Iberostar Waves Creta Panorama and Mare

We’ve just returned from a lovely, relaxing week at Iberostar Waves Creta Panorama. Overall, we had a really nice stay and made the most of everything the resort had to offer. That said, we probably wouldn’t return — mainly because of the food and the sunbed situation — but there were lots of things we really enjoyed.

🌺 The good

The hotel itself is beautiful, extremely clean and very well maintained. There is genuinely so much to do, with activities happening throughout the day if you want to get involved, but equally you can completely ignore them and relax. The staff were consistently friendly and would always greet us with a good morning or hello.

We are an LGBT couple and felt completely comfortable and accepted throughout our stay, which we really appreciated.

The resort honestly has almost everything you could need, including shops where you can buy things you’ve forgotten or run out of, which was really handy.

Our refurbished room was stunning. It was modern, clean and beautifully maintained, and the cleaners did an amazing job every day. It was lovely coming back to the room, which always smelled incredibly fresh and clean.

The pools were lovely and the temperature was perfect. There are plenty to choose from, and the resort even has hoses for inflatables and shared inflatables available if you don’t bring your own.

The drinks were generally pretty good for an all-inclusive, although there was definitely some variation between bartenders. Some made cocktails noticeably better than others! Our advice would be to try the different bars and find your favourite.

The main hotel bar was probably our favourite. It genuinely feels like a proper bar rather than a typical all-inclusive hotel bar, and the live singers there were excellent.

There are also fresh water stations around the resort, which was brilliant. Definitely bring a reusable water bottle.

We really enjoyed getting out of the resort too. Rethymno is worth visiting for shopping and restaurants, and we had a couple of lovely dinners there. Panormos is worth visiting for the beach or for dinner, although we didn’t feel there was much reason to spend ages wandering around. We had some of the best fresh fish of our holiday there, right by the sea. Taxis were really easy to get and saved us a lot of time.

One of our best decisions was booking a private transfer from the airport. We arrived late in the evening and it was absolutely worth it. The journey back on the shared transfer was around 1.5–2 hours because of the winding roads and multiple hotel stops, compared with around 45 minutes in our private transfer. If you get travel sick, definitely consider going private!

🍽️ The not-so-good

Unfortunately, the food was the biggest disappointment for us.

There is a huge amount of food available, but we found most of it quite bland and felt that the same dishes were repeated throughout the week. There was also a lot of food aimed at children — plain pasta, pizza, chips etc. — and we didn’t feel the quality of the meat was particularly good.

We completely appreciate that this is a huge resort serving a lot of people, but for a four-star hotel we expected better. By the end of the week we were getting quite fed up with the food.

We were also disappointed by the speciality restaurants.

The Italian restaurant has a lovely setting, but the food was disappointing. The pasta we had was undercooked, the full menu wasn’t available during our visit, and we felt quite rushed.

The grill has an amazing view, but again we didn’t particularly enjoy the food. It is essentially a buffet and there were quite a lot of flies around while we were there.

We both eat a wide variety of foods and flavours and aren’t particularly fussy eaters, so we really wanted to be honest about this because it was a significant disappointment for us.

😞 Sunbed wars

This was probably the most frustrating part of our stay.

There are rules around reserving sunbeds between 7am and 9am, and you’re not supposed to reserve them. However, we’d go down around 9:10am and find that virtually all of the beds had already gone.

Despite staff being around, people were still reserving sunbeds, which eventually meant that we felt we had to do the same just to have somewhere to sit.

We’re a couple without children and therefore aren’t exactly getting up at 7am to fight for a sunbed! 😂 But even with several different pools around the resort, it was surprisingly difficult to find two beds together.

The sunbeds themselves are also looking quite tired, with some broken ones.

On our last day, we reserved a couple of beds and were among the last people to put our towels down. At some point, our towels were removed. We’re still not sure whether this was done by staff or another guest, or why it happened, but it was particularly disappointing on our final day.

For such a large resort, we really think the hotel needs to get the sunbed situation under control and replace some of the older beds.

🎭 Entertainment & getting your bearings

The theatre entertainment seemed to be much more aimed at children, so as adults we preferred the live entertainment and singers in the main bar.

One thing we think the hotel could improve is the information given when you first arrive.

We arrived late at night and, understandably, didn’t take in much information at check-in. For the first couple of days we were completely bamboozled about where everything was and what time things opened.

A simple paper map and one-page sheet showing the restaurants, bars and opening times would have made such a difference. There are apps available, but we found these didn’t work particularly well for us and the map was difficult to follow.

We also weren’t initially aware that the resort is effectively made up of two hotels and that there are areas belonging to the other hotel. As an all-inclusive guest, you can use some of the facilities there, but this wasn’t clearly explained to us when we arrived. We only discovered this later in the week.

⭐ Overall

Despite the negatives, we did have a lovely holiday. The resort is beautiful, the rooms are fantastic, the staff are lovely, the pools and grounds are great and there is so much available to do.

We think it’s particularly good if you want a holiday where you can stay on the resort and have everything you need, while still having the option to get out and explore Crete.

For us, the food and sunbed situation would stop us from returning, but we absolutely made the most of our week and came home feeling relaxed — which is ultimately what we wanted from our holiday. ☀️🇬🇷

Would we recommend it? Yes, with reservations. Would we return? Probably not, but we’re glad we chose it for this holiday. 💙

Booked in for a family wedding, some were in sister hotel Creta Marine adjoining, some Panorama & Waves due to availability. Checked in 10.30pm , couldn’t hear ourselves think because of screaming kids, literally had to go behind counter to hear check in details. Got to room, dropped cases and went out to see family. In morning unpacked, about to go for breakfast, call to room from some reception charmer, ‘ we’ve put you in wrong room, we told you last night (lies), you need to repack your cases and move’. Absolutely charming. We refused to move and asked to see manager. Eventually we were allowed to stay.

Main swimming pool is salt water, kids hate it, as the water is 5x saltier than the sea. Very soon after using this pool every person, adult and child who went in had projectile vomiting and diarrhoea. Fortunately the nice towel shack guy ( Macaroni ) was very understanding and gave out plenty of towels to clear up the inevitable mess. Obviously, thanks also to the cleaners who must have had an interesting experience

First morning breakfast was a delight, if you like a 30 person queue for a fried egg, and hot dog sausages for breakfast, this is the place for you. And don’t worry about missing out, it’s the same every day.

After breakfast, you can go to any of the 7 pools and watch all the towels getting a suntan. Unless you fancy getting up at 6.30am to towel book, you are not getting a sun bed. Very 1970’s. Creta Marine next door do not allow sun bed towel holding, obviously residents of Waves Creta Panorana are not afforded such luxury ? How much more does one need to pay for this type of extravagance ?

First day, all family met at Creta Panorana, our hotel, no drama, staff were fine, had drinks, snacks etc.

The sister adjoining hotel Creta Marine, shares the AquaPark, beaches, beach bars etc, but heaven help you if you go to their main bar. You are not welcome, as soon as they see your wristband is a different colour you are treated like a leper, and are spoken to in a disgracefully aggressive manner.

We were asked to meet the wedding party at Creta Marine bar. One of our family ordered us a drink, which arrived, followed 5 mins later by an irate waiter who advised that he had to pay for our drinks as we were in the sister hotel. He asked them to charge his room, they agreed, took his room number and left. 5 minutes later they were back even more irate, unsatisfied and demanding ‘no room charge, you must pay cash’. Absolutely charming yet again. Despite being reminded it was a wedding party, they don’t want you in their bar. One does wonder where this cash would go ? Despite being related hotels and sharing facilities, any mixing of family between is banned. Be careful if families are using both, you will not be allowed to socialise without issue.

Day before check out, we asked if we could extend checkout by 1.5 hrs to accommodate flight. Absolutely no chance, you must pay €100 for a :minimum 5 hour extension. We didn’t bother.

To summarise, food is of poor quality, unless you love a buffet everywhere, older staff are nice enough , younger staff just don’t give one. Hotel is run in a very poor basic fashion, drinks are basic, no premium bottles, rare to see a smile. You just don’t feel welcome, drinks are grudged. We went out most nights rather than continue this experience. Don’t dare cross over hotels, they don’t approve.