My Travel Blog ~ Crete 2018

This summer I went to Crete with my boyfriend, his mum and his sister and we were fortunate enough to stay at the Sensatori Atlantica Resort! I’ll be including a mini review of the hotel as well as things to do around the island.

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Crete – Things to Do

I’ll be honest, I’ve only ever left Europe once, so I was quite nervous to travel to Crete, although I had heard great things. We flew into Heraklion airport and as we were landing I saw the true beauty of the island. The sun was shining, and it was unbelievably hot.

Our hotel was right on the beach which again, was lovely. There were so many little tourist shops nearby that sold various Greek souvenirs and it soon became clear that most of the shops sold huge wooden penises and shot glasses that depicted various scenes of sexual intercourse. It was a bit weird, but by the end of the holiday I had bought both a penis and a shot glass…

The beach was beyond beautiful, with its crystal waters and its endless stretch of sand. The waves were a bit crazy and quite often my bikini nearly got ripped off my body, but it was so fun. We lost a fair few pairs of sunglasses due to waves in the face and even when we tried to keep our heads dry, we’d come out drenched lol.

The beach also offered a lot of activities such as banana boats, parasailing and jet

ski’s, but they were quite expensive. Also, the winds were always pretty high, and the waves were pretty choppy, so I was worried that people were still allowed to be parasailing when the red flag was out… I was sort of relieved that I didn’t do it.

There were many places to visit along the beach within walking distance and we stumbled upon a little church where you could go in, pay a euro and light a candle, either in remembrance for someone or just to make a wish. I really enjoyed that.

We also travelled into Hersonissos on a little train that stopped right outside our hotel! For only 11 Euros you could travel right into the town of Limenas Chersonisou, which wasn't your conventional shopping centre, as lets just say you were never more than 10m away for a 14" wooden penis or a strip club! The row of shops was endless, and you could buy anything from jewellery, to fake football shirts, to wooden ornaments, to more generic souvenirs. We could have spent hours there, but eventually, after my boyfriend had bought a Juventus shirt we headed back to the train and back to our hotel. The hotel was nice, but it was nice to get out and see Crete for all its little eccentricities.

The people were so friendly and clearly enjoyed interracting with tourists, coming into their shop to buy their quirky ornaments. I don’t smoke, but I was tempted to buy a pack of cigarettes as they were so cheap lol. We met a lovely woman named Sofia who was British but had moved out to Crete several years ago and started her own souvenir shop. She told us how much she loved it out there and all the best places to visit.

The Hotel

As I said before we stayed at the amazing, 5* Sensatori hotel in Crete. Honestly, it was the most beautiful hotel I have ever been to and I would definitely go back there again. The only problem with it being so big, was that the blocks of rooms were quite spread out and our block was a 5 minute walk from the main pool. HOWEVER, this was completely made up for by the fact that we had our own pool for our block (which was only about 4 rooms!!!)

The hotel also offered a variety of swim up rooms, a range of adult only pools, activity pools and a splash world for the children. We often spent our time by the adult only pools because that was usually where there was the most space and I’ll be honest, I wish I explored the other areas more instead of being too concerned with sitting doing nothing all day.

The food was amazing. I tried so many new things such as Beef Wellington and Lobster (my boyfriend actually had an allergic reaction to this, so we were all quite concerned for his health for most of that night). There were 5 restaurants, some were included in the price, but some were extra so we didn’t go to those.

No matter what your taste buds are, there was a restaurant for everyone. There was the general buffet which was always good, a Tex-Mex, traditional Greek, Thai, Japanese Sushi and finally a stone grill restaurant. My favourite was the Tex–Mex as I’ve recently got into Mexican inspired food and the chilli nachos were to die for.

I ate so much on the holiday that I put half a stone on, no joke. Don’t even get me started on the cocktails! Omg they were great.

The only thing that was lacking in this hotel, was the evening entertainment. Don't get me wrong, I'm the first on that dancefloor throwing shapes on an ABBA night, but this just didn't do it for me. Even though I enjoyed the rock night, my boyfriend who would consider himself to be a true rock music fan, in his own words said it was "insulting" and even I wasn't fully invested in the fluorescent tassles...It was the same people every night and the singing got a bit tedious after night 5, not to take away from their talent at all but there was only so much I could take. I would have loved to have seen a magician or maybe a comedian or a bit of audience participation. Also, it started at 10pm with nothing on before so you’d often be hanging round after your dinner for an hour waiting.

All in all, this holiday was one of the best I’ve been on, the hotel was simply amazing, with so much to do! It even had a full gym which we all said we’d go to, but never did lol. (It’s too easy to just lie on a sunbed all day with a cocktail).

But, not only was the hotel amazing, the surrounding areas had plenty to do to explore! The beach as I said was so fun and if you’re a bit of a thrill seeker you could take part in one of the many activities offered. I would definitely recommend visiting Crete as it truly is a beautiful island and I would also heavily recommend the hotel too of course!

My only regret was that I only found the snack bar on the last day…

A x