The Royal Senses Resort & Spa Crete, Curio Collection by Hilton

Jonas Schrader

Fawlty Towers in real life — just without the laugh track. If you enjoy the thrill of unpredictability, a touch of chaos, and the charm of five-star looks with two-star execution, then this hotel might just be for you. If not—keep scrolling. We booked through the official Hilton site as Hilton Honors members, fully prepaid. So imagine the vibe check when we were told at check-in that we owed €300+ due to an “outstanding balance.” Plot twist: it was their system’s error. Took hours, not minutes, to fix—so instead of relaxing poolside, we kicked things off in billing limbo. Good times. And that was just the welcome. The AC in the room didn’t work properly, and the excuses ranged from “it’s winter” to “our system cools during the day and heats at night” to (my personal favorite) “it’s to save the environment.” At this point, I was half-expecting someone to suggest we meditate to regulate our temperature. A couple of staff were fantastic—shoutout to the lovely ladies at breakfast/dinner and Peter from maintenance (a legend). The rest? Mostly well-meaning, but clearly undertrained, overwhelmed, or just freestyling it. We were asked at dinner if we needed anything, and politely requested a bed guard for our daughter. Smile, nod, disappear. No follow-up, no “sorry we can’t,” just… nothing. Same with the ice bucket. Promised multiple times over 90 minutes. Never arrived. Coffee orders at breakfast? Sketchy at best. Housekeeping came around 5pm, and small change went missing from a tray with personal items. Maybe they thought it was a tip (and sure, enjoy it), but should we really be guessing if our stuff is fair game? The room looked decent at first glance—great view, spacious—but on closer inspection: dusty switches, broken fittings, wall scuffs, and a fridge that roars to life like it’s starting a small engine every so often. If you like ambient noise, you’re in luck. The pools are a highlight—clean, relaxing, Instagram-friendly. But service is patchy and chaotic, even with the hotel at low-season capacity. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like in summer. Food? Lots of it, but mostly meh. My absolute favorite moment: a waiter approached our table, saw the leaning tower of used plates, asked “May I?” and—drumroll—topped up an already pretty full wine glass. Love a good upsell, but maybe start by clearing the plates first? In the end, this place has the shell of a Hilton, but once you scratch the surface, it’s a bit of a circus. A pretty one, but a circus nonetheless. I’m not even mad about the waste of money anymore—I just hope this saves someone else the surprise.

Ashley Duray

Very kind staff and overall beautiful location. However, I can’t say that this is a 5 star resort. Air conditioner isn’t turned on at night in April, so we were told to open our windows/door, except that we were attacked by mosquitoes. We have no control over the temperature in our room- during the day it auto changes to 22 c. I’ve literally been sweating at night despite notifying reception 5 times now. Room service is unusually slow-it took about an hour to get soup and a fruit plate. The app they make guests use for room service is also convoluted and unnecessary. One of the kid slides has been closed down the entire time. It took 45 min to get coffee at breakfast and breakfast items were not replenished in a timely fashion including the small container of water. For the price, I would not choose to stay here again.

Zvi Zavner

Extremely Disappointing Stay – Far from the Luxury Experience Promised We recently stayed at The Royal Senses Resort & Spa Crete, based on recommendations and its marketing as a super-luxury hotel. Unfortunately, the experience fell far short of expectations and left us deeply disappointed. The only positive aspects were the initial upgrade to a family suite and the kids' club. However, if our suite was indicative of the hotel’s “upgrade,” then the standard is not what you’d expect from a luxury resort. The kids' club team were kind and offered lunch for the children, which we appreciated. Beyond that, we encountered ongoing problems throughout our stay: Food & Restaurant Service At lunch one day, we were the only guests in the restaurant, yet it took over 25 minutes to get our daughter’s starter, and nearly 50 minutes for my burger, which arrived well-done instead of medium-rare. The waitstaff lacked basic knowledge about the menu, took ages to return with answers, never cleared plates, and had to be asked for the bill. My wife, who is gluten-intolerant and pregnant, was repeatedly served dishes that contained gluten - despite explicitly asking for gluten-free options. A salad came with gluten and was nearly eaten before we realized. We were told it wouldn't be charged -which is the bare minimum, considering she physically couldn’t eat it. Another side dish also had to be replaced. This kind of carelessness is unacceptable. During one dinner, we were seated with no silverware or plates and had to ask multiple times (3–4 times) to get them. On several occasions, there was no baby chair available, or we had to wait over 15 minutes to get one. One evening, after mistakenly ordering both soda and mineral water, we asked to cancel the soda. We were told, “We've already charged you, what do you want us to do?” It was only after some persistence that the charge was finally removed. Pool Service - Drink orders never arrived - on three separate occasions we waited over an hour and eventually gave up. - Food ordered poolside didn’t arrive at all, and we had to cancel after waiting too long. - Towel service was unreliable. If you didn’t arrive early, you were left without towels. Beach Service Towel service at the private beach was equally poor. We couldn’t find anyone to assist for a long time, and once we did, it took over half an hour for towels to arrive. At check-in, we asked about beach access via the partner hotel. We were told it was blocked due to a large group from a certain nationality - a comment that was both inappropriate and unnecessary. Only after pushing did the receptionist “make an exception” and allow us to go. Room & Housekeeping Towels and bottled water were not replenished in the room unless we specifically asked. On some days, the room was not cleaned at all, and we had to call reception multiple times just to get fresh towels. We also tried calling reception on several occasions and received no answer - which is simply baffling at a hotel that positions itself as high service. Final Thoughts While the price point isn’t sky-high for a luxury property, it is not cheap for Crete - and the service level is far from luxury. We heard similar complaints from other families. Some guests even cut their stay short and moved hotels, which speaks volumes. To top it off, two days after we returned home, we received an email saying that a refund had been processed. That’s how we found out we had been double charged - with no prior notice or apology at the time. We sincerely hope the hotel takes this feedback seriously and improves dramatically, but as it stands, we would not recommend it to anyone looking for a luxury experience.

natan lehman

Gorgeous place beautiful grounds tons of beautiful pools everywhere you go crazy beautiful view from every room. The staff is extremely nice and friendly very accommodating with any request, upgraded us to a private pool villa allowed us to check out at 7PM overall there to help you with whatever they can.

Lauren H

I stayed here for a week for my honeymoon and our stay was very nice but we did experience some disappointments. I will start with the pros: Upon arrival we were greeted by friendly staff with a nice welcome drink + snack and they provided us lots of good information. They also gave us a complimentary upgrade from our shared pool room to a private pool suite for our honeymoon. When we entered our room there was a cake and bottle of champagne set up for us, we really appreciated this! The room itself was very nice and the view was great. The complementary breakfast buffet is also great with lots of good options. The spa was very nice and relaxing. There are two main pools that are available to everyone, one heated, one not that are also very nice. Overall, the property is very beautiful and a great place to relax. However, we did encounter a few cons which were a little surprising and disappointing to us for a 5 star Hilton resort. While the complimentary room upgrade was very nice, one very unfortunate thing is that the private pools are not heated and can only be heated for a daily fee of €150. Unless you pay this daily fee these pools are essentially unusable because they feel like ice water and I believe they are actually being cooled because even the ocean water was much warmer every place we went. Not something I would expect from Hilton, €150 to heat it for the entire stay would be much more justifiable. I did bring this up to the staff and they didn’t try to accommodate in any way for this inconvenience as we were unable to step in the private pool once. Additionally, we did find ants on our floor and they were crawling all over some of my clothes by the time we found them. This was due to a crack in the flooring by the sliding glass door. I did end up throwing these clothing articles away unfortunately as I was very disturbed by this. The hotel did switch our room for us which we appreciated and they gave us a bottle of wine and fruit plate in our new room as an apology for the inconvenience, still not something I would expect to experience at a 5 star hotel and very disturbing. Due to this I wouldn’t say the cleanliness in the rooms is up to par. Additionally, my birthday happened to be during our stay and a few weeks beforehand I had emailed with one of the staff who said I would receive a complimentary cake for our honeymoon and a cake in our room for my birthday. Well, the hotel completely missed my birthday and we did not receive any cake or any sort of acknowledgement at all from them for my birthday, even though this was discussed in writing in advance. This was disappointing to experience. One final con that I will mention is the tram that is the only way to get to and from your room is extremely slow. There is only one of them and you will be left waiting a very long time to just get to and from your room. I would like to add that I am a gold Hilton member and am very well traveled as I travel for my job. So these areas that were lacking are not what I am used to with Hilton and not what I would expect for a 5 star resort and the price you pay for these rooms. The property itself was beautiful, staff were friendly, but these inconveniences did take from our overall experience during this very special stay.