It fits in Cretan beauty, elegant.. silent..unintrusive..and impressive..great service, location, and staff..few meters to the beach..walking distance from Platanias..and close to most beautiful beaches in Crete. Hope one day to return.

We lived on the first floor with garden view and robbed at night during sleep. However as several other rooms on the same floor.

The administration doesn't made any excuses. The owner even doesn't came out to talk to.
The hotel doesn't have nor security nor even fence.

Very noisy air conditioner. Rocky beach.

This hotel is very good one. I stayed there in June for 7 days. The weather was simply amazing. Not too hot, but you can swim.
The rooms are clean and nice. The food is very tasty and they cook different dishes every day, a lot of fruits, juice.
The location is very good, Platanias is a small tourist city, but if you will take a bus (very comfortable, a stop near the hotel, you pay only for the distance you travel) you can go to any city. For example: a bus to the Hania costs under 1 Euro. Pay attention that blue bus-is an intercity bus, but a green one is "inside city" bus, meaning local. Both are very good with air condition.
Also on the photos it`s not very green, but it was a long time ago. Now the palm trees are big and there are a lot of them.
Nice beach, own one with nobody around, no noise, very picturesque.
We lived in ground floor and it was nice. It was a terrace, if I can say so, and there a table and chairs, so we could enjoy tea "in the garden". It was our own terrace (like a balcony but on the ground).
Crete is a very beautiful island, one of the most interesting among Greek islands. And Apladas beach is a very-very good hotel.
Oh, besides, it has a lovely owner. And people who work there are very nice and helpful.