Star Beach Village Water Park

TLDR; excellent, clean, modern hotel with excellent food and faultless facilities. Highly, highly recommended. We stayed 10 nights via Jet2 holidays. The drop off to hotel from airport was about 90 minutes as there are many stops on the way (hotel 6 of 7 for our journey). If you can afford it, a taxi to hotel is about 30 mins and 40€. On arrival we had to wait for our room to be ready at 3pm. The hotel let you use all the facilities including restaurants before check in so consider easy access swimming costumes if arriving early. Check in was easy even though it was very busy. The hotel is spotlessly clean. The rooms modern and comfortable with 2 bottles of fresh water every day, lovely shower, coffee machine and balcony. The complex is sprawled over a large area - village is not just a name. It is dissected by a quiet access road with a small family pool, larger fun pool, football/basketball court, bars and restaurants on one side further from the beach and the waterpark and several more pools (mainly for younger children) and bars on the beach side. The waterpark is smaller than I was expecting. The main area has about 5 slides that were decent fun mixed in with slides for younger kids. There is a separate area with 3 more extreme slides for older/braver kids. And 2 slides for riding on rubber rings. My kids 10 and 14 didn’t get bored at all and we went there for hours every day. Older teens may find the slides a little tame. The park is open to outside visitors but thanks to the fact there’s barely any health and safety restrictions there is never a queue for any slide. I found everyone to be pretty well mannered and polite. But you have to embrace the free for all nature of Crete lifeguards who are basically there only to make sure you don’t do anything really dumb and turn a blind eye to most things. I didn’t have any safety concerns and the kids appreciated being able to go down head first/together/upside down. Younger kids may appreciate an adult to safeguard them to begin with. There are hundreds of sunbeds around the pool as well as numerous bars to get drinks and food. We queued for no more than 5 minutes for drinks and rarely more than that for food. There’s also beaches in three sections and a water sports area. The beaches were lovely with fun areas to explore and were never too boisterous or busy. The water sports was pretty good value. We paid 60€ for a ringo tow which I thought was good compared to other places I’ve been. The main restaurant was a little chaotic due to being high season but there are loads of staff clearing tables and preparing food. We never had to wait for a table and the buffet was busy but again, we never had to wait long. There are multiple drink stations so again, no waiting. Branded soft drinks and decent local lager. There are wine bottles to take also. Peoples manners come in all shapes and sizes and some tables were frankly a war zone! But again, these abominations were quickly cleared due to the number of wait staff. The food itself was excellent. High quality and lots of variety. Vegetarians might struggle as nearly all of the dishes are meat based and nothing marked as veggie friendly as far as I could see. The dessert selection was exceptional! I’ve put on 6lbs! There are also numerous snack bars serving delicious pizza and good burgers/toasties. Though once you’ve had the pizza no one bothers with the burgers etc. The Greek salad was also excellent. The waffle bar by the beach is brilliant. There’s also help yourself ice cream stations available during the day. This seems to be a destination mainly for younger families (4 to 14) which leans to a relaxed atmosphere. While we were there we experienced nothing but pleasant people and good manners. The entertainment in the evening was pretty good though you have to get there early as the seating is chaotic. The pools were spotless and modern and thankfully no fighting over loungers as there are plenty. We camped at the small family pool as it’s tucked away and barely anyone used it. It’s also close to the Pizza Hut! We mostly stayed in the complex. We did venture into town for a walk one night. It’s mainly restaurants rather than bars so no loutish behaviour. We visited the white lion to watch the charity shield and the staff there were excellent and the food looked really good. Kids ordered waffles and they were huge for about 15€. Well worth a visit if you want a change of pace. There’s a go kart track, mini golf and bungee ball next to the complex if you want to explore more. The staff were efficient and professional. To be fair we barely interacted with them but can’t fault anyone we came across. I haven’t done many all inclusive holidays so not much to compare this to. But I can’t recommend the hotel highly enough. The kids absolutely loved every second and it was everything I hoped it would be. I rarely go back to a place more than once but I would definitely consider breaking that rule to return here.

Andrei was great fun organising a darts tournament. Our boys really enjoyed it.

We just returned from a vacation in Crete at Star Beach Hotel with our three children, including our eldest daughter who has celiac and I really want to express my deepest gratitude to the staff who took such great care of our gluten-free meals. A special thanks goes to the incredible Sous Chef, Manolis Papirakis, who welcomed us every single time - whether it was breakfast, lunch, or dinner and personally walked our daughter through the dining hall to show her what was safe or unsafe for her to eat. Huge thanks as well to Head Chef Giorgos Skoulikaris for running such a wonderful team. Every morning she received a plate with pre-packaged gluten free items like bread, crackers, cookies, and cake, and could safely complement it with a variety of spreads and salads from the buffet. For other meals, they spoiled us with custom-ordered treats like gluten free pizza and pasta, everything came out hot, fresh, and clean. Anyone traveling with children who have sensitivities knows how challenging it can be, but Sous Chef Manolis and the entire dining room staff who helped us so much throughout our stay - made our vacation a super comfortable and delicious experience. Always with a smile and endless patience. Thank you for your outstanding service, it is truly not taken for granted. We look forward to seeing you again next year! Meytal and Hilla Cohen

Andrei, Nazar, were the best entertainers ever Tommy and every single person here are the kindest of all time and the most greatest of all time. The rooms (10/10) The memories (10/10) Absloutly everyone (10/10) This trip will be remembered in one of the best in life out of morroco, Spain, Turkey, it is the best experience by far. Thank you to everyone there

It’s our second time at the hotel and it was even better than expected! The staff were extremely polite, patient and helpful. We will definitely come again, and especially want to give a warm thank you to Andrei from the entertainment team for his great attitude and making us feel at home and also mention Nazar!