Cocktails in Crete - August 2021

[KarenG]

Ahhhh how did I miss you’d booked a holiday?!

It looks WONDERFUL - have a magical time!

Can’t wait to follow along 👋

PS Nicholas Culpepper was crubbish when we ate there last. You dodged a bullet there 😂

[ali-s]

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

[smithlane]

We were desperate for a drink, a swim in the pool and a last bit of sun for the day so quickly dumped our suitcases, got our swim stuff on and met by the main pool.

There were no sun beds available so walked around to one of the other pools they have and found a few together.
First stop was obviously the bar where we ordered various soft drinks as we were parched and some burgers and fries. I quite liked the look of the pizza that was stone baked so had a slice of that instead.
I could feel myself relaxing more by the minute! Bliss

We then got an alcoholic round in, this time I had a vodka and lemonade as this pool bar didn’t do cocktails.

Jo and I retreated to the sun beds to read whilst the others all got straight in the water. Jim and Paul got asked to join in a water polo game which they were up for, Sam was a bit gutted as he isn’t 18 so couldn’t do it too.
This was hilarious to watch! They both ended up being captains and much to Jim’s horror, Paul’s team won 😂

It was roasting so I eventually had to get in myself.
We stayed by the pool until gone 6.30 and we were the only ones left.
Took some photos on our way back to our room.

We had a bit of a chill out in the room then got showered and dressed for dinner. We thought we’d try the smaller buffet restaurant on the beach. There is a larger buffet in the main building plus 4 a la carte restaurants, an Italian, Asian, Greek and fine dining. You need to prebook these which you can do via the TV in your room but it’s a bit of a pain trying to liaise 3 rooms so we’re planning on going to book them at reception tomorrow.
We were ready by 8.30pm and met up outside our room.
Took some lovely sunset photos by the beach.

You seat yourself at the buffet then literally just go up and help yourself. This was very different from Turkey last year where everything was behind screens and they serve you, was a bit of a nightmare as the queues were horrendous and your food cold by the time you sat down. I much prefer this hotels set up, it’s a lot easier. They do provide masks and gloves that they require you to wear when around the food.

There wasn’t a huge selection but I got a portion of chicken tikka masala and rice with a couple of bread rolls and salad.
I then went back and got a couple of pork souvlaki that were being freshly grilled. Apologies I keep failing with the food and drink photos!
I then finished off the meal with chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream with sprinkles like a 5 year old child 😂

Once we were all suitably stuffed we walked over to the sunset bar to start the cocktail count.

I couldn’t decide what I wanted so got 2! A Passion Bay and a Strawberry Daiquiri.

Ooh these were lovely, especially the Passion Bay. In fact Hope, who doesn’t normally drink tried some then proceeded to finish mine so I got myself another one!

I needed to walk back to reception as the room Hope and Sam were in had one double bed and a sofa bed which Hope said she didn’t mind sleeping on. When we checked in they said it was all ready and made up with sheets but it wasn’t. Popped back there and they apologised and would get someone to drop some off but we didn’t need to be there.

Once back at the bar we got another drink, my favourite Cosmopolitan this time and the others a Nana Golden Beach Special

The kids were exhausted so took themselves back, Hope messaged to say her bed still had no sheets so back again to reception to sort it out. I was definitely getting my workout in as it was all uphill on the way! The guy was slightly dismissive but assured me they would sort it out, it was gone 11pm so not great in my eyes that they needed reminding.

We made it until about midnight before calling it a night and staggering back to the room, I thought I’d done quite well considering I’d been up since 4!

[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

[juliab]

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

[KarenG]

It all looks so so lovely!

[Goldia]

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

[smithlane]

Woke up at 9 after a fabulous sleep, the beds here are super comfy!
Messaged the others to say we’d meet them for breakfast at the buffet restaurant we ate at last night.

Found a table then helped ourselves to the hot items. I just had bacon, beans and a fried egg then went back for some pancakes and Nutella. This is the biggest breakfast I’ve eaten in a long time and I was stuffed!

Once we’d all finished we decided to sit by the beach today. All the sun beds by the 2 biggest pools had been taken with towels even at 8am this morning when Jo got up, apparently there were only 6 people in the pool 😡. One massive bug bear of mine when staying in a hotel is this behaviour!
Thankfully there were still loads of free beds on the beach. I plonked myself down in the shade and read my book, Jim and Paul meanwhile went and joined in the beach volleyball! Top Gun they are not 😂

Hope and Katie braved the water, I had a paddle, it was cold!

Once the boys had returned we decided to take a couple of pedalo’s out, you get 30 minutes free a day.
Jo, myself and Sam on one and the other 4 on another.

We got out of the relatively calm waters of the cove and out into the open water. My god this was a harder workout than a thigh master! The waves were huge, we were being thrown around left right and centre, great fun though!
Hope and Sam showed off their swimming skills. I stayed firmly on board, I’m not a fan of the open sea.

Going back was even harder work as we were going against the tide, who needs the gym when you can do this for half an hour a day!

We spent the rest of the day alternating between sunbathing and having a quick dip to cool off.
Katie and I went up to the snack bar to get ourselves an ice cream.

Lunch consisted of various hotdogs, pizza and chips. We could have gone into the main buffet restaurant but no one could be bothered to move that far 😂. The snack bar behind us was sufficient. No cocktails in this one though so Jo and I went to the main pool bar to get us a Pina Colada and a coffee and Baileys concoction. For someone who doesn’t really like coffee, this was good!
We also went to get our a la carte restaurant reservations booked. They didn’t have a lot of availability but managed to get Poseidon which is the fine dining for tomorrow at 8.30pm and Zorbas the Greek one for next Wednesday at the same time. We were under the impression you could book all 4 but apparently it’s only 2 if you’re here for a week. Not great as they advertise having 6 restaurants but in reality it’s only 4 if you’re here for less than a fortnight. I suppose it’s better than nothing.
We had a look around the main buffet restaurant. This has more food options than the one we ate in last night.

At some point in the afternoon we kept seeing people walking around with waffles with chocolate sauce so obviously wanted in on that action so found the snack bar by the kids pool that did them. Oh my, these were good! You know where you’ll find me everyday! They also did fresh crepes too.

At 4pm we went up to the pool we were at yesterday as the boys wanted to partake in water polo again. They managed to convince the coach to let Sam play and the guy said to just turn his yellow ‘under 18’ wristband over.

We stayed until gone 6.30 again then went back to our rooms to get showered and changed for dinner. Every one of us were looking a bit crimson, this was after copious amounts of SPF being applied throughout the day so just goes to show the sun is a heck of a lot stronger than we thought.

By 8 we were ready and headed up to the main buffet restaurant for dinner. Hope said she wasn’t feeling well and just wanted to stay in her room, I said I’d bring her back some food at some point and for her to just rest. I think she had had too much sun.

Tonight had a Chinese theme going on so I had a plate of egg fried rice and oyster chicken stir fry with spring rolls. This was amazingly good. So good in fact I went up for a second plate! I’m really bad at taking food photos this holiday, I’ll try to do better tomorrow.

I asked one of the staff members if I could bring my daughter back some food and she kindly brought me out two plastic containers. I filled one with pasta and tomorrow sauce and the other with chips and a bread roll, covering all bases there 😂. I quickly took it back to her room and made sure she was alright which thankfully she was.

We made our way to the lobby bar Panorama. Got a Cosmo for myself which was completely different to normal. It looked like a glass of Ribena it was so dark. Tasted ok though!
I had brought out the Articulate cards so we had a game boys vs girls. Katie didn’t want to play so they already had an unfair advantage with having Sam with them.
This was hilarious with Jo winning the blondest moment where she’s trying to describe ‘Britney’ which I got straight away with her saying Spears and Baby one more time. Paul then disqualified us as in actual fact the word was ‘Brittany’, she didn’t have her glasses on 😂

The mood turned a bit sour when some absolutely douche was letting his young daughter around 5 or 6 bang the keys on the lobby piano creating a complete racket in the otherwise calm surroundings. Jim asked politely if he’d mind keeping it down as we were sat right next to it and the guy went mental saying if his kid wanted to play and create noise then she would! Bearing in mind it’s now 10.30pm and this was kind of a classy bar, we couldn’t flipping believe it! We then heard him say to her to bang even louder 😡. How rude and arrogant, and then to teach his daughter to completely disregard anyone else’s feelings just goes to show how poor his parenting skills are! To be honest the staff should have been the ones to say something and they should at least put a notice on it to say that customers can’t play unless they bust out some Tchaikovsky 😬

We were all pretty shattered after a long day doing not a lot so headed back to our rooms at about 11.

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by Goldia

Hurrah you're there! You can put the annoying guy on the plane behind you. The room looks great and I agree the bathroom is stunning. Fingers crossed the food is better than Turkey last year.

I hope you have an amazing time relaxing and drinking cocktails. Sounds perfect to me

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Thank you Abby, we’re having such a fab time. Who knew a relaxing holiday could be so much fun!

[smithlane]

Originally Posted by KarenG

Ahhhh how did I miss you’d booked a holiday?!

It looks WONDERFUL - have a magical time!

Can’t wait to follow along 👋

PS Nicholas Culpepper was crubbish when we ate there last. You dodged a bullet there 😂

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Thank you Karen!
Phew, that’s good to hear. I couldn’t believe not one place was open landside. Gatwick was the quietest I’ve ever seen it, even more so than last year!