Hotel Port 7 in Agios Nikolaos

I wish I were able to enthuse about this hotel because it gets many things right but, unfortunately, it also lets itself down in other ways leaving me unable to rave about it. Out of the four hotels we stayed in during our two weeks in Crete, this was the one that had most excited me when we booked but it was actually the one that disappointed me in a number of ways. We were here for six nights and, before we arrived, I had some lovely, warm emails from Maria who was also very helpful and so pleasant during our stay, as was Johanna. However, the first member of staff we encountered when we arrived was Soula who brusquely went through a tick box exercise at check-in but wasn’t particularly helpful with our questions and queries, particularly about parking. We’d struggled to find a parking space for our rental car and, having parked on the side of the road, we weren’t sure if the car could be left overnight. In the end, we walked back to the car and asked some locals about any parking restrictions. The hotel is in a prime location and our twin bedded room (#602) was large with a lovely view of the port below. There were some nice touches such as mosquito screens on the windows and door that led to the balcony where there was a table and two chairs. Unfortunately, the chairs had no cushions so the seats were hard and uncomfortable which is surprising for a hotel that describes itself as a ‘boutique hotel’. First impressions of the bathroom were positive, with a nice looking countertop wash basin and large walk-in shower. The shower was fantastic but it was really irritating to find that water from the wash basin splashed all over the countertop, resulting in us having to use one of the hand towels to wipe the surface, every time we washed our hands. Also, we were left with just one small bar of soap to share which, by the third day, had disintegrated into the tiniest sliver so we had to use shower gel. On the third day, housekeeping did leave a replacement soap, although that barely lasted for the remaining three days. The toilet seat was incorrectly fitted too, with the seat fitted too far back, and not covering the front of the actual toilet basin, which meant that the lid had a tendency to fall down. Boutique hotel? Breakfast, which was buffet style with eggs cooked to order, was adequate. Everything was fresh, although the bowl of fruit salad had lots of flies around it so we gave it a miss. Whilst the breads and cakes were nice, the cheese pie was particularly delicious but we had to ask for more as there was only one piece left. It seemed to be a recurring theme that the breakfast buffet became depleted before the end of breakfast. As previously mentioned, Johanna and Maria were so friendly, helpful and efficient and I cannot speak too highly of them. They are an absolute credit to the hotel. On the day that we checked-out, Johanna gave us some cheese pie to take with us and insisted on carrying our luggage to the car which, being seniors