This resort has everything that one could ask for. Marvelous breakfast, great private beach nearby, good wi-fi in most locations (even on beach!), car rental tie-ups in hotel, indoor pool, gym, piano bar. They even provide beach towels in room. The location of Platanias is great as the best beaches of Crete (we thought were best i.e. Elafonissi and Balos) are nearby. The Platanias beach itself is not bad at all. The pool side is amazing, both on the rooms across the road and the "old" hotel. The Italian Chef at pool side of the "old" hotel serves amazing pizza and pasta. (as good as in rome). The service was great, we were provided a very early check in (7am!!!) without any additional charge.

We have the same complaints as other reviewers - slow service, noisy due to movement of furniture (creaky sounds all the time in morning when you want to sleep late), TV does not have too many channels, no dvd option, most small things like safe, dvd player, jacuzzi are charged anywhere between 5-10 euros. This I thought was just preposterous. Also, as staed by other reviewers, the hotel had a mix of crowd with many families and old people but hardly many young holidayers. So if you the partying, adventurous type, you might want to avoid this one.

Would have loved to come again but we keep experimenting, so maybe some many years later.

We spent one week in October at this hotel and we truly loved it in all aspects. Location of the hotel is perfect. Right at the edge of Platanias which gives you both easy access to everything as well as privacy.
Hotel was very clean and beautiful. We had pool view with a vast balcony. Staff are very friendly.
Weather can change rapidly in October and we had 3 raining days. However, Chania is not that far to keep you busy in such days and hotel's indoor pool and training room are nice option for such days. Indoor pool water has moderate temperature.
Golden ace of this hotel goes to the excellent food which we loved it cell by cell!!!

My wife and I spent 2 weeks at the Minoa Palace in mid- to late October, staying in a pool view room on a half-board basis. It was a last-minute trip which was comparatively cheap, discounted from the brochure price.

The hotel is situated within easy walking distance of Platanias, a commercialised village with many restaurants and cafes. There's an Aldi supermarket in one direction and many small, local supermarkets in the other. The bus stop outside the hotel takes you into Chania (just under 2 euros, the conductor has change), with its old town and very pleasant harbour. You can also connect at Chania to Rethymnon (nice old town, small harbour) for a further 6.3 euros. In the other direction, also from outside the hotel, you can travel to Paleochora on the south of the island, which some fellow residents did and enjoyed.

Our room was in the main section of the hotel, was spacious and included an armchair and chaise longue. The bathroom was smallish, with a shower over the bath, but had plenty of flat surfaces for our things. The balcony was a reasonable size and had comfortable chairs. In our room and throughout the hotel, the standard of cleanliness was high. We liked the room, with its clean lines and relaxed "feel".

Food was very good and we were pleased we had taken up the half-board option. Drinks were around 2.8 euros for a Greek beer, about the same price for a Coke. Prices in Platanias were approximately the same.

Our experience of the service was good. Before travelling I had e-mailed the hotel, asking for a quiet double room, and I received a reply the same day. On our first night, just before dinner, we notified Reception that a light wasn't working in our room, and it was fixed by the time we returned. There wasn't a problem ordering drinks or having plates cleared at dinner. The reception for the indoor pool/gym/spa was helpful. Overall, the service seemed quietly efficient, pleasantly so.

As other Tripadvisor reviewers have mentioned, the hotel was not without its faults. It could occasionally be noisy, either from furniture being moved on the tiled floors or from noisy neighbours. There were charges for the in-room safe (4 euros per night), for the jacuzzi just a couple of metres from the free indoor pool and also for use of the steam room.

We liked this hotel. It wasn't ostentatious or particularly luxurious, just very pleasant, light, airy, and doing the basics well - indeed, the food very well. Just one final point: the hotel had a wide range of guests, from young couples to families with children, more mature couples and retired people. We enjoyed this mixture but it might not suit everyone, a point worth bearing in mind if you prefer to holiday with your own age group.

Spent a week with wife and toddler in the Minoa Palace in the beginning of October. Apollo favored us with sunny weather throughout our stay. It got rainy and cool on the afternoon of our departure, so clearly October and end of September is already a bit risky holiday time weather-wise.

We arrived late and almost missed dinner, so the porter took our suitcases to our apartment freeing us to go ahead and eat a bit. It was the last half hour of the dinner, so everything wasn't as fresh and plentiful as one might have wanted, but it was good enough considering the circumstances. After that we were shown our rooms. Ours was on the old side, facing the pool. I was tired from the trip and the room didn't make a great first impression due to its smallish size (and the old fashioned tube TV AND missing wifi, the horror!), but at least it was immaculately clean and had comfy, firm beds. Our toddler's baby cot was ready for him to jump in to. We slept well through the night and in the morning things started to look better.

The room still wasn't big, but it was nicely decorated and, again, very clean. There was a nice view of the pool from the balcony and the bathroom was actually pretty up-scale with its two showers and bath tube. The safe wouldn't work without contacting the reception first, so apparently it wasn't for free. This strange policy is perhaps due to costly insurance, I don't know how all the other five-stars pull it of. We stuck our valuables in a few caches and nothing was pilfered so no biggie.

The minibar was meant for hotel's purchasable items only but we broke the law on this one, storing some food there for the kid and the pregnant wife (plus two beers for the ol' papa). There is a wired internet in the rooms, but since all our devices are wifi only it didn't do us much good. The last whinging point is the floor - while it's definitely better than carpeting, the floor tiles were dangerously slippery when wet. All in all, the room was pretty nice and quiet enough to warrant four stars.

Breakfasts we enjoyed. It's nice to start a morning with an omelette made to your specs, some yoghurt and a liter of good local joe. On half board basis we were allowed to have a breakfast in one of the two restaurants, and a buffet dinner in the main restaurant or a set menu in the Galazo restaurant. The dinner could be swapped for a lunch in the beach restaurant or 10e vouchers per person (adults?), which in turn could be used for food in any of the restaurants.

We exercised the Galazo option once and thought well of it. I couldn't believe you could actually eat that well for no extra cost. I had a small bottle of local red to go with it and found it pleasant as well. The waiter was very accommodating and spoke excellent English. Unfortunately in October it was already a bit chilly so you couldn't really eat outside, or Al Dente as the Spanish say. I'm sure in warmer times you can have fantastic dinners on the terrace. When we visited the restaurant it was empty, and I understood they'd close after the first week of October.

Other times we had lunch at the hotel - twice at the beach restaurant (tasty salads, disappointing warm dishes) and three times at the Italian restaurant near the pool on the old side (good, if oily pizzas, nice risotto & pasta both properly alfresco ). The pool bars were overpriced (12 euros for a club sandwich, 9,5 for a cocktail) for their quality.

For us half board was a good deal, because we wanted to eat outside as well. The Italian Zafferano right next to the hotel was nice although the pizzas didn't live up to the hype. Even better was Symposium, some ten minutes walk from the hotel. They cook a mean steak, and all the other dishes we had we liked, too. On the account of the young one, we eat pretty early, so Symposium's 25% discount for orders made before 6.30 suited us just fine.

The hotel is quite well run it seems and overall the staff is friendly. One hiccup was when they transformed the tennis court in to a volley ball court even when I had reserved the court for two more sessions. They did arrange a court at another hotel for the other day, though. Also perhaps because of this, they also let us check out quite late on the day of our departure which helped a lot.

A word on tennis: I didn't have a tennis partner so I asked the reception if they could try to find someone who'd like to play. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I could also ask if they have a tennis instructor they could recommend. They knew that Tommy (his real name is something much more greek), a gym teacher at a nearby school has given tennis lessons before. In the end I had 5 sessions with him and I can heartily recommend him for someone who's looking for a lessons or perhaps just a good tennis partner.

There's not much to do in the town of Platanias, but you can always take the bus to Xania, which is a 30 minute and 2 euro bus ride away from the hotel. We went there a few times and enjoyed strolling in the old town.

Getting there from the airport:
We simply took a cab, 47 euros one way. Didn't have to wait for the bus or tour all the other hotels that way. Same thing when we returned.

As a side note, airport was one of the dingiest and worst operated I've seen in a good while. Flying in we had to wait for our bags to arrive from an unannounced carousel in a semi-lit room for a closer to an hour. Upon return we were stood in three different queues for about an hour and a half. Really, a case for a logistics consultant to sort out, that airport. Of course it could have been worse, as the following day the Greek flight controllers went on a strike and left pretty much all the planes standing.

We did enjoy our stay, however perhaps we should have dished out on a bigger room. As it stands, the hotel gets a strong four star rating.