Europa Beach Hotel

Stella Blue, Crete – A Beautiful Resort That Falls Far Short of Five-Star Service (2/5)

Stella Blue is undeniably beautiful, especially in the warm Cretan evening light. The grounds are attractive, the beds were comfortable, and breakfast offered the best food selection of the day. The beach party was also excellent, with great music and performers, and the gentleman working at the Anima Bar was one of the few staff members who truly stood out for his friendliness and professionalism.

Unfortunately, those positives were outweighed by a long list of disappointments.

The biggest issue throughout our stay was the way complaints were handled. We raised three separate complaints and received no apology, no acknowledgement, and no meaningful action. We were repeatedly told “later, later” and often directed from reception to guest relations, only to be told that guest relations mainly dealt with excursions. It felt as though nobody wanted to take responsibility, and by the longer we stayed, the less important we seemed to become.

Housekeeping was another major let-down. On one occasion, the floor was being mopped while our personal belongings were simply moved onto the floor. Towels, tea, coffee, milk, and sugar were not replenished consistently, and despite having the door locked, housekeeping still disturbed us early in the morning. There wasn’t even a proper “Do Not Disturb” sign available for the room.

Our room had several problems during the stay. The air conditioning stopped working for no apparent reason, a fuse blew with no apology offered, the fridge was poorly designed and items constantly fell out of it, and we also had ants in the room. A noisy bird repeatedly woke us during the night, and there appeared to be a wasp nest nearby. The walls are extremely thin, meaning you can hear almost every noise from neighbouring rooms and corridors.

For a hotel marketed as all-inclusive, the food and drink offering was disappointing. Much of the buffet food was lukewarm or cold and lacked flavour. Several snack bar restaurants required additional payment despite being advertised as part of the all-inclusive experience. Free drinks also stop at 11pm, which feels restrictive for a resort of this standard. The alcoholic drinks often tasted heavily watered down. Ironically, the room service food, which came at an additional cost, arrived hot and was cooked to a noticeably better standard.

The facilities also fail to justify a five-star rating. There is insufficient seating in the bar area for a hotel of this size, not enough sun loungers around the pools, and the Wi-Fi is extremely poor. The TV offered very few English channels, and although Netflix and YouTube were advertised, attempting to connect simply switched the television off. No instructions were provided for operating the air conditioning either.

Entertainment was another weak point. Aside from the excellent beach party, most evenings were very dull and we were often bored by 9pm. Considering major sporting events were taking place during our stay, it was surprising that there were no proper facilities to watch matches and not even an English commentary option for the England game.

The location may suit some travellers, but we found it quite isolated. There is very little on the beach itself, with no real selection of shops or bars nearby, and the beach furniture looked old and worn. Taxi fares were expensive, and with only a limited bus service available, getting around without renting a car became frustrating. The resort is also directly under the airport flight path, with planes constantly arriving and departing, while coaches frequently reverse near the main pool area, creating additional noise.

We also experienced poor communication regarding laundry collection, which was missed due to staff miscommunication, and then we were almost charged the express service fee despite the mistake not being ours. Repeated requests for a late checkout were simply met with “we’ll note your request,” with no proper update even close to departure.

For the amount of money this holiday cost, including an additional €100 upgrade charge, Stella Blue simply did not deliver the five-star experience that was promised. It is a beautiful property to look at, but beautiful surroundings alone cannot compensate for poor service, unresolved complaints, mediocre food, inadequate facilities, and a lack of customer care.

We actually enjoyed ourselves more when we left the resort and explored Crete, which says a lot. Sadly, despite the attractive setting and a handful of excellent staff members, I would not return to Stella Blue anytime soon. The hotel has great potential, but significant improvements are needed if it genuinely wants to provide the luxury five-star experience it advertises. There’s no front of house to greet you for your meals or offer you an aperitif shot of a local drink or to take you to Your table

We have just returned from a weeks stay at Stella Blue and it was lovely!

Stella Blue is undeniably a beautiful hotel, the location is stunning, right on the beach.

The staff are so so hard working and so friendly, nothing is too much trouble. Everything is clean and new.

The food was good, i’ve seen some people moaning it was cold/repetitive but we never had this problem, we always looked forward to our next meal.

We always found a sunbed around the pool, yes some people reserved the ‘good’ beds around the main pool very early, but this was never a problem for us as we liked the beds a bit further back by the other pool, which were always free for us to grab after breakfast.

I wish the music around the pool was more consistent, some days we had some good tunes and others it was a bit meh. Same with the entertainment in the evening, saturday night we had an acrobatic show which was incredible, but other nights it was just a DJ and the music wasn’t great in my opinion.

The other thing we wanted to point out were the many power cuts we experienced whilst staying, especially in the evening, the whole complex would lose power for 5/10 seconds and it caused our air con to go off, then we had to get out of bed to put it back on, not a massive deal but I feel like that shouldn’t be happening.

All in all I would definitely recommend Stella Blue for a relaxed get away.

Beautiful hotel very clean , there’s a button that turns on a red or green light to indicate if you want the room cleaning. If you get a luxe room you get to have breakfast at the ocean restaurant which is lovely very quiet and a lovely view . The al a carte restaurants were also lovely , at lunch we ate at Blu which again the food was lovely so we only had the buffet at dinner . The buffet was the only real let down it was a bit lac lustre . The drinks were also very ,nice pinky sangria was my favourite but you can get all sorts of lovely cocktails . Our fridge was stocked daily with bottles of fizzy pop a couple of beers and water . You also get a kettle and coffee machine . The shower had a glass door so not great for a family but we just put a towel over it whist showering you also get shampoo , conditioner and shower gel which was decent quality . The pool areas were great , very comfy sunbeds and no need to get up early to reserve there was plenty . The staff are lovely and can’t do enough for you . It’s a beautiful chilled out hotel we really enjoyed it .