Cocktails in Crete - August 2021

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by ali-s

Yay, another trippier to read and virtual holiday to take part in . Slacking a bit on the cocktails though

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Thank you! Haha we certainly pick up pace once we got out there 😂

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by Sparksy72

Alicia the resort looks fantastic and it must be amazing to have proper warm weather! Love your start on the cocktails, they look so good. Xx

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Originally Posted by juliab

Th resort looks fab and so do all your cocktails! Have an amazing time x

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Originally Posted by KarenG

It all looks so so lovely!

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Originally Posted by Goldia

The pool looked lovely and dinner sounded great too. An impressive cocktail list and you managed 4, all of which looked fab.

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The cocktails are seriously potent here, I’ve just woken up from a 2 hour nap on the sun bed after having 3 Pina Coladas and a Cosmo before 2pm 😂

[OB1LukeLucas]

All looking fabulous, have a few cocktails for me tonight…it’s rainy and miserable here!

[Goldia]

Annoying about the towels on the sunbeds.

The waffles looked amazing! I love the smell of waffles. Seems like the food is off to a good start.

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of cocktail photos Alicia! You can't tell us about a lovely pina colada or a ribena coloured cosmo if you don't take a photo 😉 I'm very cross!

Oh and I just remembered the pedalos. I hadn't been one on in over 20 years and I agree, my goodness, my thighs were aching and the return to the beach was really hard and they didn't even have tides 😄

[smithlane]

Another good sleep, these beds are ridiculously comfortable!

Jo had messaged to say she’d secured us some sun beds by the main pool so I quickly got dressed and joined her. Today was her birthday and she wanted to be as close to the swim up bar for cocktails as possible 😂.

Our set up for the day!

Paul was determined to beat his cocktail alphabet challenge from 2 years ago in the Dominican Rep when he got defeated at ‘R’. The rum runner finished him off apparently 🤣

Once we were all up we headed to the beach restaurant for breakfast, we need to line our stomachs first!

I was feeling incredibly full after eating so much food yesterday I just got a plate of fruit and a slice of marble cake.

Breakfast with a view

Once done we headed back to the pool where I read for an hour or so, Jo and Paul were the first customers of the day when the bar opened at 11! Jim had gone to play beach volleyball again, he’s loving all the sports they offer here.

Katie and I went to get an ice cream, the toffee sauce they have is to die for!

By 12 I figured it was an acceptable time to have my first drink. Paul was already on G! I think it was a Gin Fizz.
I started with a Pina Colada as Tony the barman makes a mean one.

We spent the next few hours just sat at the swim up bar drinking and talking. Jo took part in the aqua fit class, she was the only one 😂

We grabbed some lunch at the snack place by the pool, I had a lovely bowl of spaghetti with pesto sauce.

Jo had secured herself a bottle of Prosecco as it was her birthday but it tasted like vinegar so it soon got abandoned.

We were feeling a bit sleepy so took a nap on the sun beds. I’m sure had nothing to do with the 4 cocktails I had consumed 😬.
I only woke up when the boys had come back from playing a game of football 2 hours later!
We then spent the remainder of the afternoon by the pool, no beach time today.

At 6.30 we went and got showered and dressed for our dinner at the fine dining restaurant.

Hope and Sam went to go and take some Instagram worthy photos of each other once they were ready

Poseidon is located in a different part of the hotel grounds, overlooking the sea. We found another pool we didn’t realise was here.

Poseidon restaurant

Absolutely stunning views. We took a combination of photos first as we were still a little early.

Malia in the distance

We got seated and handed menus, to be honest I was really looking forward to not helping myself to food tonight!

The waiter came to take our orders. I went with the Onion Soup, Beef Tartare, Rack of Lamb and Chocolate Sphere. I asked if I could have potatoes with mine as I wasn’t sure what else it came with. He looked a little taken aback at my request and muffled something like I shouldn’t have fries at a restaurant like this. I told him I didn’t want fries but roast potatoes that the veal came with. We weren’t sure if he was joking or not, it was all a bit odd!
He also hadn’t taken our drink orders only given us some water so we had to get his attention to order some wine and soft drinks.

Anyway the soup came out with bread rolls and this was delicious.

We then got given the tartare, this was only ok. The poached egg was stone cold but the beef had a nice taste. Jim and Paul had the crab and said it was really good.

Salad next but as I’m a bit of a salad dodger I didn’t get one.

Took quite a while to get the main course. I think they were seriously understaffed, there were only 2 servers for the whole restaurant. The guy who we had turned out was a bit of a stress head and could be regularly heard arguing with the chef. He even snapped at a family checking in as they were 10 minutes late 😳. It made us feel quite on edge if I’m honest.

We got brought out a caviar and avocado mousse thing that I absolutely refuse to eat as the idea of eating fish eggs makes my stomach turn green 🤢 😂. The other 3 and Sam tried one though and said it tasted good! Sam is actually quite adventurous with his food which I’m glad of. Hope is more like me and very reserved in the eating department.

The main course eventually arrived and was a total disappointment, I’m flipping glad I asked for the potatoes otherwise I would have had 4 small cutlets and that was it! No veg or any kind of sauce or jus, we weren’t sure where the smoked aubergine was either 🥴.
Jim was not impressed as he hadn’t asked for potatoes so just had a small amount of meat on his plate!
Paul and Sam had the veal that was deep fried and oozed out oil it was that greasy. Hope and Katie’s chicken was bone dry with no flavour to it. The only winner was Jo with her crayfish risotto, she loved it.

After the disappointing main, I was hoping the dessert would redeem itself.
The chocolate was very rich but actually was nice, I couldn’t finish it though.

It was now nearly 11pm so the meal had taken almost 2 and a half hours! The food only so so and the service really not up to the standard a fine dining restaurant should have. The one thing we have noticed is the hotel as a whole has a serious staffing issue, I’m assuming because of Covid.

We retreated to the lobby bar and stayed for just one as we were all full up and unbelievably exhausted! All this relaxing malarkey is hard work 😂

My Ribena looking Cosmopolitan, my one and only cocktail photo of the day. Must try harder!

[smithlane]

I was the first awake today at just before 8, so I quickly got dressed and went back to the pool by Poseidon to secure us some beds.
Again I hate the fact you have to do this but if you leave it any later than 8.30 there will literally be no where to sit all together.

I was in luck and the pool was very quiet with only a few sun beds taken.
This was my view for about an hour before everyone else joined me.

We headed for breakfast in the main buffet restaurant today as we thought they might have a different selection to the one by the beach. As it’s smaller it’s also a bit hectic in there with long queues for the coffee and omelettes.

I went for a cheese omelette with beans and bacon, then went back for some pancakes and Nutella.

We returned to the pool for a morning of swimming and relaxing apart from Jim and Paul who went and played tennis. I think it was €5 for an hour, a bit odd that you had to pay for a racket but get basic water sports for free?

Jo and I went for a wander down to the sea and to check out the sun beds on the rocky ledges. This area is blissfully peaceful! The sound of the waves crashing against the shore is enough to send me to sleep 😍

The toilet hut so you don’t have to traipse back to the pool

We then went to the main snack bar for some lunch, the others were happy with the one by the pool that did panini’s and burgers but Jo fancied a salad.

We went back via the main pool bar for a Pina Colada. Tony the fave barman was there as well as Sam who had met a new friend Max.

He hadn’t spotted us so I took this photo and Airdropped it to him 😂

An afternoon of chilling and drinking Pina Colada’s commenced. Jim and Paul had a lilo and doughnut race 😂

Lots of pool fun

Their bromance is strong!

Mid afternoon a group of small kids had descended and were about 20 decibels louder than anyone else with that constant shrieking only a small child is capable of so we packed up and relocated to some of the sun beds by the sea that we had seen earlier.

Ah that’s much better, peace and quiet!

Jim and Paul in their (slightly inebriated) wisdom decided to go for a swim in the sea. Well this didn’t quite go to plan as the waves were so strong it just bashed them about so they had to admit defeat. Idiots!

What made this even more funny was about 10 minutes later a very physically fit German man came along, got in with ease, swam around the sea for a good while, came back and got out as if he was just exiting a swimming pool. We were cracking up and gave him a round of applause as he made it look so easy 😂

At about 6.30 we went back to get showered and dressed for dinner, we were going to the main buffet restaurant again.

By 8 we met the others outside and got a table.
The food offerings weren’t quite as nice as the other night but I cobbled together a plate of chicken, rice and smoked sausage. Note my feeble effort of being healthy in the corner 😂

For dessert I had a giant bowl of chocolate and strawberry ice cream!

After dinner we went over to where the pool tables were as Jim and Paul were still competing over who is the best Sportsman this holiday 🙄

They taught Hope to play, she was pretty good!

I dusted off my 20 year old skills and played a doubles match with Jim. I didn’t do too badly!
Jim won the pool tournament but Paul whipped his ass at the basketball game. If you couldn’t tell by now, they are both ridiculously competitive!

We retired to the lobby bar for a few more rounds of cocktails. I stuck to the Passion Bay’s, light and refreshing.

Sam met back up with his new friend Max. He messaged me at 2am to say he just got back, bearing in mind everything closes at 1, I have no idea what they were up to 🥴

Bedtime came at midnight for the rest of us.

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by OB1LukeLucas

All looking fabulous, have a few cocktails for me tonight…it’s rainy and miserable here!

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Thank you OB! This holiday is really doing us the world of good, the weather this summer has been miserable. I’ll try and bring the sun back with me on Thursday 😎

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Annoying about the towels on the sunbeds.

The waffles looked amazing! I love the smell of waffles. Seems like the food is off to a good start.

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of cocktail photos Alicia! You can't tell us about a lovely pina colada or a ribena coloured cosmo if you don't take a photo 😉 I'm very cross!

Oh and I just remembered the pedalos. I hadn't been one on in over 20 years and I agree, my goodness, my thighs were aching and the return to the beach was really hard and they didn't even have tides 😄

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I can’t believe how bad I’ve been at the cocktail photo taking! You were definitely far better than me in Jamaica 😂

I found muscles I didn’t know I had after taking that pedalo out! We’re going to give it another go today, I think I might do some stretching first 😬

[Goldia]

It sounds like you are having a brilliant time. Loved the photo of the pina colada, just gorgeous 😍

The story about the chaps swimming in the sea, or more accurately not being able to swim in the sea, followed by them being shown exactly how to do it by the German guy was hilarious.

A lovely day with your pool tournament at the end.

[2point]

Great trippie.

Love it out there, we were up the hill in Piskopiano in November.

I'd go out there this Sat but our daughter didn't get on with the heat the last time we went so off to cooler Fuerteventura instead. Getting cocktail envy!