Enorme Santanna Beach in Ierapetra

If TA allowed 2 separate reviews I would do a 1 star review for management and a 5 star review for hotel and staff. Here’s why…. The 5 star bit…. The hotel is beautiful - set on a lovely stony beach. There are plenty of comfortable sunbeds and lots of places to sit and have a drink or just relax. The rooms are good although I wouldn’t recommend paying extra for a room with terrace as ours was nothing like the pictures - a basic room gives everything you need. The breakfast buffet was plentiful and could be excellent with a few tweaks. The complimentary yoga and fitness classes were superb - credit to Tina and Petros who were both excellent instructors. All staff were friendly and helpful - not always what you find at the end of the season. Now for the 1 star bit…. There just don’t appear to be enough staff so getting served a drink at the bar, or a table at breakfast takes far too long. The same friendly person is allocating tables, clearing tables, find mugs when they run out etc… Breakfast could be excellent - a more interesting variety of fruit is needed. Every day there was orange grapefruit and melon but no pineapple, figs, papaya, pomegranate etc.. Also queuing up for coffee is not what I expect in a 5 star hotel. There are 2 serve yourself coffee machines (with queues) and a barista serving excellent coffees but with a 5-10 queue as mostly he’s working alone and having to find mugs when they run out - management should ensure more staff are preparing coffee - surely that would be an easy solution. Evening meal - This is the worst part of my experience here. The evening buffet is poor. The food is generally luke warm and unappealing. After eating the buffet for 2 night we decided we should try the second restaurant but discovered there is only a very limited set menu (no choice of starter or dessert and a choice of 3 main courses including 1 vegetarian) - the menu is the same for a whole week so if you don’t like the menu you have no other option for the week!! The restaurant looks lovely - I don’t understand why it’s not better utilised by offering an al a carte menu. Again this is a management issue - a missed opportunity for a better dining experience. There are no other options at the hotel so plan on hiring a car or getting a taxi to a local restaurant. In summary there’s a lot to love about the hotel and it really could be excellent with a few changes!

Beautiful location of the hotel and design of the room! Food and service was great , the bar area is brilliant when it’s not windy, the drinks were super nice although I didn’t like the music and it’s so loud that we couldn’t enjoy relaxing by the beach, we asked if it’s possible to turn down the music a bit but didn’t help . I also didn’t like his attitude at the bar at night , he was aggressive when we were there to one of the girls while she was trying to cool him down for some reason, not very pleasant to see something like that ! Beyond that our stay was nice .

Whilst my husband and I enjoyed our holiday at Numo Beach Resort overall, this isn’t somewhere that we would return to soon. The setting and the hotel itself is beautiful but there are a number of factors that make the hotel less than the five star experience expected. The hotel struggles with what kind of experience it wants to provide. There is a mix of guests from couples of all ages, families with older children and smaller younger groups. The hotel stops short of being a luxury hideaway and at times felt like an upmarket 18-30’s holiday. Aesthetically the hotel is very calming and given the location right by the sea it should have been a very relaxing stay but the lack of attention from some staff, the fact that there is unrelaxing music playing constantly and the standard of food and amenities took away the five star experience. Our bedroom was pleasant enough and furnished nicely. There is air conditioning as you would expect but it was very loud especially at night. Breakfast was on the whole disappointing and felt more like eating in a canteen. Whilst there was a lot of choice of pastries, breads, meats etc the fresh fruit selection was limited and was on some mornings gone early morning with delays being replenished. The choice of drinks was limited and the choice of coffee was poor with the majority being served via a self service machine. We had lunch at the hotel on a few occasions and whilst the food was good the choice was very limited. The choice of wine was also fairly limited. Whilst the main restaurant is adjacent to the sea any chance to have a relaxing breakfast and lunch is taken away by music constantly playing in the restaurant and adjacent pool area. It would have been nice to be able to sit in peace and quiet with the noise of the sea in the background but there was always music playing. From lunchtime there was a DJ playing next to the pool bar so the music could be heard from the restaurant and private beach area. Also there isn’t much privacy between the private beach / pool area and the restaurant so whilst dining you get the view of guests on their sunbeds. We chose not to dine at either of the two restaurants at the hotel in the evening as we were not confident that it would be a fully enjoyable experience. Instead we took the 10 minute taxi ride into Ierapetra to dine at the local restaurants by the sea. In terms of amenities one of the reasons we chose the hotel was because it had a gym. However the gym was very small given the size of the hotel and grounds. Whilst the cardio equipment is new it is very limited. The weights section was very limited and the equipment dated with a lack of space to train. The staff were pleasant enough but did not provide a slick service. The reception staff were excellent and deserve a special mention as they were always pleasant and willing to help. However the staff at the pool and beach area were not very good and some were quite rude. We got the feeling that it